Effective Collaboration for Educating the Whole Child by Kochhar-Bryant Carol A.;Heishman Angela S.;

Author:Kochhar-Bryant, Carol A.;Heishman, Angela S.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1051552
Publisher: Corwin Press
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Because middle school students want to and need to be involved in their own learning, teachers in effective middle schools make every attempt to involve all students actively in the educational process (NMSA, 2002).

Classroom Strategies Compatible With Adolescent Brain Development

As research has indicated, there is a disconnect between standards-based educational environments and the nonstandard, individual, variable social and cognitive development, learning preferences, social development, and rapid physical changes that occur during early adolescence (A. Jackson & Davis, 2000; Haugaard, 2000; Urdan & Klein, 1999; U.S. Department of Education, 2000). Neuropsychologists agree memory and attention are affected during adolescent development, when the prefrontal cortex of the brain undergoes changes. They also agree that the way to hold attention in young adolescents is to engage the senses and emotions and to combine this with problem-based learning (Casey et al., 2000; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007; L. Wilson & Horch, 2004). After students are introduced to a problem in a unit, teachers encourage them to ask questions that interest them. Using essential questions to frame the unit, incorporating the senses and emotions to focus the learning, and then facilitating students as they find multiple ways to solve problems can focus adolescent learning while building complex neuron connections within the brain (Wilson & Horch). Classroom activities that are compatible with attention and memory in adolescents include the following:

Problem-based activities that engage students in working together to examine real-life issues and solve problems using all their senses

Activities that require students to take responsibility for directing their own work and for team participation

Playing music to link memory to specific learning tasks to facilitate young adolescents’ sensorimotor connections

Having students write reflectively to reinforce and consolidate learning

Using physical challenges as a context for solving problems and building collaboration (e.g., low ropes courses)

Involving students in real-life apprenticeships in which they shadow workers in various jobs or learn skills in short internships that either connect to an area of study or help them understand one of the problems they have posed

Peer collaboration or cooperative learning to promote group problem solving

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