Connect
Grey Matters
  • About The Film
    • Filmmaker & Crew
  • Buy The Film
    • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Press
  • Contact

Breaking words or building words

5/8/2017

1 Comment

 
Words can break a student or build a student.  What words are are you using in your classroom? Are they building words like “You’re getting better at this” or “I like your persistence” or are they breaking words like “Seriously” or “I can’t believe you don’t remember this”.  

We’ve all had those moments where we mentally wonder if our students are ever going to get it.  What feels like the millionth time we’ve explained a concept or helped them to sound a word out for the correct spelling; maybe it’s remembering their multiplication tables.  And, without meaning to, you might say something like, “Are you kidding me?” 

Now maybe you caught yourself and rephrased, in an attempt to not show just how frustrated you are.

Or maybe you didn’t even notice.

But your student did.

That singular moment for the teacher, one of a million in their average day, is now embedded in that student’s mind.  

And it’ll stay there.

Nagging at them.

Feeding their insecurity.

And making them doubt their ability.

Well past their school days, they’ll most likely, recall that one moment with that one teacher, who said “Are you kidding me?”
​

Words are like spells.  What spell are you casting in your classroom? 

Picture
1 Comment

The power of connection and caring

4/16/2017

0 Comments

 
I recently read J.D.Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy (fascinating read and I highly recommend) where he credits his academic turnaround in high school to the stability he gained after he moves in with his grandmother.  Throughout the latter part of the book Vance talks about the importance of role models and expectations - thinking that you can do something - and most of all, how a support network can help, even in the most challenging of family situations.  

One of the things touched on in Grey Matters is the impact of stress on learning.  Keep in mind, all stress is not equal.  The stress of a kid not having their favorite cereal versus hoping there’s something to have for breakfast this morning.  Or the stress of not finding their new jeans versus hoping there are clean clothes.  It’s an omnipresent stress.  If a student is stressed, they’re not focused on learning.  Research has found stress physically changes the brain, shrinking the hippocampus, which plays a key role in memory.  

Dr.Mariale Hardiman, author of the book, “The Brain Targeted Teaching Model for the 21st Century School,” the basis of Grey Matters, discusses stress and learning in Brain Target 1 - establishing the emotional component for learning.  When a teacher prioritizes establishing a positive emotional classroom climate and striving to connect with their students, it “broadens cognitive associations  and results in better performance on creative thinking measures” (Fredrickson B.L.)

So what does this look like in a classroom, when a teacher understands how severely stress impacts on learning?  Jeremy Mettler, a high school teacher at Batavia High School, a rustbelt city in upstate New York, aims to eliminate the barriers to learning in his classroom.  “I keep pens, pencils, snacks, and water in his classroom.  It’s there. They know where it is. If they need something printed, I can do that.  I want them to know that I care. Because when they know I care about them, I can get them to go so much further in my classroom.  

For Vicky Krug, a developmental education professor at Westmoreland County Community College, it’s a tougher crowd.  Students in her classes arrive angry, because they’ve tested, and unfairly they feel, into her class.  For Krug, when she was a student, the most important thing to her was knowing that she mattered and she wants her students to know they matter. Despite feeling like they’re starting their college career off at a disadvantage.
​

Hardiman’s book quotes research studies that show “students who report having personal connections with adults in school have stronger academic performance (WIlson, 2004), attendance (Croninger and Lee, 2001), and school completion rates (Connell, Halpern-Felsher, Clifford, Crichlow, & Usinger, 1995; Finn & Rock, 1997).  They are also less likely to engage in disruptive behavior and violence in school (Goodenow, 1993; Lonczak, Abbott, Hawkins, Kosterman, & Catalano, 2002).

 If you want your students to care about learning, let them know they matter.

Show your students, you care about them.


Yours in learning and filmmaking.
Ramona
0 Comments

Documentary Film Shows Connection Between Learning and Brain Sciences

2/20/2017

0 Comments

 
For immediate release: February 21, 2017
Contact: Ramona Persaud: 315-272-5791;info at changethelensproductions dot com
                                
Documentary Film Shows Connection Between Learning and Brain Sciences

Syracuse, N.Y.—A novel teaching method informed by the brain sciences is the subject of a documentary film, “Grey Matters: Teaching the Way the Brain Learns.” The film will be shown on Thursday, March 23, at 6:30pm at the Johns Hopkins School of Education in Baltimore.

The Brain Targeted Teaching Model, developed by Dr. Mariale Hardiman, interim dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Education, is a model of best practices, informed by research from the brain sciences. Grey Matters follows three public school teachers using the Brain Targeted Teaching Model in their classrooms.

 The first step in the process of executing the model is teachers having students make an emotional connection to what they’re learning. 

“The brain looks for patterns all the time,” said Hardiman, who created the Neuro-Education Initiative when she joined the School of Education in 2006. “The physical environment is an important factor in students’ attendant behavior and their engagement. I tell teachers to make their classrooms as homey as possible.”

