Transcript Ken`s Power Point Presentation

...Own a Million-dollar Racehorse?
If you did, would you…
• Keep him up until the wee hours of the morning?
• Permit him to skip 90% his training rituals?
• Let him maintain a poor non-nutritious diet? (Pepsi and potato chips?)
• Endorse an almost completely sedentary lifestyle?
• Find it okay for him to play video games for 3-4 hours a day?
• Experiment on him with habit-forming and destructive drugs and/or
hallucinogens? Sometimes combining them with alcohol?
• Let him “hang out” with other un-ambitious horses listening to rock
and rap music for most of the day?
Kenneth Wesson
Brain-based learning
(408) 223-6728
...Own a Million-dollar Racehorse?
If you did, would you…
• Allow him to watch 9,000 hours of TV each year, complete with
45,000 gratuitous horse murders and expect him to be welladjusted with a healthy self concept, and to see the world as
a supportive, friendly place to grow, develop and a place
where he will maximize his full potential?
If you did, what would he be worth to you or to himself?
• Our students and children have multi-billion dollar
brains. We should not allow their brains to be treated in
ways far worse than we would ever treat a horse.
Kenneth Wesson
Brain-based learning
(408) 223-6728
The Human Senses
Sense
1. Sight
2. Hearing
3. Touch
4. Taste
5. Smell
Kenneth Wesson
Type of Sensory Input
Visible Light (eyes)
Vibrations (air/ear)
Tactile contact (feeling/skin)
Oral contact with chemicals
Olfactory molecular experience
(nose)
Brain-based learning
(408) 223-6728
19 Human Senses
Sense
Type of Sensory Input
6. Balance
7. Vestibular
8. Temperature
9. Pain
10. Eidetic imagery
11. Magnetic
12. Infrared
13. Ultraviolet
14. Ionic
15. Vomeronasal
16. Proximal
17. Electrical
18. Barometric
19. Geogravimetric
Kinesthetic geotropic (coordination)
Repetitious movement (e.g. spinning)
Molecular motion (heat)
Sensory reception (nocioception)
Neuroelectrical image retention/production
Ferromagnetic orientation
Long electromagnetic waves
Short
“
“
Ionic charge (airborne)
Pheromonic sensing
Physical closeness (of objects or people)
Surface charges
Pressure in the Atmosphere
Sensing differences in mass
Learning
Input  Processing  Dissecting

Retrieval  Storage

Output (usage, application, transfer, etc.)
The concept of human learning cannot be restricted to a simple
Stimulus  Response equation.
Techniques for a Better Memory
 Pay attention to what is important. (Within 18 seconds your
cortical systems will determine the level of importance.)
 Preserve (“download”) it in some way – notes, audiotape, etc.
 Repeat any important information within 10 minutes
 Repeat it again within 48 hours
 Repeat at the end of a seven-day period
 Use…
– Acrostics (the first letter of each key word to form a new word)
– Mind-maps
– Graphic organizers
 Bring the “smell/fragrance” with you that was used for
knowledge acquisition, a lecture, or while studying (it will
more likely be directly connected to the brain’s “sure-fire”
limbic system)
 Make as many correlations or connections to previously
learned information as you can.
Kenneth A. Wesson
[email protected]
Brain-based Learning
©2001
(408) 223-6728
Acrostics
SAN DOPE
• Serotonin 5-Hydroxytryptamine
• Acetylcholine (ACh) - Neurons that synthesize and
release ACh are referred to as cholinergic neurons.
• Norepinephrine (NE)
• Dopamine (DA)
• Oxytocin
• Phenylethanolamine * *
• Epinephrine (adrenaline)
*principal catecholamines are norepinephrine, epinephrine and dopamine.
** Phenylethanolamine N- methyltransferase converts norepinephrine to
epinephrine
Techniques for a Better Memory
• Short periods of practice daily are better than cramming
• Eliminate any perceived distractions. The brain can only
accommodate one dominant entry at a time.
• Play music (non-lyrical) at 60 beats per minute. An
incomprehensible (foreign) language may be used.
• Take short breaks (allowing for “downtime,” allowing for time to
Reflect (review, ruminate, evaluate, reexamine...)
Question (differentiate, compare, analyze...)
Connect (categorize, integrate, make associations...)
Revise (modify, extend, refine our understandings
based on new sensory input...)
Construct (adjoin, incorporate, internalize, develop
new models of understanding...)
Store newly acquired knowledge on the existing neural circuits)
• Write a “One-minute paper”
Kenneth A. Wesson
[email protected]
Brain-based Learning
©2001
(408) 223-6728
Techniques for a Better Memory
• Process the information as if you are preparing it to teach it to
another individual. (“To teach is to learn twice.”)
• Review old information before reading new information (build
bridges from what is known to what is new)
• Walk after reading or learning (while walking, talk about the newly
acquired content information)
• Study or read prior to going to bed
• Study in your most favored environment (whether it is in complete
silence, with others around you, or with music -- be consistent)
• Replicate the testing environment while studying (some Bar
Associations allow students to prepare for “The Bar Exam” in the
examination room).
• Prepare your body for learning/testing - nutrition, rest, sleep, fluids
• Prepare your mind - positive talk (recall your “successes”)
• Take notes in colored pencil, colored pens, use colored
highlighters.
Kenneth A. Wesson
[email protected]
Brain-based Learning
©2001
(408) 223-6728