Brain Research Applied for Students and Teachers

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 Pro – Development Day Notes by A. Klippenstein

“Brain Waves for Teachers” Gary Anaka

Posters Displayed: Use it or Lose it Your Brian Needs Safety Television Rots your Brain Eat Breakfast Brain Failure: You Are Responsible Plasticity Planning for an Early Burnout Music energizes your brain Neurogenesis Brain Longevity Food Additives Kill Your Brain 100 Billion Neurons Positive Attitude  Get lots of sleep X stress Up Shift / Down Shift Learned Optimism/ Learned Helplessness

Most brain growth challenge Your brain needs oxygen Dendrites Learning is Yes Movement = learning Brain Gym (yes) Your brain needs

Your brain learns best from movement (at any all age) The brain is not designed for multi-tasking (can be done if you are in the right place in the b rain: in the wrong place it will cause brain to decline).

Global Renaissance in Learning: The Human Brain

Comic: The computer says I need to update my brain to be compatible with my new software.

The fragile brain: What forces detract from the brain’s ability to learn?

Hyperactive /hyperkinetic disorders Oppositional disorder Attention deficit disorder Learning delays Abuse and attachment disorders Traumatic brain injury Depression Nutritional deficiencies Dyslexia Auditory processing deficits Delayed sleep disorder Toxic exposure or allergies Marijuana and alcohol abuse Learned helplessness

Different Learners – Multiple Intelligences

More and more students are manifesting some sort of learning or behaviour disorder All teachers are becoming special education teachers.

How can you teach unless you know how the brain works?

Brain waves for teachers 1. Movement 2. Tell stories Illustration Nelson Mandella called for help. 27 of 29 M people in S. Africa were illiterate. Babies were carried by tradition, on mother’s back for first 3 yrs. Therefore reading was not possible!

Passive Learning vs. Active Learning. Movement profoundly impacts academic success. The human body is designed for walking. We sit.

Movement literally grows the brain.

If you don’t move, you lose!

The brain does not store energy Movement

Body goes into gear Adrenaline flows Blood flow increases More attention Memory improves

. . . Learning is easy.

What makes us move makes us think.

Up shift / Down shift

Up shift is moving to front of the brain. Down shift is moving to the back of the brain.

How do you get them from the back of the brain to the front of the brain? Get them to move for a minute to start class!

Strategy

Brain States Content

Top Brain States

The brain is constantly trying to make meaning.

Cornerstone of wise and effective teaching is asking questions.

1. Reticular Activating System (R.A.S. in neuroscience (The Hook)

How do you apply this in class? “Field trip”: radar goes up.

What is the question? What if . . .

The most desirable states . . . 2. Curiosity

3. Anticipation 4. Choices

Saying “Yes” increases serotonin, and stimulates brain growth. It is the most positive word.

Brain Geography

Einstein has the same brain as you guys, except for a few small differences.

How would you like to find out what that difference is?

The average brain weighs 3 pounds.

Einstein and all teenagers have 3 lb. brains.

What are the name of the brain cells? Neurons.

The number is 100 billion. Einstein and all students have 100 billion brain cells.

That’s good news.

1n 1950 there were only 250 neuroscientists in the world.

They all said, “The human brain is totally grey.” All the brains they studied were dead. 35200 neuroscientists in the world today. 29000 went to an AGM two years ago. Lots of $$$ is going into brain research.

Avocado: that is the feel of the surface of the brain. Tofo that is the texture of the b rain.

The living brain is colourful, soft, almost mushy. Exceptionally fragile.

One way to grow the brain is to go outside the box at any age.

Make a model -- any kind of model. You’re going to take it home.

Dendrites on the tip of the neuron

D on fingers N on hand Axons on forearm 200 km/hour Synapse - Mircro-gap

Neuron on centre of page. 100 billion Connectors, like little spider webs are called dendrites Coming out of the bottom of the Neuron is the telephone line called an Axon

At bottom are more diverging lines and below them is a gap called a synapse.

CAT Scan

Orangy yellow part of brain is working.

You only use 10% of the brain. That is a myth.

You use all of your brain all of the time. That is why you have it.

Corpus collosum is the wall between the brains. As you exercise less the wall shrinks and the two sides talk to each other less.

