C4T #3

For the Love of Teaching

I read two post from Diane Dahl, her posts were very informative and well thought-out. Her first post, Engaging Brains, was about neuroplasticity and how this new outlook will help teachers understand their students learning process. She evens says this has a positive effect on the students' perceptions of their own abilities. Learning new strategies of engagement, from understanding neuroplasticity, has increase drive in the classroom. One strategy is "Students' desks are decorated with colorful "brain car" cartoons as reminders that they are in charge of their learning." That awesome strategy is used in a second grade classroom and helps empower the students. Another strategy is "Going Big", which tells the teachers to make the lessons a "big deal". This post continues with two more strategies, which are: "practice, practice, practice" and "room to improve". These two strategies focus on improving their skills and that there is always room to grow the brain plasticity.

The second post, "What does neuroplasticity research suggest about the potential of all students to master the 4Cs?", this post was very interesting, which I had to reread to completely understand it. Neuroplasticity is a big deal, "It contributes to a necessary foundation, a conceptual framework, for teacher education and professional learning." Psychologist found that the brain changes in response to different things,especially with see, hear and do. By this it should change how educators teach in the classroom, we should have more see, hear and do projects that will encourage and have effect on the potential of the student and that project at hand. She then has tips, which she talk about in the first post,"Engaging Brains". I find this very helpful for me, as an educator and just a life-time learner, this encourages to set goals, to strive for improvement, and to apply what is learned in the classroom to real-world experiences.