Content standards and objectives are designed using graphics to show students the connections between the skills, content and concepts they’ll be learning. 

“Try putting together a jigsaw puzzle without seeing the picture on the outside of the box. The various pieces of the puzzle wouldn’t make much sense to you, and yet that’s what we do to kids all the time,” said Hardiman. “We give them activities, but we never give them the big picture—why the activities are important or where they’re leading, or how they were built from their prior knowledge. 

Once students demonstrate a mastery of content, teachers design activities that enable their students to apply the acquired knowledge in real-world settings.

 “Real learning is when you apply knowledge,” said Hardiman, who is the author of The Brain-Targeted Teaching Model for 21st Century Schools, published in 2012 by Corwin. “The teachers themselves are not only taught what to do in the classroom, but why they’re doing it. And they understand why they’re doing it from the basis of how children think and learn.”
    
The film was produced and directed by Ramona Persaud who spent a year observing teachers using the model in classrooms across the United States. 


0 Comments

    Author

    Ramona Persaud

    Archives

    October 2021
    November 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    March 2014
    February 2014
    September 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Academic Intervention
    Active Retrieval
    Ancient History
    Annie Murphy Paul
    Arts Integration
    Assessment
    Assumptions
    Back To School Shopping
    Bad Day
    BAM Radio
    Bias
    Born To Learn
    Brain
    Brain Rules
    Brain Targeted Teaching
    Brilliance
    Broken
    Building Community
    Calming Techniques
    Caring
    Cartoons
    Change The Way We Teach
    Circadian Rhythms
    Civil War
    Classroom
    Classroom Culture
    Context And Cues
    Coronavirus
    Covering
    Covid-19
    Creative Thinkers
    Creativity
    Critical Thinking
    Cross Curricular Teaching
    Curriculum
    Designing The Lesson Plan
    Detachment
    Distance Learning
    Donations
    Doubt
    #edchat
    Education
    Educational
    Education Reform
    Effective Teaching
    ELA Reading
    ELA Writing
    E-learning
    Elections 2020
    Emotion
    Emotional Intelligence
    Emotional Regulation
    Emotions
    Empathy
    End Of Year
    End Of Year Exams
    Engagement
    Environment
    Evaluating Learning
    Extensions
    Failing
    Failing Students
    Failure
    Feelings
    Flash Cards
    Fun
    GIving
    Goals
    Grit
    Growth
    Healthy Eating
    Helping Teachers Excel
    Hippocampus
    How To Study
    Improving Teaching Practice
    Inquiry Based Classroom
    Inquiry Learning
    Insecurity
    Jeremy Mettler
    Jessica Lahey
    Jobs
    John Medina
    Johns Hopkins
    Justin Holbrook
    Ken Robinson
    Knowledge
    Language Arts
    #leadupchat
    Learning
    Learning Curve
    Learning Spaces
    Learning Styles
    Learning Styles Irrelevant
    Lesson Plans
    Life
    Long Term Memory
    Love Learning
    Lynne Kenney
    Mariale Hardiman
    Math
    Measuring Growth
    Memorable
    Memory
    Memory And Recall
    Mental Health
    Metacognition
    Modeling
    Multi Sensorial Learning
    Neuroeducation
    Neuroplasticity
    New Parents
    Novelty In Learning
    NPR
    Obstacles
    OnPoint
    Pandemic Schooling
    Parental Involvement
    Parenting
    PBS
    Pedagogy
    Planning Time
    Plasticity
    Portfolio Learning
    Positive Academic Out Comes
    Poverty
    #professionaldevelopment
    Professional Development
    Psychology
    PTO
    Public School Students
    Purdue University
    Quizzing
    Race
    Racial Inequities
    Reaching Your Students
    Reading
    Real Life
    Research
    Research Based
    Resilience
    Retention
    Retention And Retrieval
    Roland Park Elementary Middle School
    Scantron
    School
    School Supplies
    School Taxes
    Science
    Self Regulation
    Short Term Memory
    Silo
    Sleep
    Snacks
    Social Emotional Learning
    Social Studies
    Special Education
    Standardized Testing
    Stress
    Stressed Students
    Struggling Readers
    Student Engagement
    Student Feedback
    Supportive
    Teacher
    Teacher Efficacy
    Teacher Isolation
    Teacher Portfolio
    Teacher Retention
    Teachers
    Teacher Training
    Teaching
    Teaching During Coronovirus
    Teaching For Mastery
    Teaching Framework
    Teaching Practice
    Teaching Teams
    Teaching Technique
    Team
    TED
    Teresa Danks
    Testing
    Time Of Day Instruction
    Ulrich Kraft
    Uncertainity
    Unit Study
    Vicky Krug
    Vimeo
    Visual Arts
    Vocabulary
    Westmoreland County Community College
    Why Kids Hate School
    Words

    RSS Feed

info @ changethelensproductions dot com | c 2017 | All Rights Reserved