Nov+15+The+Learning+Cycle

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Zull always makes me think of all the great lessons I prepared and less than half my students paid attention or learned what I wanted them to. In reflecting on those less than successful lessons, I realize that I needed to make sure I realized I was teaching students not content. Once I realized the whole brain worked in a process and that when a person learned something she had to use all parts of her brain, then I would make sure there was a concrete experience with the learning and that the student had time to reflect on the experience and test it out. I already have learned the content and now it's time for my students to actively engage by experience, reflection and testing. That philosophy dramatically changed how I prepared and presented my lessons. I made sure there was more hands on work of students, more student collaboration, more student questions, less teacher talk- more student voices, more show-less tell. I realized I couldn't say I had taught a lesson if students didn't learn from it.Some times I have to go back to the drawing board and re-teach the lesson.I need to get the students to working memory with the lesson, then I have 12-36 hours to work on long term memory storage. Learning should be meaningful and memorable- the M&M's of learning. Alton

I enjoy reading information about the brain because we know so little about it. I am curious to how research will help us understand learning problems and other social ailments-like today’s article by Judith Kleinfeld in the News-Miner entitled, “Why Major Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood”.

Why does our brain act the way it does. I found myself thinking about those struggling readers while I read the chapter by James Zull. Where is the disconnect in some brains? What can be done as teachers to make all those connections? I do believe that since the teaching technique of using meta-cognition came out, there was at least a tool to let those struggling learners see what was happening in a “normal” brain because we talk through what we are doing. I found myself thinking about those children who have different ailments like FASD, Autism or Learning Disabilities.

We lump all those struggling readers into one big category-but there may be some techniques which work better for someone who maybe has a disconnect in their temporal integrative cortex or frontal integrative cortex. I don’t know. I do know that over the years, I have found some strategies that work for some kids and some strategies that don’t seem to work as well. That is the beauty and struggle of teaching. We have to find what works for the individual unique students in our classrooms.

I was reading over the weekend in Richard Allington’s book What Really Matters with Response to Intervention. On page 170 he says that “Almost every educator has heard or read something about brain-based teaching. The problem is that no actual research on brain-based teaching exists, and very little research has been done on the function of the brain during reading. We do know that readers’ brains seem to work differently than non-readers brains, and that better readers’ brains work differently from struggling readers’ brains (Shaywitz, 1996). However, notions that struggling readers’ brains can be repaired seem more to reflect the fact that teaching struggling readers to read better makes their brains operate more successful in teaching reading to these students than any evidence we know about how to repair brain functioning (Coles, 2004). “

That is interesting….food for thought….pun intended! -Ronda

Learning and the brain is a fascinating topic. I admit all the processes that happen in the brain are very intricate and hard to follow sometimes. This is so similar to reading and comprehension. They are both intricate processes as described in the article. The “Learning Cycle” as described by Kolb involves a sequence of activities. First the learner experiences the event, then they reflect on the event, then there is some creation of an abstract idea relating to the event, and then some reflection about the event and then it goes back to the experience. This was a little confusing to me maybe because I was not experiencing the deep learning that comes along with real comprehension after undergoing this learning cycle. Actually, I do understand that anytime a person encounters some sort of input in the brain they have some sort of reaction and the input integrates it into their schema of life. Then there is some processing that occurs and there body acts out because the brain gave the command. This reflection sounds a bit confusing to me. I still need to reflect some more so I can form the abstract connections that are involved in order to actively test what I am learning. Maybe I’m getting it. As far and teaching reading comprehension to students, I am always amazed as to how some students always get it and there are others who do not get it at all. It’s so hard to know what is actually going on inside those students’ brains when they are trying to comprehend. I try to create many opportunities by stimulating many of the senses, so the deep learning can occur. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t but I keep trying. By Karen Kay Mobley

