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Laurie Bartels

Top Resources for Educators on Learning and the Brain

November 9, 2017 by Laurie Bartels

_____

In my pre­vi­ous post 10 Brain Train­ing Tips To Teach and Learn I promised to share some of the resources–books, con­fer­ences, and web­sites– that inform my under­stand­ing of teach­ing, learn­ing and the brain. Here’s an updat­ed list: [Read more…] about Top Resources for Edu­ca­tors on Learn­ing and the Brain

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Books, brain, educators, exercise, Learning, movement, Nutrition, resources, sleep

On Music, Dopamine, and Making Sense of Sound

May 15, 2012 by Laurie Bartels

Daniel Lev­itin, in This Is Your Brain On Music, sug­gests the fol­low­ing sound exper­i­ment. Sit­u­ate your­self some­place where you can close your eyes and focus on the sounds around you. When you open your eyes, write down each sound you heard and the object that made that sound. If you are in a rel­a­tive­ly qui­et spot, try this exper­i­ment the next time you are in a more sound-rich environment.

I began this arti­cle while [Read more…] about On Music, Dopamine, and Mak­ing Sense of Sound

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: amygdala, brain, cortex, Daniel Levitin, dopamine, memory-loss, music, neural, Parkinsons-disease, sound

Music as Therapy: Music, Movement, Cognition!

May 10, 2012 by Laurie Bartels

The Sound of Music
Whether you real­ize it or not, you already know a lot when it comes to music. Accord­ing to Daniel Lev­itin, for­mer record pro­duc­er, cur­rent neu­ro­sci­en­tist, psy­chol­o­gist and author of This Is Your Brain On Music, you know: [Read more…] about Music as Ther­a­py: Music, Move­ment, Cognition!

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Assisted-Living, brain, cerebellum, cognition, Daniel Levitin, frontal-lobes, hippocampus, music, Neurons, Parkinsons-disease, Rhythm

10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn — Ideas for New Year Resolutions

December 8, 2010 by Laurie Bartels

My inter­est in the brain stems from want­i­ng to bet­ter under­stand both how to make school more palat­able for stu­dents, and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment more mean­ing­ful for fac­ul­ty. To that end, I began my Neu­rons Fir­ing blog in April, 2007, have been doing a lot of read­ing, and been attend­ing work­shops and con­fer­ences, includ­ing Learn­ing & the Brain.

If you agree that our brains are designed for learn­ing, then as edu­ca­tors it is incum­bent upon us to be look­ing for ways to max­i­mize the learn­ing process for each of our stu­dents, as well as for our­selves. Some of what fol­lows is sim­ply com­mon sense, but I’ve learned that all of it has a sci­en­tif­ic basis in our brains. [Read more…] about 10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn — Ideas for New Year Resolutions

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: amygdala, blogging-brain, brain fitness resolutions, brain fitness tips, Brain-based-Learning, brain-tips, Brain-Training, cognitive-focus, cognitive-processes, Emotions, Executive-Functions, exercise, frontal-lobes, hippocampus, hypothalamus, Learning, Learning-and-the-Brain-Conference, Mental-flexibility, metacognition, movement, neocortex, Neurons, neurons-firing, New-Year-Resolutions, novelty, reflection, review, sleep-brain, teachers, teaching, Working-memory

5 Tips on Lifelong Learning and Neuroplasticity for the Adult Brain

December 19, 2008 by Laurie Bartels

productivity_brain.

Learn­ing & the Brain is a con­fer­ence that gets marked on my cal­en­dar annu­al­ly because I always return home hav­ing either been exposed to new infor­ma­tion, or with a new per­spec­tive on an old top­ic. Last mon­th’s con­fer­ence in Cam­bridge, MA, themed Using Emo­tions Research to Enhance Learn­ing & Achieve­ment, was no excep­tion. As with pre­vi­ous con­fer­ences, in addi­tion to the many keynote ses­sions, I focused on the adult learn­ing strand, since so much of my time is spent pro­vid­ing pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment for, and col­lab­o­rat­ing with adults. Here are five con­fer­ence cues as they relate to education.

