The Adolescent Brain:
What’s Going On
In There?
Presented by:
Deb Sachs
Association for Middle Level Education Annual Conference
Columbus, Ohio
October, 2015
Deb Sachs
University of Indianapolis
Director, Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship
[email protected]
A General Introduction to the Brain
Illustrations courtesy of Pat Wolfe Deb Sachs ©2015
Illustration courtesy of Pat Wolfe How do neurons relate to learning and memory?
1.
2.
Learning is the act of making and strengthening connections between
thousands of neurons, thus forming neural circuits or networks.
Memory is the ability to reconstruct or reactivate the previously-made
connections.
The Conventional Wisdom
By adolescence, the brain has reached its adult size. Thus, the conventional
wisdom was that the brain was fully developed and functioning in a manner similar
to an adult brain.
The Conventional Wisdom Was Wrong!
As it turns out, there are very complex changes taking place in the brain during
adolescence.
Furthermore, the brain is probably not fully “installed” until perhaps the age of
twenty!
Deb Sachs ©2015
Changes in the Adolescent Brain
Change Number One
Starting around 10 or 11 years of age, the brain undergoes a major growth spurt of
connections in the prefrontal lobes. After puberty, about half of the new
connections are pruned away to allow the brain to operate more efficiently.
Change Number Two
Myelination is still occurring in the frontal lobes of the brain.
Myelin is an insulating substance that allows neurons to conduct impulses faster
and more efficiently.
Change Number Three
The corpus callosum increases in size by adding more dendrites and synapses.
Change Number Four
The gray matter in the temporal lobes is growing until around age sixteen.
(UCLA Laboratory of Neuroimaging)
Change Number Five
The cerebellum is still developing.
Emotions and the Adolescent Brain
Illustration courtesy of Pat Wolfe Deb Sachs ©2015
Strategies for Reaching and Teaching
Adolescents
TM
1. Classrooms and schools need to positively engage adolescents’ emotions.
2. Get students’ attention.
3. Provide opportunities for adolescents to practice their abstract thinking
while still being grounded in concrete information.
4. Provide timely and specific feedback. Without feedback, the brain doesn’t
know which neuron pathways it should maintain and which pathways it should
prune.
5. Encourage and help adolescents make connections between what they are
learning and what they already know. When presented with new information,
the brain searches its pathways to find something to which to connect the
new information.
6. Arm adolescents with the knowledge of how their brain functions and what is
“going on in there.”
Deb Sachs ©2015
Strategies for
Reaching and Teaching
Adolescents: Ideas for Implementation
Ideas for positively engaging students:
• Ensure that students have the academic background necessary to accomplish their
assignments.
• Vary instructional methods
• Give students a few minutes to transition into your classroom.
• Make sure everyone has a chance at some success.
• Speak calmly even when you don’t feel calm
• Reprimand gently and in private.
• Remember that relationships require give and take – it might be necessary to ignore
fleeting behavior that doesn’t really affect others.
Ideas
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for getting students’ attention:
Discrepant events
Comic strips
Songs
Stories
MIX IT UP!!
Ideas for allowing students to practice abstract thinking while still being grounded in
concrete information:
• Use metaphors and analogies
• Identify similarities and differences
• Analyze instead of merely reacting
• Teach decision making models and protocols
• Write a newspaper headline for what was taught in class.
• Examine other perspectives on an issue
Ideas
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for giving timely and specific feedback:
Sixty second papers
Pro-con grids
Performance based assessments
Ideas for encouraging students to make connections between what they are learning and
what they already know:
• Cue students.
• Use mnemonics and rhymes.
• The brain remembers images more than words (graphic organizers, pictures, charts,
illustrated vocabulary).
Deb Sachs ©2015
Strategies that Capitalize on How The
Brain Learns
Brain Assistance Area
Deb Sachs ©2015
Additional Learning Resources
Brain Hemisphere Hat. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2015, from Ellen McHenry's
Basement Workshop: http://www.ellenjmchenry.com/homeschoolfreedownloads/lifesciences-games/brain
Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives: http://www.dana.orghemishpere.php
Jensen, Frances (2015) The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to
Raising Adolescents and Young Adults. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
Knoz, R. (2010, March 1). NPR. Retrieved October 12, 2015, from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124119468
Philp, Raleigh. (2007) Engaging ‘Tweens and Teens: A Brain-Compatible Approach
to Reaching Middle and High School Students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Steinberg, Laurence (2014) Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science
of Adolescence. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co.
Sousa, David. (2001) How the Brain Learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Willis, Judy. (2006) Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD
Wolfe, Patricia. (2001) Brain Matters, Translating Research into Classroom
Practice. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Yurgelum-Todd, D. (2002) Frontline interview “Inside the Teen Brain” on
PBS.org. Full interview available on the web at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/interviews
/todd.html
Deb Sachs ©2015