You can regrow your brain with physical exercise.

The dendrites are the maps that make your memory. The memory is not in the cell.

Einstein’s brain your brain: had more dendrites, more connections.

GROW THEM!

Teaching is simple: We grow dendrites!

We are not learning Math, Socials. We are growing dendrites!

In your diagram there is a myelin sheath covering the axon.

That has a lot to do with memory. It is the covering of the axon. Story: speaker lost dad a year ago. He had a good memory until near the end. He had an awesome long term memory. His short term memory deteriorated.

Long term memory has lots of myelin on the axons.

Learned helplessness vs learned optimism.

Neuroscientists say students can learn to be brain optimistic. Get them moving, and get them to say the word Yes as much as you possibly can.

Say to the student: “The key is in the ignition but its not turned on.”

If you’re going to reach the teenage brain, you have to be a bit nutty.

3. Rhymes 4. Models 5. Sharing 6. Metaphor

Weave these brain principles into what you are doing. www.braincoach.ca

Brain stress is a serious issue Stress CD produced in 1990. $10. It will calm your class down.

Resource book: $22.

Start with movement Or review of what you learned yesterday to build myelin.

Part II Help for the teen-age brain.

Part III Fire in the teacher brain.

Link to Brain study in which we can participate as volunteers and get a free CAT or PET scan: [email protected]

More inconclusive proof that brain-based teaching is educationally sound.

The second you are born to age 3 the brain is in an explosion of learning. Everything is learning.

Age 3-10 firms up the things we learned.

Starting at about age 13 the brain is a construction zone – they do not have an adult brain.

This continues into the twenties until about age 30.

Verbs to describe first 30 years of your life: risk, dare, do it. The age of 30 represents maximum brain power for many of us.

Key note word for the rest of your life is stability.

Then things happen. We have the potential of becoming a wise elder instead of senility or dementia.

This is the hope from neuroscience today.

Age 40-50 wisdom.

You cannot buy it. You get it through experience in life.

We can reverse almost anything now.

Blind  sight by rewiring the brain.

Top of you brain when you are moving, has energy going across the corpus collosum.

Kids arrive at school electronically sedated children who are not moving. TV.

Brain cells are trees.

Healthy brain cell.

Degenerating brain: fewer dendrites.

Looking like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Advanced stage of degenerative brain: Alzheimer’s disease. 425000 people with Alzheimer’s disease today. By 2030 we’ll have 750000 people with Alzheimer’s disease.

12 yrs. ago they said Alzheimer’s was 50% genetic. Now 20% and going down.

There are no magic pills for Alzheimer’s disease. It has multiple causes.

Gardner Author of Kids and the brain asked Gardner what can we do?

Gardner: Draw mind maps.

A better functioning brain means students have the best chance to achieve in school.

Three things that have to happen in you class in order for students to learn.

Brain facts.

1. Oxygen Sleep with your windows open—your brain gets 8 hours of oxygen.

The major reason the brain deteriorates after age 30 is lack of oxygen.

Sedentary living kills the brain.

1.Ping pong 2.juggle 3.cup-stacking especially terrific for boys.

2 2water the brain is 80% water. Brain expo in San Francisco, the number ` memory man of the world. The Christopher Columbus of the brain.

Most of your kids are mostly or partially dehydrated. Drink Water.

4. Good Nutrition Brain killers : excitotoxins aspartame, MSG, food additives

Brain builders: Protein for breakfast is brain food. Ideal: fruit juice, protein, and a little bit of whole grain.

1. brain cell does not work without omega 3 The number one source is salmon.

If you don’t like fish, you can get it from flax seeds, and hemp seeds a super star nut is the walnut, full of omega 3.

The original Montessori school is in India. Gary was asked to do a brain based presentation. Walnuts, a 5000 yr old medicine.

2. One egg a day, because it contains colene. Your brain needs acytalcolene. 3. Blue berries. They call them brain berries now. They are anti-oxidents. Also: blackberries, raspberries and strawberries.

4. Bananas (magnesium) and apples are the top fruits for the brain.

Apples are anti-inflamatories.

5. all the green veggies.

Spark plugs fire too much fat in your diet, literally gum up the synapsis. Green veggies scrub up your synapses.