1. CHALLENGE YOURSELF WITH NEW LEARNING

Aaron Nel­son stat­ed that our mem­o­ry starts to decline between ages twen­ty-five and thir­ty, or to phrase it a bit more pos­i­tive­ly, Sam Wang says our mem­o­ry peaks around age thir­ty. On the oth­er end of the age spec­trum, accord­ing to Ken Kosik, there is unequiv­o­cal evi­dence that edu­ca­tion pro­tects against Alzheimer’s. Both Nel­son and Kosik men­tioned the the­o­ry of cog­ni­tive reserve, which trans­lates rough­ly to the more we learn, the more con­nec­tions we cre­ate, and there­fore the greater the neu­ronal buffer we have to draw upon as we age.

Elkhonon Gold­berg of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness stat­ed at last April’s con­fer­ence that “as one ages, the domain of the nov­el shrinks, and the domain of what is known grows”. He cau­tioned the audi­ence to beware of being on men­tal autopi­lot. Thus, the goal is not to sim­ply get bet­ter at doing more of the same. The type of learn­ing that makes a dif­fer­ence con­sists specif­i­cal­ly of new, nov­el chal­lenges. The result of such engage­ment is that [Read more…] about 5 Tips on Life­long Learn­ing and Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for the Adult Brain

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Aaron-Nelson, adult-brain, adult-learning, Alzheimers, Alzheimers-disease, BDNF, brain, Brain-Plasticity, challenge, cognitive-reserve, dementia, Elkhonon-Goldberg, Emotions, emotions-research, enhance-achievement, enhance-learning, exercise, improve-memory, John-Medina, John-Ratey, Ken-Kosik, Learning, Learning-&-The-Brain, Learning-&-the-Brain-Conference, Lifelong-learning, misconceptions, Neurogenesis, neuronal-buffer, neuroplasticity, Norman-Doidge, Sam-Wang, schools

Neuroplasticity and the Brain That Changes Itself

November 12, 2008 by Laurie Bartels

I first dis­cov­ered Nor­man Doidge’s book, The Brain That Changes Itself, in a May, 2007 review in the New York Times. Intrigued, but caught up in myr­i­ad end-of-school-year respon­si­bil­i­ties, the book was put out of my mind until lat­er that sum­mer, when our The Brain that Changes Itself - Norman Doidgeschools learn­ing spe­cial­ist emailed to say she had just fin­ished a fas­ci­nat­ing book. The Brain That Changes Itself: Stores of Per­son­al Tri­umph from the Fron­tiers of Brain Sci­ence, is a com­pelling col­lec­tion of tales about the amaz­ing abil­i­ties of the brain to rewire, read­just and relearn after hav­ing a slice of itself ren­dered dys­func­tion­al. The first sev­en chap­ters cap­ti­vat­ed me for their per­son­al sto­ries; the final four chap­ters for the sci­ence and philosophy.

Part of what makes Doidge’s writ­ing so acces­si­ble is he tells sto­ries, and his sto­ries just hap­pen to incor­po­rate brain sci­ence. As a result, his book is easy to digest. The neu­ro­science behind Doidge’s book involves neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, which is the brain’s abil­i­ty to rewire itself. This means that the brain is our intel­li­gence  is not some­thing fixed in con­crete but rather a chang­ing, learn­ing enti­ty. On the face of it, this con­cept should not sound unusu­al, for it is what hap­pens to indi­vid­u­als all the time as we go about the learn­ing process, from infan­cy onwards.

What sep­a­rates the sto­ries in this book from dai­ly learn­ing is that [Read more…] about Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and the Brain That Changes Itself

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: Alvaro-Pascual-Leone, brain, Brain-Plasticity, brain-science, Brain-That-Changes-Itself, cochlear-implant, Edward-Taub, intelligence, Learning, metacognition, Michael-Merzenich, Neurons, Neurons-that-fire-together-wire-together, neuroplasticity, Norman-Doidge, pathways, Posit-Science, rewire, schools, Use-It-or-Lose-It

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