If your students embrace that concept, they can become more motivated and confident. Their intelligence level is not fixed it can grow and change. That’s anĮxtremely important point for students to understand.
This process takes place throughout our lives, as we learn from and react to sensory inputs of all kinds. That’s calledīrain – or neuro – plasticity. Present material in a way that relates directly to something the students already knowĪs discussed in Part 1 of this series, the brain is constantly changing and reorganizing itself by forming new neural connections.Attempt to ascertain and build upon each student’s existing level of knowledge.Therefore, we can increase our teaching effectiveness if we: One student’s potential cannot be evaluated against another’s, unless both have had equal opportunity They can branch out into higher levels of knowledge. Understanding that dendrites build upon existing dendrites, we realize that students need the opportunity to grow foundation dendrites for a topic before Scientific proof that “practice makes perfect”! Matter how many synapses a neuron has, it still has the potential to grow more. Weak synapses become stronger through practice and learning. Your volume of synapses is constantly changing, too, and some are stronger than others. The coatingĪlso reduces interference, enabling you to come up with answers more quickly. Thicker dendrites pass signals over the synapses more quickly. You have! Do the math… it’s “mind-boggling” (if you pardon the expression).Īs you practice something, your related dendrites develop a thick fatty coating. You can grow as many as 10,000 connections (synapses) for each of the 100 billion neurons More and more massive with each new piece of information learned. Learning a subject or skill involves growing topic-specific dendrites to connect specific neurons at specific synapses. When two dendrites grow close together, chemical or electrical messages can be sent from one neuron toĪnother, through the contact point between the dendrites, called the synapse. Growing your dendrites takes time and practice. In other words, you’re building new knowledge upon the things you already know (like a tree sprouting twigs from existing Learning is built, as your network of dendrites grow higher and higher, with new dendrites sproutingįrom existing dendrites. As you listen to, talk about, or practice something, fibers called dendrites grow out of your neurons. You are born with at least 100 billion brain cells, called neurons. In this installment, we explore the basics of brain anatomy and learning physiology.
Toward this goal, we offer Part 2 of our six-part series entitled
If you acquire a basic understanding of brainįunctionality, will it help you guide students to their full potential? We believe so. National Young Leaders Alumni ConferenceĮducators are constantly learning new things in the evolving quest to inform and inspire our students. Presidential Inauguration Leadership Summit.