6. Kale, spinach and broccoli are the other two superstars. 7. Nuts, especially almonds, one or two Brazil nuts/day. They are high in selenium.

They have now proven that chocolate is a vegetable.

How many of you drink coffee?

Coffee is a diuretic. It sucks water out of your brain every time you drink it.

Neuro-scientists say if you rely on coffee to get your brain going every day, you will ruin your brain.

No alcohol top down view. Same guy intoxicated.

Alcohol kills dendrites.

You should not go to bed with alcohol on the brain. Try to get alcohol out of your system before you go to sleep.

UBC is one of the foremost places for Alzheimer’s disease.

A brain taken from an DTES was literally dripping with alcohol!

FAS six day old baby: holes literally in the brain. The pre-frontal cortex has not closed.

Change your brain: change your life Dr. Amen

Marijuana smoking for two years: produces holes in the brain. It does not wreck the memory, nor the ability to learn, but interferes with the motivation to learn. 1-2 yrs. damage is reversible. More than 5 yrs. irreversible.

There is no such thing as a harmless recreational drug.

Stop within two years, you can reverse this.

An alcoholics brain after 17 years irreparable damage.

Heroin brain weighs one pound. You can look right through it.

Life before Meth. From N. Van. Took Crystal Methamphetamines for four years and is destroyed. Her brain is literally gone.

See bibliography in Handout. Brain Images/Pictures/Atlas

Cigarettes shrink the front of the brain.

Egg yokes have cholesterol.

Misinformation, disinformation and spin.

Eggs are totally nutritious food.

Nature of Things. Margarine and Butter. Margarine is brain poison.

Where do you work out? Librarian with big head, and body builder with a huge body, but tiny head.

Sharing grows the brain.

Mini strokes in the classroom from stress.

The teen age brain

Learning Styles Visual the eyes are cool Auditory the ears are cool Kinesthetic movement is cool Play Play around with this idea

To avoid dementia you need to play. Video games are far too passive.

Plasticity means malleable, changeable, not permanent.

In 1998 plasticisty ascended and the brain can’t change went down after 100 yrs.

The brain can change from the moment of birth to the day of death.

A student teaching another student is using more parts of their brain simultaneously.

Peer tutoring, cooperative learning.

Plasticity: positive brain changes for teenagers

Doing these make learning conditions happen in the classroom.

1. movement 2. optimism 3. study in a focussed manner teaching kids how to learn. 4. positive role models 5. complex environments (not the 2 by 4 classroom with a chalk board with no posters, etc.)

Every day when you go in front of kids, the emotion on your face will affect learning.

Not the intellectual brain that has brought humans so far, it is the social brain.

Caring will go farther than anything else you can do.

Their brain will respond.

A 21st century teacher has to be head and heart.

Hormones Snapshots what you should know.

Hormones are a small part of changes. The brain is what is really changing—literally rewiring itself.

Stay up late (Melatonin produced later).

Seratonin produced by the brain.

Melatonin is produced in the evening.

Teen agers produce melatonin at 12:00 to 1:00 AM.

Teenagers are not designed to be learning at 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning.

Q. has this changed in the past 25 years.

Electronics has changed this. They are staying up later. Advice for parents: nothing electronic in the bedroom.

Texting, and Ipods, etc. are not affecting the captain of the brain. These are downshifted (passive) activities.

When you had young children, you decided what they would eat, wear etc. When they are 13, the captain comes on deck and they start saying, “I’m not eating that1 . . . going there! Etc.”

Their brain is being reorganized.

Teenagers are risk-takers.

Risk and danger reward teen brain.

Teens love novelty and despise novelty.

Teens love the unpredictable, horror movies.

Teens live for the moment.

They do not have a “future brain”, like adults do

All teens are dopamine addicts. They need it. Dopamine is not a drug, it is a hormone. Yeah!!

This makes teens vulnerable to addictions because of dopamine.

Teenager’s social brain.

Emotions affect learning. The things we remember most have emotions invested in them.

Teens have trouble reading each other’s emotions, and ours.

We must verbalize our feelings, because they cannot recognize our facial expression.