The brain is a remarkable piece of the body. I have worked with the learning cycle model in my undergraduate classes, two summer STEP classes and again this fall as I work on my ASC fellowship. It was interesting to read that each piece of the model effects different sections of the brain. I wonder just how useful this information is. I recently participated in a webinar where I head about the effects of poverty on the students brain and received some ideas about how I could apply this information to improve learning. I do not need to know which section of the brain does. I do not yet have the capability to plug the children into my computer and program the different regions to know the different things I need then to know. What I can do is recognize what is happening with the whole brain and try to maximize activities that improve learning and minimize the negative effects of stress outside the classroom. -Amber

Since I have been reading about vocabulary development, when I read the homework I thought of how I teach vocabulary. How do I take them through the process or do I even take them ‘through’ a process. Am I only teaching students that: a Homework Contract is worth 15 points, is due on Friday, and they may be tested through multiple-choice and/or write the words and the definitions for 20 points possible the following Friday. I have varied the process of teaching the new words to the students, but often forget to come back to those words to help the students process the words further. When they have ten words, they are to define the words, identify the parts of speech, write a paragraph and/or write sentences. I do switch from a ten list word to a five list word every other week or so. And, with the five words a week I show them comic strips with links to help them further understand their words via link words and captions under the words. So, is this just a routine they are learning?

With all of this, I don’t think that I am giving them enough concrete experience with the new words. I’ll have to think of something to help them with this, so any ideas? La Verne

Response to “Where We Ought To Be” It is fascinating to continue to learn about the workings of the brain and see the connections with the learning environment. These revelations are valuable for working with our students but also helpful for understanding our own thought processes. Having an understanding of the physical changes taking place in the brain (or just knowing that physical changes are taking place) and the order of these events will only help us improve our techniques in working with students. In another article (“The Art of Changing the Brain” p.68, Educational Leadership, Sep 2004) Zull talks about the role of emotions in the process of extending neurons and creating synapses. He talks of the feelings of pleasure and satisfaction when we figure out a problem or come to understand something new and the feelings of frustration when we can’t get the right answer. Due to the actual physical, chemical changes taking place in the brain when students have positive experiences he maintains that it is imperative for educators to craft learning experiences which allow students repeated opportunities to experience success, in even very small doses. He also says it is necessary for students to have the opportunity to work on topics or in areas that appeal to them. The notion that learning should be __fun__ has actual positive physical reactions in the development of the brain. How cool is that??? His personal realization that lengthy explanations in his teaching practices were ineffective not only because they relied on his own set of connected neurons which were undoubtedly different than those of his students but also because the process of explaining meant the power to control the process was in his court, not the students, caused him to reduce his use of such explanations. Instead he realized setting up learning scenarios that allow students to learn from their errors, would take advantage of what we now know about how the brain works to build connections. I am also excited about what Zull says in regards to engaging the whole brain. Finding ways to introduce information to students through use of all of the senses speaks to our department’s mission of providing kits and manipulatives, movies in video and DVD format, music in CDs and audiocassettes. These are all ways to present data in different formats, which the brain research is showing to be very advantageous. A question that came to mind concerns our students who multitask with multiple windows open on a computer screen, chat enabled, music playing and texting taking place. Is this additional stimulus of neurons good or bad?? Katie Sanders The most important question / point I identified with in this article was the one of, “Can we teach without anyone learning?”. Of course a student will come away from any lesson having learned something, as the article discussed. The frustration we have as educators is if the student learned what the lesson’s objective was. People learn throughout their days and lives, in every situation, not just the classroom. What the chapter doesn’t directly discuss, but is implied and maybe discussed “in later chapters” is the uniqueness of each person’s background of experiences, perceptions and influences on sensory input, rate and application of integrating those experiences, and interpretation of feedback from the new motor experiences acted upon. In short, academic readiness, common learning styles and rate of intellectual growth for any given lesson, especially those to large groups, is key to what student outcomes for learning will be. This assigned reading does well to simplify the biological, intellectual approach to learning, but as teachers we know that this is nothing more than the Einstein Rule at work. Being an expert (or Einstien) of how learning happens doesn’t make one a good teacher. The quote at the end of p. 19 made me shake my head and laugh, “If I am teaching right, I am doing my part!”. Society as a whole doesn’t buy into that excuse, and that is what it is, an excuse. “Teaching right”? Right for whom? Yes, a student is responsible for making the effort to learn, but we can’t stand on one side of the bridge telling them they have to come over to our side and meet our methods. Students and teachers have to meet halfway on that bridge of learning. Maybe it’s my entire career in Special Ed. that has engrained in me that the job of a teacher is to figure out at least 50 different ways to teach the same thing; to assess and deliver what method meets the needs of a student; that my job is to learn about the student’s needs, where they are today, and where we can go tomorrow; and that the mind set of, “here’s how the brain works and learns, so here’s the straight and narrow path” doesn’t work. The sensory input provided by me, my own observation and reflection of the 25 different ways 25 different students are integrating and producing motor output, and circling that process over and over again is the bigger picture we can get from the information in this chapter. Sarah Voorhees

