Lazyteacher

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The other brain book I’ve been reading is Brain Rules by John Medina. Dr. Medina works at the UDub as a developmental molecular biologist. His book is part of the wave of books about how brains work and the implications for work and learning. I’ve been hoovering them up lately, even though none of them has yet given me a silver bullet yet. In true blogging fashion, Dr. Medina has broken up his conclusions into 12 Rules:

EXERCISE | Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.
SURVIVAL | Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too.
WIRING | Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently.
ATTENTION | Rule #4: We don’t pay attention to boring things.
SHORT-TERM MEMORY | Rule #5: Repeat to remember.
LONG-TERM MEMORY | Rule #6: Remember to repeat.
SLEEP | Rule #7: Sleep well, think well.
STRESS | Rule #8: Stressed brains don’t learn the same way.
SENSORY INTEGRATION | Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses.
VISION | Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.
GENDER | Rule #11: Male and female brains are different.
EXPLORATION | Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.

Despite the nifty graphics and a strong resistance to the temptation to overpromise, I’m not yet sure how to use this information. The information in the exercise section suggests that some of that TPR stuff might not be such a bad idea. For instance, in my writing class I could start with a fast paced walk around the park to get the blood going and at the halfway mark maybe take an exercise break wherein we could do tree pose or downward dog.

Also, the visual section suggests that we don’t do so hot when it comes to strictly auditory processing. Even static visuals such as Keynote slides seem to be less than effective. Medina blithely suggests that we “animate” our presentations: nuhprobblem! I just teach 185 days out of the year. How hard could it be? Still, I’ve thought about emulating the CommonCraft format of whiteboards and paper cut outs. Or, I could sketch out the basic info I want to communicate and make my kids shoot the animation.

Other bloggers have commented on the book, including Will Richardson, HomeschooledTwins, Engaging Learners, and History Tech. Still, I haven’t seen anyone really try to tease out how this information would play in the classroom. I’ll try in a later post.