Maximizing Brain Function during Tests! Eeek!

Warning, nerd post #3! This post is for all the teachers, college students, parents or anyone affiliated with test taking...read this to give your brain or your students' brains the best chance of successful functioning! Because let's face it, some of us need all the help we can get!! David A. Sousa outlines these steps for preparing the brain before a test in his book "How the Brain Learns" which I HIGHLY recommend. Buy it for your teacher friends this Christmas!

First Sousa explains there are two things brain cells consume as fuel...oxygen and glucose. These steps help make more of both of those things available for the brain during stressful test taking.

1) Quick exercise: Get your students up for about two minutes of jumping jacks or calf raises before they start the test. These movements will increase blood flood and move more oxygen up to the brain. If you're a college student, get creative with how you explain your sudden need to exercise before the exam to all your classmates. Or recreate the Rocky scene as you run up the stairs to class...preferably in a sweat suit with matching sweat band, but that's just me. Parents, forward this blog post to your child's teachers...trust me, they are willing to try anything to get standardized test scores up!

Everyone loves a visual! : )

2) Eat some fruit: It is an excellent source of glucose and will give those brain cells some energy! Glucose helps increase recall from both long-term memory and working memory significantly. Obviously this is very important for success on a test! Sousa suggests raisins for convenience in the classroom, but other fruit work too. However, fruit juices don't quite have the same effect. They have more fructose than glucose, so bypass those.

Mmm...mmm...my brain is working better already!

3) Wash that fruit down with some water. This is key because water will help the glucose get into students' bloodstream faster. We want hydrated brains!

Do these steps with about 5 minutes until testing...and you should be good to go for about a 30 minute test. If you're taking (or giving) a longer test than that, take a break to repeat the steps.

Well there you have it..."How the Brain Learns" by David A. Sousa...I'm telling you, it's some good stuff!

The Case for Musical Instruments

While I was sure no one except my parents and Jarred would read my last nerd post, apparently some others out there enjoy random factoids too. So enjoy nerd post #2, and pass it along to any music teachers you know...it will make them quite happy!:

Over the years I'm sure you've seen many "Baby Einstein" commercials promising that your child is going to be a genius if you just blast Mozart to them in the womb...and in their crib...and in the car...and in their sleep, etc.

Well maybe I'm exaggerating the commercials a bit, but you've no doubt heard this notion that listening to classical music will make you smarter. Unfortunately that's not entirely true. To some extent it is, and listening to that genre of music will certainly do no harm...except perhaps bore you, but the original research that introduced the "Mozart Effect" has been somewhat glamorized and misrepresented. Here are the facts taken from the book I am currently reading and highly recommend, "How The Brain Learns" by David A. Sousa:

Studies have shown that passive listening to Mozart can, in fact, stimulate the parts of the brain responsible for spatial tasks, memory recall, visual imagery tasks, concentration, and attention based tasks. It can also make working more efficient when it's played as background music (which is why many classrooms use it). But these benefits of listening seem to be short term. 

If you want to see long term, permanent changes in the brain, creating music is the way to go. As it turns out, there is some pretty awesome research out there supporting strings programs in schools across socioeconomic backgrounds. Parts of the brain are actually larger in musicians than non-musicians. And get this, studies show that this is not from birth, it is the direct result of learning to play music. Clearly some people are born with natural tendencies to be better musicians than others, but all people seem to benefit from learning to play instruments. Here's how it breaks down directly for schooling subjects:

Math: fMRI studies show that the same parts of the brain are used for mathematical processing that are used during musical training. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Reading music involves counting, sequences, patterns, geometry, ratios, proportions, etc.

Reading: Written music uses very different symbols than our written language. However, reading each of them involves both comprehension and decoding in similar ways. It's also been discovered that by age 4 and 5, children who have had some musical training have better phonological awareness and more developed reading skills.

Attention principals, superintendents, and politicians (specifically you politicians who are creating education law but don't really know anything about education) since tests scores are so important, I hope music programs are too you as well! A wealth of studies show a strong correlation between creating music and higher standardized testing scores. Let's get those children creating music!!

A Southern Girl + MIT + Brain Research

Warning: I'm going all smart-like on you in this post. My adventures tend to be made up of 50% random childlike behaviors (i.e. rollerblading, baton twirling, etc.), 30% craftiness (i.e. sewing and embroidery), and 20% nerdiness (i.e. this post). Watch out and prepare to learn some cool facts!! I promise you'll come away smarter and teachers will especially enjoy!

What does a southern girl + MIT + brain research equal...a super excited ME who is a lifelong learner and simply must share the cool things she's learned. Yes, it's true...many who know me know that I'm one of those nerds who loves school. I was completely distraught why my masters degree program ended. I LOVE soaking up every bit of knowledge I can to make me a better teacher. My latest teaching job is with a program called Arrowsmith. In a nutshell, our program uses the concept of neuroplasticity to increase the learning capacity of our students. Now don't freak out, I know that was a big word, neuroplasticity, but all it means is this: our brains can change. We are not "stuck" with whatever intelligence we are born with. People's "IQ" can actually be altered. It may sound crazy, but it's quite true and really provides a lot of hope for struggling students out there. Kids at our school do cognitive exercises to strengthen the parts of their brains that are weaker...ultimately leading them to become capable of learning more.

