Brainstorm! provides learning insights

About 150 school board members, superintendents and educators attended the March 20 Brainstorm! seminar hosted by ASBA. The event featured Dr. Pat Wolfe, who presented on how the brain makes connections and related it to student learning, and David Warlick, who updated attendees on technology advances and how to incorporate technology into education to keep students interested.

“Our job is not to help kids do well in school; it’s to help them do well in life,” noted Dr. Wolfe, an educator and author. She described how the brain functions using electrical and chemical connections and shared illustrations of brain activity during different activities. She said that the more often the brain uses the same connections, the more automatic that reaction becomes. The brain seeks to fit every encounter with existing knowledge or connections; if it can’t make a connection, the information is dropped. That is why rote memorization does not generally provide students with lasting knowledge.

Wolfe described the two types of memory – procedural and declarative. Procedural memory involves skills or habits that are practiced to the point they are automatic and unconscious. An example is repeated practice of multiplication tables (rote rehearsal). Declarative memory is the general knowledge and life experiences that we can recall consciously. Declarative memory benefits from elaborative rehearsal. Examples of this include reciprocal or peer teaching, simulations, hands-on activities and visuals.

Teachers can use techniques such as letting students share with each other the lessons they have been taught to reinforce the new information. Wolfe also suggests simulations, role play, experiments and field trips to help students relate new information to existing knowledge the brain possesses to create learning that lasts.

Wolfe noted we not know the types of problems our students will face in the future, and teachers are preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet. This uncertainty requires us to help students understand how to learn throughout their lives so they will be able to adapt to changes that occur in the future.

The afternoon session was devoted to the use of technology. Warlick explained that students learn by sharing experiences with one another. He demonstrated how easily website content can be uploaded for viewing by others. In fact, Warlick shot digital photos of Dr. Wolfe’s morning presentation and uploaded the photos and text to his website blog (“blog” is short for “web log,” similar to a journal) before lunch.

Warlick said 20th century educators prepared students to enter a workforce in which they would “work in straight rows, doing repetitive tasks under close supervision.” Twenty-first century students must be adaptive and well versed in all forms of technology. Warlick noted that students need to spend less time learning to “use paper” and more time using digital and light technologies. Students will be part of a global virtual workforce, and we need to break down classroom walls that constrain students, according to Warlick.

Students today spend many hours away from school sharing information through social networks and playing games with team members they have never met in person. They are different learners than those of the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of them are self-taught in terms of computers, digital cameras, software applications, blogs and web-based games.

Warlick noted that adults view information as a product, while children consider information a raw material to which they add value, mix with other information and edit. He demonstrated this by showing a video clip that his son had digitally taped, edited and mixed with music. Educators who create learning environments in which students can blend their creativity with up-to-date technology capabilities have the best chance of keeping students engaged, as well as preparing them for a future that none of us can describe.

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