WHERE WE OUGHT TO BE… I like the diagram of the “The Learning Cycle” that is referenced from Kolb’s book. It makes me think maybe I should show that to my students once in a while, to remind them that this is what we are doing. They are having concrete experiences, reflections, and abstractions, but I guess I should point out how they connect, and how there can be disconnects.

This also made me think of the possible conflicts, in recognizing concrete experiences, that could be occurring, between the teacher and the student. A teacher might have an expected outcome from one activity/experience of their students, but not attain that due to a disconnect between the reflection or abstraction stages. I could see this happening with using or not using different available technologies to reach the students.

I don’t know, at this point, if it is truly useful for teachers to know which part of the brain does what??

-Shane

I found this article, “Where We Ought To Be”, by James E. Zull, extremely interesting. To think that the learning process could be directly correlated to the human brain is fascinating. The way that Kolb was able to combine other researchers experiences and develop the new “learning cycle” was brilliant. The human brain has always been a key point of interest in educators, but I think that this correlation between they way we learn and the way the brain is laid out helps to explain why this process makes the most sense. It is important to include these aspects in all areas in teaching and learning. It is important to include hands-on activities so students are able to experience what they are learning, as to comprehend a deeper meaning to the activity. I think the Learning Cycle that was developed by Kolb is an excellent point of reference. This article has many points of interest and validly explains how the learning process is happening in the brain. This could give us a better understanding on how students might be affected by their learning and experience level. If there is something that is not firing right with the brain, this will effect their how much they can learn. If we have students who are having trouble comprehending, maybe we could come at a lesson from another angle, and re-teach them by using the process in this cycle and see better results.

By Nicki Haroldson

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000191 EndHTML:0000004203 StartFragment:0000002374 EndFragment:0000004167 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/trish/Library/Mail%20Downloads/StugartResponses.doc The Learning Cycle

This article definitely gave me some new things to think about. It makes complete sense. Teaching courses and my own experience has proven that making new information applicable to a student’s life means that information is more likely to be remembered. What I haven’t thought of before is what a student is doing with all the information presented in class if he/she can’t prove (through testing) that the content has been learned. This reminds me of a time when I was not going to be teaching a particular class the next year because I had agreed to be on a Freshmen Team. When a student found this out, she asked me if this choice was going to make me happy because I loved the subject I was giving up so much. The student’s comment makes so much sense now. Also, making sure students have time to reflect on what was learned – by either a think, pair share or a written response are much more important than I previously thought. I just have a lot of processing of my own going on after reading this article – I will probably end up ordering the boo so that I can read the rest. I think this article will cause me to change some of my teaching practices.

Jen Stugart

Response: Where we ought to be

The human brain is so amazing because it receives information and within a fraction of a second we analyze, interpret, and categorize how the information relates to prior concrete experiences or not and how we react to it. Unfortunately we as teachers cannot expect students to learn everything we put before them. How many times do we have a student frustrated by something being taught and then when the teacher approaches the topic from another angle and the student says, “Oh! I get it now!” Teachers need to be able to recognize learning difficulties and learning styles to help provide students with more opportunities to be successful. Zull reminds us that to help students learn we have to provide ideas and methods to aid students’ other experiences to help formulate a plan, a reason, and even action. It’s an on going process. Zull has helped us recognize how the learning process may take place, as teachers all we can do is act upon it.

Dave