Guiding Students to Persevere to Achieve Their Potential

Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of BrainSMART, we are sharing some of our educators’ stories. All of the featured educators earned their Master’s in Brain-based Teaching curricula and/or the Minor in Brain-based Leadership, co-developed by Dr. Donna Wilson and Dr. Marcus Conyers, co-founders of BrainSMART. Below is a synopsis of one of those stories.

Dr. Kelly Rose’s educational career has been greatly influenced by her studies of brain-based teaching. While earning her Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Instructional Leadership, with a Minor in Brain-based Leadership, she was teaching second year at Sullins Academy in Bristol, Va. She recalls asking students to write about their most important body part and was excited that many of them decided to write about their brains.

Dr. Rose has sparked interest among her second-graders about the human brain, based on conversations she had with them describing this amazing organ that is growing and changing inside them. “Students often get frustrated when they can’t reach an answer right away,” said Dr. Rose in an interview for BrainSMART’s publication, Effective Teaching, Successful Students. “Reminding them that their brain is growing when they have to think helps them to persevere.”

Guiding Students So Their Potential Takes Root

Happy spring! In many parts of the United States, this season of renewal is a welcome relief after a long and drab winter—all the more reason to celebrate springtime’s arrival with a metaphor about the seeds of potential that virtually all students possess to learn, grow, and achieve their goals in school and in life.

A favorite teaching and learning strategy among educators who participate in our brain-based teaching program is using metaphors to explain and explore new concepts. So, let’s use a springtime metaphor to describe how, within each student, seeds of learning can take root. These seeds are transformed not by photosynthesis but by neuroplasticity, defined as changes in the structure and function of the brain as it processes new information.

As with the seedlings in the garden, which require the proper conditions of sun, water, and fertile soil to thrive, so too does learning sprout, grow, and flourish in an enriched environment. That’s where you come in, using the “green thumb” of effective teaching to optimize the power of neuroplasticity that helps students become functionally smarter. Learning blossoms in a positive environment in which all students feel safe, secure, supported, and encouraged to take intellectual risks.

Helping Your Students' Potential Blossom

Happy spring!  In many parts of the US, this season of renewal may seem long overdue—all the more reason to celebrate its arrival with a metaphor about the seeds of potential that all students possess to learn, grow, and achieve their goals in school and in life.

A favorite teaching and learning strategy among educators who participate in our brain-based teaching program is using metaphors to explain and explore new concepts. So let’s say that within each student, seeds of learning can take root, powered not by photosynthesis but by neuroplasticity, defined as changes in the structure and function of the brain as it processes new information.

Let's Make 2014 THE Year For Positive, Practical Learning!

Welcome to my first blog in 2014!

Did you know that virtually every human brain has the potential to learn and change throughout the lifespan? In fact, researchers have now found that learning actually changes the structure and function of your brain.

So, whether you are traveling to a new place, learning new teaching strategies, reading a book, playing a new game, or stretching your mind in a new job, YOU are a learning machine.

In the past it was thought that brain development stopped in youth. At one time it was said to be the age of 12. In the few decades (with an emphasis on early childhood) there has even been confusion leading the uninformed to say that important development ceases even earlier. However, it is now known that in fact adults can even create new brain cells and make connections across the lifespan. So it is critically important to keep learning.