{"id":6515,"date":"2017-03-24T03:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T03:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/fctl\/?p=6515"},"modified":"2019-06-05T20:03:28","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T20:03:28","slug":"the-brain-and-learning-a-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/2017\/03\/24\/the-brain-and-learning-a-short\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brain and Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jacqueline Childress<\/strong><\/p>\n

Earlier this month, I had the good fortune of attending the Lily Conference. It was my first time attending and I came away learning a number of interesting facts and tips. First, I discovered who makes up Generation Z. If you don’t know, some believe it’s kids born from 1995 on and some believe it’s kids born from 2000 on. The most mind boggling thing about Generation Z to me is that their attention span is all of eight (8) seconds. Yes, you read that correctly–8 seconds. How do you, as an educator, engage students who have such short attention spans?<\/p>\n

Well, the brain has to be prepared for learning. How? Luckily, I took notes:
\n1. Be sure you’re properly hydrated–drink when thirsty. Long-distance runners will tell you the best gauge to know if you’re hydrated is clear urine. Sorry folks, but that’s it.
\n2. Eat a balanced diet–the brain needs glucose because that’s where it gets its energy.
\n3. Get plenty of exercise–even a walk will do. Your brain needs oxygen and exercise will improve the brain’s readiness to learn.
\n4. Get plenty of sleep–this is a tough one for many of us, but a vital necessity. It is important not only for our health, but it allows the brain to make new memories and avoids the pitfalls of sleep deprivation.<\/p>\n

Once the brain is ready to learn, engage as many of the senses as possible. Again, from notes, the sensory pathways create memories which solidify comprehension and recall.<\/p>\n

In addition, there are actions one can take to improve memory and recall like taking a power nap–even 15 minutes can help. And the three keys to remembering are:
\n1. Repetition over time;
\n2. Elaborate what you’re learning; and
\n3. A desire to remember.<\/p>\n

So, there you have it. Try these things out and see if they help. If your students suddenly lose interest in class, don’t get offended or automatically assume they’re not interested. It could be their 8 seconds of attention has kicked in or they simply haven’t eaten breakfast or lunch or dinner and, like the majority of us, haven’t had enough hydration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jacqueline Childress<\/strong>
\n
\nEarlier this month, I had the good fortune of attending the Lily Conference. It was my first time attending and I came away learning a number of interesting facts and tips. First, I discovered who makes up Generation Z. If you don’t know, some believe it’s kids born from 1995 on and some believe it’s kids born from 2000 on. The most mind boggling thing about Generation Z to me is that their attention span is all of eight (8) seconds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":6516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-written-by-faculty"],"acf":{"carousel_content":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}