TPE C-neuroscience

This article referenced theories that students are able to acquire and retain more information in a positive environment. This got me thinking about how I can create a less stressful environment for my students (or eliminate a “culture of fear”): give time after asking questions for students to think about responding, use a variety of methods to check for understanding, plan small group and individual work as well as whole-class time, and never use questioning as a punishment when students aren’t paying attention.

I thought the “RAD” acronym was a little ridiculous, because I’d rather remember to implement novelty, less stress and pleasurable associations to learning rather than remember the reticular activating system, and so on. The key ideas presented by this article, however, were incredibly useful and I would believe them even if they weren’t backed up by research. It makes sense—students want to learn and will be more likely to learn when they feel comfortable with, relate to, and can actively participate in classroom activities. Also, I’m really glad that my school doesn’t have an “unspoken mandate against joy and exuberance,” which sounds funny the way it’s worded in the article, but would actually be a terrible way to go through my first year of teaching.

I really liked how this article provided a list of teacher resource websites for relevant lesson planning. I will have to browse those once I get internet at my apartment!