So my latest adventure, this past weekend, was attending a conference called "Learning and the Brain" at MIT. It was a conference in the new field of Mind, Brain and Education which marries neuroscience to education so we can be more effective teachers! HOORAY!! Here's some of the interesting tidbits I learned or had reinforced...I think you'll find them very interesting too! If not, humor me!

Tidbit #1: A person's intelligence is NOT fixed  (obviously this was not new to me from the conference because of my job, but the following benefit of it is). Studies show that students who think their intelligence can't change tend to give up on tasks and in school. If its tough, they think it will always be tough and there is no hope for school to get better. However, if kids do understand that their brain can change and they aren't just stuck with what they've got, they tend to persevere and work harder . It can make a huge difference in behavior and performance. So if your a teacher or a parent, make sure your kids know their brain can change!!

Tidbit #2: The reason there are more boys than girls with learning disabilities:
Think back to good 'ol high school biology (shoutout to Mrs. Pam Williams), boys become boys because the have an X and a Y chromosome. Girl become girls because they have two X chromosomes. As it turns out, many learning disabilities are located on the X chromosome. Since girls have two X's, if one has a mutation for a learning disability, the other X can sort of override the issue. Unfortunately for boys, they don't have two X's...so if the one X they have has a mutation for learning disability, they are most likely going to have the disability. It's also the reason more men than women are color blind as well as is responsible for "male pattern baldness." Sorry guys, gotta hate that Y-chromosome.

**It should also be noted that there is a disproportionately large percentage of boys in remedial reading classes. They tend to be overly-identified because of issues other than true disability like behavior or high energy. In that same breath it should be noted that girls are under-identified and sometimes don't receive the services they need because they are compliant and often read fluently...hiding real comprehension issues.**



Tidbit #3: Have you ever wondered why REM sleep is such a big deal?? We hear about how we miss out on it if we don't have enough hours of sleep, but who really cares, right? No dreams for the night but that's no biggie. Well, it's actually kind of a big deal, especially for students who don't get enough sleep to have REM cycles. During that REM time, our memory is consolidating or coding information learned during the day from our working memory to long term memory. So when it students don't get enough sleep, it's hard for their brains to store the information they've learned. Scary!!

Tidbit #4: Ever heard that we only use 10% of our brains?? I know I have. But it's completely untrue. People don't use only 10% of their brains...they use all of it!! I learned this when I started work with the Arrowsmith program, but I fear that many people still hold this misconception. It lingers from a misquote or misinterpretation of research from way back when.

And finally, Tidbit #5: Labeling people as right-brained or left-brained is a little out of control. While the two different sides of the brain have some different functions, the brain is quite connected and interdependent. Brain imaging technology shows that most processes such as language processing or spatial ability have factors in both hemispheres of the brain.

If you're a nerd and/or teacher and actually like reading this stuff, keep reading below. If not...I promise I'll be back to acting childish and embroidering for my next post! : )

One of the presenters, David A. Sousa, an author and consultant in Educational Neuroscience, talked about 6 factors that produce ADHD-like behavior...but aren't really ADHD. As you probably know, more and more kids are getting misdiagnosed for this. Here are his 6 factors that produce hyperactive behavior:

1) Diet. 3 things in particular that cause problems: caffeine, aspartame (which is actually snuck into some children's vitamins to make them taste better), and food preservatives. The hyperactivity from caffeine can also ultimately lead to depression. Sad.

2) Sleep Deprivation: The average high school kids gets only 5-6 hours a night. The lack of sleep leads to irritability as well as hyperactivity. It also reduces the amount of REM time...which if you read the tidbits...you know is bad for long term memory! Eeek!

3) Stress. Stress releases a hormone called Cortisol, this results in hyperactive behavior.

4) "Pain in the butt syndrome"...now this theory of his isn't so scientific, but true. Some kids are simply not taught the rules of behavior. These days, many kids spend far more time with technology than they do with their families. In fact, one recent survey found kids spend 18 times more time connecting to the outside world than they do connecting with their parents and families. On average, the survey found kids spent only 47 minutes a week engaging in meaningful conversation with family. These days we don't spend time around the dinner table, we're too busy! But the consequences are grave.

5) School induced ADHD (he was running out of time so he didn't go through this much...but I think he meant that kids get so bored they freak out)

6) Environmental Factors (drugs, heavy metals, etc) and actual physical disorders such as OCD, dyslexia, etc.

Goodness gracious. That's about all I have to say at this point!! I also heard some controversial new information about why teachers shouldn't waste time teaching to "learning styles"...but that will simply have to wait for another day.