Welcome To Your Brain

Welcome To Your BrainSeminar 1

What to Expect!Presentation of information

Thinking Routines to help us reflect on our own thinking and identify our own dispositions as learners.

Activities individual or group

Parts of The Brainhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snO68aJTOpM

3Goals for the Seminar SeriesWhat can learning about the brain teach us about how we learn?

How can examining our own dispositions help us achieve a better understanding of how we learn?

How can we develop strategies to help us with the process of learning?

THINK-PUZZLE-EXPLORE1. What do you think you know about your brain?

2. What questions or puzzles do you have?

3. What does the topic make you want to explore?

5Before We Get UnderwayWe are learning more and more every day about how the brain functions and how that translates to behavior including learning.

6Brain Fact or FictionYou only use 10% of your brain power.

You have 6000 thoughts every day.

Your brain uses as much energy as a refrigerator bulb.

Drinking kills brain cells.

Memory starts to get worse when you hit 30.

Doing Sudoku improves memory.

Listening to Mozart makes babies smarter.

True or False Activity: Get students (on their own) to decide which facts are true and which are false in their book. T: 2, 3, 57How is your brain like(?)A cabbageA raisinA pillowcaseA grapefruitString cheeseA walnut

8A cabbage - weight, stemA raisin -convolutions (membrane)A pillowcase - size - unfoldedA grapefruit - skin, thickness of cortex; high % of waterString cheese - corpus colosum - bundle of axons, fibersA walnut - two sides, skull covering; lobesThree pounds, three partsYour brain is your most powerful organ, yet weighs only about three pounds. It has a texture similar to firm jelly.It has three main parts:

The cerebrum fills up most of your skull. It is involved in remembering, problem solving, thinking, and feeling. It also controls movement.

The cerebellum sits at the back of your head, under the cerebrum. It controls coordination and balance.

The brain stem sits beneath your cerebrum in front of your cerebellum. It connects the brain to the spinal cord and controls automatic functions such as breathing, digestion, heart rate and blood pressure.

http://www.alz.org/brain/01.asp9Supply linesYour brain is nourished by one of your body's richest networks of blood vessels.

With each heartbeat, arteries carry about 20 to 25 percent of your blood to your brain, where billions of cells use about 20 percent of the oxygen and fuel your blood carries.

When you are thinking hard, your brain may use up to 50 percent of the fuel and oxygen.

The whole vessel network includes veins and capillaries in addition to arteries.

http://www.alz.org/brain/01.asp

10The neuron forestThe real work of your brain goes on in individual neurons.

Scientists call this dense, branching network a "neuron forest.

Signals traveling through the neuron forest form the basis of memories, thoughts, and feelings.

http://www.alz.org/brain/01.asp

11The NeuronThere are ~ 100 billion

Small enough for 30,000 to fit on head of a pin

Connects with thousands of other neurons

Courtesy of Morphonix LLC, Sausalito, CAThe NeuronThree major components:

Dendrites:

Receive information from other neurons

Courtesy of Morphonix LLC, Sausalito, CAThe NeuronSoma:

Cell body containing the nucleus, the brain of the neuron

Courtesy of Morphonix LLC, Sausalito, CAThe NeuronAxon:

Connects with other cells to transmit information

Can be up to several feet long!

Courtesy of Morphonix LLC, Sausalito, CAThe NeuronAlways active!

Constantly integrating and generating information

Hotbed of activity! Neurons dont hibernate!

Courtesy of Morphonix LLC, Sausalito, CACells signalingSignals that form memories and thoughts move through an individual nerve cell as a tiny electrical charge.

Nerve cells connect to one another at synapses.

When a charge reaches a synapse, it may trigger release of tiny bursts of chemicals called neurotransmitters.

The neurotransmitters travel across the synapse, carrying signals to other cells.

Signal coding100 billion nerve cells 100 trillion synapses dozens of neurotransmitters

This strength in numbers provides your brains raw material.

Over time, our experiences create patterns in signal type and strength. These patterns of activity explain how, at the cellular level, our brains code our thoughts, memories, skills and sense of who we are.Brain is modified by environment Dendrites can grow at any age

Synaptic connections occur at any age; easier earlier in life

Brain is PLASTIC.AdaptableUse it or Lose it

Brain is malleable, our experiences help shape it.It is like a muscle the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. Every time you try hard and learn something new, your brains form new connections that ,over time, make you more clever.Intellectual development is not the natural unfolding of intelligence, but rather the formation of new connections brought through EFFORT & LEARNING! 19Synaptic Density & Maturation

More is not always better! We have more synapses at age 6 than age 20! Synapses are created with astonishing speed in the first three years of life. For the rest of the first decade, childrens brains have twice as many synapses as adults brains. Shore, R. 199720HeadlineIf you were to write a headline that captures the most important aspect to keep in mind for this seminar, what would that headline be?

Discuss Your HeadlineWith a partner, discuss your headline.

What are the similarities and differences in your thinking?

We use our whole brain!Both hemispheres work together

Many functions occur simultaneously

Studies show that when more neurons in the brain were firing at the same time, learning, meaning, and retention were greater for the learner.23Can we become more intelligent?Brain is malleable; our experiences help shape it.

It is like a muscle the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes.

Every time you try hard and learn something new, your brains form new connections.

Intellectual development is not the natural unfolding of intelligence, but rather the formation of new connections brought through EFFORT & LEARNING!