Communication with Teenagers

A brain under construction

Amygdala vs frontal lobes. It is your fear switch. Teen agers do not have a captain. Their captain (executive neural function) is under construction.

Their fear switch come into play rather than rational long term thinking.

Teens are prey to the highly suggestible amygdale.

Your school has to be safe. There can’t be bullies in your hall ways, etc. or kids’ learning will be shut down by their amygdala.

Three strategies for teens.

Lots of feedback: feedback improves the brain’s efficiency. They need the positive feedback regularly about how they are doing.

2. Structure Promote the agenda. You may not like this, but your brain does.

3. Physical movement

The best help for Teenagers today.

1. Be brain smart

2. Concrete positive models Student learn more from who you are, than what you teach

1:25 PM This is the low point of a student’s energy since energy is going into digestion of their lunch.

Ten things you learned about your brain:

1. Don’t go to sleep with alcohol 2. The brain is soft and extremely fragile 3. Plasticity: The brain is always changing 4. The brain needs oxygen, water, and selected foods: protein, omega 3, magnesium, selenium 5. Movement helps the brain – oxygenate. 6. Positivity helps the brain via serotonin manufacture YES Positive feedback 7. Hook—‘what if?’ questions 8. Have students teach each other 9. Caring helps the brain 10. Brain needs structure

We must not ignore brain research in our school system. What will prompt this? Our fragile brain does.

Summary:

Teenage brain today

Need to be active participants in the process of learning rather than passive recipients of information.

Important to do well in life

Brain based learning

Topic this afternoon: Brain Wellness: the Secrets of Longevity

Brain Myths 1. You only use 10% of the brain 2. Your brain is a hard-wired black box 3. It can’t grow new brain cells Salk Institute researcher: Hippocampus does the memory function. Jogging can grow new brain cells/walking fast (swinging arms). New brain cells grow in the hippocampus. You need an exercise program to promote neurogenesis. More than anything else, read. Reading grows dendrites.

4. Brains can’t change. 5. There is nothing you can do about aging.

New reality is neurogenesis and plasticity.

How many of the following 25 are in your life style?

Brain killers

1. sedentary lifestyle 2. bad diet junk food once in a while. Junk food ages the brain trans-fatty acids, chemicals, additives, 3. saturated fats prefer Lean meats, prefer white over red meats. 4. Drugs: prescription and illegal a. Prescription drugs increase brain aging. b. E.g., sleeping pills affect your memory. Change your mind: train you brain cognitive behaviour therapy Cognitive therapy changes the brain instead of drugs. Prescription drugs ask the Dr. Is this affecting the brain? 5. Exditotoxins HVP hydrolized vegetable P__ Msg. aspartame,

6. Aluminum and Mercury alzheimer’s brains are loaded with aluminum Deodorant Christmas 2006 aluminum jumped from 12 to 24 % Amalgam fillings

The aging brain and memory loss free radicals vs. antioxidants

Fire in the Brain Cortisol is a brain killer Inflamation in the brain, swelling in the brain. Wheels spinning when you go to sleep more than likely fire in the brain.

When you produce adrenalin you also produce cortisol that goes straight to the brain and reduces memory.

To get cortisol out, stretch, yoga, tychee, any kind of physical movement.

How to keep inflammation from the brain. Apple Ginger Onions (lightly steamed)

Adopt the lifestyle of drinking green tea, one of the top 10 brain foods.

Consider detoxifying, cleansing

Your brain is designed to focus on one task at a time.

How can we multi-task:

Women are better at multi-tasking than men.

If you are at home and you are reading a recipe, chopping something, etc. you are using the cerebellum, the old brain to do it.

But the problem in the class when there are too many things to do at once, the captain (cerebral cortex) is overwhelmed.

What ruins it, is interruptions.

Your brain performance and productivity goes down and stress goes over the top. We are not machines and cannot endlessly process tasks.

More brain killers Violence (video games flood kids brain with dopamine and ‘kill’, ‘kill, ‘kill’, ‘kill’ . . . They have been in the down-shifted brain state.

Smoking

Stress

All personalities can change. We can all change our behaviour and therefore we can change our brain.

1. Neurological renewal is possible 2. make superhighways are made by children for tools – e.g., the spoon, fork, knife, paint brush, etc. With age, the major highways stay, but the memory dendrons reduce.

