18 GIFs That Perfectly Capture Literally Everything About Our Unit So Far

It's as though you're sitting in our classroom across space and time itself! (Too far?)

1. Humans used to do a lot of walking.

Via tumblr.com

In fact, we used to average 12 miles a day. This kind of exercise is how the brain became the "fancy" one we enjoy today (Medina, 2008).

2. Moderate exercise boosts cognition.

Via tumblr.com

Moving produces BDNF, Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor, which keeps neurons young, fresh, and able to make connections easily, as well as encouraging neurogenesis, or the creation of new brain cells (Medina, 2008).

3. Moving promotes bloodflow to the brain.

Via tumblr.com

Increased bloodflow to the brain means increased access to the body's food and haz-mat teams (Medina, 2008).

4. Exercise helps improve mood.

Via tumblr.com

Not only by increasing feel-good chemicals in the brain, but also by practicing and promoting development of social skills in P.E., for example (Ratey, 2008).

5. Cells borne from exercise are naturally more stress resistant.

Via tumblr.com

Exercise helped beta mice be less anxious when faced with bullying alpha mice (Reynolds, 2012).

6. On that note, stress, fear, or anger in the classroom setting leads to less learning.

Via tumblr.com

When the classroom feels more like a prison or cage than a fun environment, the amygdala tells the brain to close access to its higher paths of thinking in order to protect itself (Zull, 2011).

7. Emotion guides learning like a rudder guides a ship.

Via tumblr.com

Emotional learning shapes future behavior: students' emotional reactions will be remembered next time they find themselves in similar academic situations, whether they were exciting memories or risky and uncomfortable memories (Immordino-Yang & Faeth, 2010).

8. Similarly, students will only allow themselves to experience failure in an atmosphere of trust and respect.

Via tumblr.com

Humor or incentive can help students invest in the classroom culture as an enjoyable place to belong. This goes a long way in helping students feel safe expressing themselves, learning from their mistakes, and building social cohesion (Immordino-Yang & Faeth, 2010).

9. Giving students options to show their knowledge allows for further emotional investment.

Via tumblr.com

When students are involved in designing the lesson, they understand the goals and outcomes more clearly, and this can give them ownership over their learning, allowing more meaningful retention (Immordino-Yang & Faeth, 2010).

10. We are searching for environments, activities, and techniques that naturally generate positive feelings and lead students to say "I have to learn".

Via tumblr.com

Overcoming challenge is part of the joy of learning. Therefore, challenge is valuable. In fact, a mistake-rich environment is preferable because it can lead to more insight and more truly authentic learning (Zull, 2011).

11. The student needs to be the center of the learning and lessons.

Via tumblr.com

People learn when they think the learning is truly about their life. The students should feel that they are in charge of themselves and their learning. The goal is for students to be able to say "We did this ourselves," (Zull, 2002).

12. We don't pay attention to boring things.

Via tumblr.com

Interest and perceived importance are inextricably linked to attention. Hooks for students need to be deliberate and relevant (Medina, 2008).

13. I need to be reminded every ten minutes why I care in the first place.

Via tumblr.com

Attention spans are only good for about ten minutes before tuning out. Learners need to be emotionally reinvested every ten minutes to maintain attention (Medina, 2015).

14. The brain needs (dance) breaks.

Via tumblr.com

The more attention given to stimuli, the more elaborate the encoding to memory. However, relating too much information in too little time without elaboration leads to poor retention (Medina, 2008). Be sure to take breaks and move!

15. Repetition with purpose can help information become elaborately encoded into long term memory.

Via tumblr.com

Repeated exposures to information, with multiple forms of encoding -- phonemic (how it sounds), structural (how it looks), and semantic (what it means) -- and at regular, fixed intervals provide the best results for elaborately encoding information into long term memory (Medina, 2008).

16. Only 13% of information is retained in a sit-and-get-lecture (Savion & Glisczinski, 2012)

Via tumblr.com

Emotionally competent stimuli is the most powerfully processed external stimuli ever measured. Hot, spicy emotionally competent stimuli is known to pass through several brain regions, including the sensory, temporal, frontal, and motor regions (Medina, 2008).

17. The reticular activating system is the first filter that sorts what information passes through toward higher paths of thinking.

Via tumblr.com

When the RAS perceives danger, it works with the amygdala to make sure we don't think about it very much. Instead, we activate our fight-or-flight response (Willis, 2010).

18. The 21st century classroom will likely look much different from education as we understand it now.

Via tumblr.com

The 21st century classroom needs to be an emotionally safe, emotionally engaging, physically active, challenging and collaborative environment in order to best make learning relevant and real to students.

References (regretfully, sans hanging indent)

Immordino-Yang, M. H., and Faeth, M. (2010). The role of emotion and skilled intuition in learning. In D. A. Sousa (Ed.), Mind, brain, and education: Neuroscience implications for the classroom (pp. 69-83). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Medina, J. (2008). Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.

Medina, J. (2015). Attention! Retrieved from http://www.brainrules.net/attention

Posner, M. I. (2010). Neuroimaging tools and the evolution of educational neuroscience. In D. A. Sousa (Ed.), Mind, brain, and education: Neuroscience implications for the classroom (pp. 45-66). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Ratey, J. J., and Hagerman, E. (2008). Spark: The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Reynolds, G. (2012). The first 20 minutes: Surprising science reveals how we can exercise better, train smarter, live longer. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Savion, S., and Gliszcinski D. (2012). I before E precipitates Cs: Rethinking instruction without emotion in light of neuroscientific alternatives. Retrieved from http://www.d.umn.edu/~dglisczi/Glisczinski/Glisczinski&SavionIbeforeE.pdf

Willis, J. (2010). The current impact of neuroscience on teaching and learning. In D. A. Sousa (Ed.), Mind, brain, and education: Neuroscience implications for the classroom (pp. 45-66). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Zull, J. E. (2002). The art of changing the brain: Enriching teaching by exploring the biology of learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Zull, J. E. (2011). From brain to mind: Using neuroscience to guide change in education. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Put together by: Francisco Rivera