The Heart-Brain Connection: The Neuroscience of Social, Emotional, and A...




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Projects and Assessment Portfolio

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Projects and Assessment Portfolio Projects Project-based learning lessons are all based on solving a central question/s (umbrella question). Ideally, these questions/problems are ones that are posed by the students. When developing your question, be sure to keep in mind that it should not be Google-able ! If Google can instantly provide an answer to the driving question, then it is certainly not sufficient enough to propel meaningful research and study. The essential question should be one that can only be answered through the process of investigating and gathering information. So let’s say a student asks the question, “How long is the term for state senators?” While we wouldn’t want to use that a s a driving question (It’s Google-able), it would certainly be a great start. Instead, you might help them go a bit further and ask, “How could we create an information center at our school that teaches our peers about various government offices?”   Now you have a question to explore th...
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Motivating teenagers

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Why are teenagers so unmotivated all the time? What activities can we do to engange them in class? New discoveries in neuroscience can provide us with a biological explanation for this. Brain function is different in adolescence than in adulthood (25 years). The Prefrontal cortex continues to mature into the 20s, making decision-making generally more effortful and difficult. Adolescents operate more from the reflexive, instinctive, amygdalar part of brain, leading to impulsivity. They also have less activity in the nucleus accumbens (a region of the frontal cortex) which leads to motivational deficit. This means that adolescents are drawn to high-excitement and low-effort experiences, or both. Long-term planning suffers and risk-taking or "laziness" are very common. Teenagers can be very demanding and critical but once they are motivated they can show a lot of creativity and imagination in class so the question is how we can motivate them and get the most of each of them.... ...
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The Anti Bullying Class

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This is a topic so relevant in today's world. Last year, one of my students was bullied outside the classroom and it was quite difficult to detect it until she came to me and talked about her problem. Detecting bullies is not that easy because most of them don't act uopn their victims in front of adults. Children and teenagers tend to become cruel sometimes and it is part of their growing. However, when teasing becomes repetitive and it is made on purpose to hurt a child that is called bullying.  It is essential to take this issue seriously and do something about it. Not only teachers and the school community should be involved but also parents and the government too. Developing kindness and empathy in our children is essential if we want to make a substantial change to stop bullying in class. Some Ideas to prevent bullying With teenagers you can explain what bullying is and prepare some questions for discussion to raise awareness of such an important issue. How can bullying ha...
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