1. oxygen Hyperbaric oxygen chambers 2. water 3. life supporting diet eat from the rainbow purple, yellow, green orange, red 4. Brain boosters (vitamins are life insurance) 5. December, January, and February not enough vitamins are available in the food supply unless you grow your own veggies. B vitamins (your stress vitamin) no myelin in your brain without b-12) The other two superstars for your brain are vitamin C and Vitamin E, the smart pill, because it is the most powerful anti-oxidant. Souring vitamins get best product from naturopath Life Extension is a good source for vitamins. Ginkgo biloba increases blood flow in the capillaries of the brain Two more superstars there are mitochondria (powerhouses) which need coenzyme Q10. There are ubiquitous in all plants. Some researchers suggest lack of coenzyme Q10 is a trigger for Alzheimer’s

Acetylcholine (memory) foods rich in choline are egg yolks, nuts and wheat germ

Serotonin (relaxed calm) complex carbohydrates, whole grain cereals, brown rice

Dopamine (energy, alertness) protein beans, nuts, fish and soy

3. Music is awesome for your brain especially baroque music. Puts brain in a relaxed state of alertness. not recommended: acid rock and heavy metal These drain the brain of serotonin.

Q. re: I-pods

4. Humour Never leave home without it. Laughter clubs. Why computers are male The only way to get their attention is to turn them on!

Why computers are female They remember a tiny detail and bring it to your attention long after an event They use a language that only they understand Once you commit to them, you spend half your paycheque on accessories.

Diagram of women’s brain. Shopping lobe Gossip lobe Mysterious . . . Etc. Diagram of lobes of men’s brain. Biggest part is the Sex lobe A particle of commitment An atom of . . . A lobe for tools . Etc.

5. Problem solving Sudoko, crosswords, etc.

Brain reserve: if you don’t use it you’ll lose it.

6. challenge

It is a hunter-gatherer brain. Technology is only 100 yrs. old. What was the brain designed to do?

7. Novelty To face novelty, unpredictability. The more you use your brain, the more you will have to use. The brain is looking for new things. If not it shuts down.

8. use your hands 3000 nuns donated their brains to science. All autopsied by scientists. They had awesome memories. They ate manual and organic lifestyles, diets, etc. 9. Fingers are the antennae of the brain. Learn to playa a musical instruments. 10. Art, dancing, singing, humming, grows the brain. It puts you in the right brain. 11. Keep socially active. You need two or three solid activities that keep your brain engaged. 12. spend time in nature Teen problem today see a fractured world, whereas in nature, they see the whole, which relaxes the brain and tunes it to its proper rhythms. (you play in nature) 13. adequate Sleep Less than 5 h /night Secret, it takes 90 min for the brain to switch from one to the other Sleep in multiples of 90 minutes. 14. Feedback releases dopamine 15. Keep you balance: stand on one foot with your eyes closed. Stand on one foot while holding a chair. Do it barefeet. Also walking on toes and heels is good. 16. Get your hearing checked. If the brain does not hear well the brain shuts down. Brain Fitness Programs Positscience www.positscience.com One of best 16 scientists of the world 17. Destress Stress eats your brain cells Have down time somewhere in your day. The brain is not designed for constant input

Need to insulate learning Avoid overload

Power snooze for a few minutes (15-20) You do not have to fall asleep.

18. Use your fingers de clutter your desk, your house 19. set goals 20. friendly brain environments: plants, gardening, wood work etc. Chinese peace lilies. They re-oxygenate. 21. positive attitude self-fulfilling prophecy. I can remember this. Write it down. 22. Be open to change “For things to change, I must change.” 23. pay attention If you think you are not as sharp as you used to be, you’re right. You cannot get a brain replacement

24. Life’s purpose: when a person no longer feels they have a contribution, their brain dies. Alzheimer’s is brain rot. You have disengaged. You quit. 25. KEEP LEARNING

TO GROW YOUR BRAIN YOU HAVE TO KEEP LEARNING. If it does not learn, the brain does not grow.

Variety is the spice of life Physicists have Alzheimer’s bc they had only one focus in their lives, stifled plasticity.

Don’t Wait!