BrainToolz

Memory and learning

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Memory Learning and Understanding

THINKING

http://www.cast.org/

Comprehension

Awareness

Important concepts

Levels of understanding HAZY QUESTION CLEAR MASTERY

realization epiphany

Memory Tips

Reminders

Recall

Associations

Visualization

Cognition

Study Skills

Metacognition

Learning

Retention Forgetting curve

Pedagogy

Education

Metacognition- Self evaluating dialogue

Perception -

Senses- synaesthesia -

Vocabulary

recall
Forgetting/ Retention scale
learning scale

Forgetting curve - -

Comprehension

Learning in context (Contextualized learning)

Questions

What is the difference between knowing and understanding?
Does knowing a lot of things mean you are smart?
How do you remember things?
How do you learn?
How do smells and music trigger memories?
Deja vous
Flashback?
Do people remember things differently?
Does figuring out problems mean you are smart?
What is more important than memory?
What is thinking?
What is the difference between knowing and figuring things out?

What are your dreams?

Vision and Imagination

Memory Strategies

Make connections: analogies, symbols, associations, metaphors, paradigms, frameworks, principles, rules
Association - What does it remind you of- Compare and contrast. Use a list to associate it with. Tree list house list. Can you RELATE? (Relatives)
Mnemonics (research and create a new page)
Visualize
Add emotions and feelings to what you are learning.
Flash cards with question on one side and answer on the back-
Audio flash cards use a computer to record audio for your I pod with a question then an answer
Study- and review frequently. briefly and often 20 minutes take a break then come back lather repeat. (Prioritize study time first things first.
Meditation

Study Skills

Quiet place

Memory exercises

memory game with pictures
simon says
Memorize pi 3.14 quiz at 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 60 70 80 90 100 120 140 160 180 200 100 pi club or prize
Presidents- States- Continents- Planets
constantly test your memory and recall
Learn the names of everybody in TCAP (Face Quiz - include Famous people and School personel - Admin- teachers- students -TCAP)

Memory Tests/ Games

Memory tips

Repitition

Patterns- Associations- Similarities differences

Repitition with emotion-

Repitition with mental connections to what is known (prior knowledge) Compare and contrast- Make associations Connected and disconnected associations.

Mnemonics

http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html

stress

http://www.memory-learning.com/studycourse.html

prosopagnosia

Misunderstanding:

Fogetting - Forgetting is normal. Do not believe that just becuase you forgot something that it means you are stupid. we all forget we all have to grasp knowledge. Do not fall prey to this false belief. Work on your memory skills. Sometimes you might have a tight grasp sometimes you don't.

Stupidity vs ignorance

- nitwit- dumb-

Joke: A rich lady wanted to take a bath in milk. So she tells her butler to get her some milk. The butler then asks " Do you want that milk Pastureized?" The rich lady responds" no just to my chin".

-+++

Education for the Whole Brain

Shaun Kerry, M.D.
Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

The human brain has many parts, but our present educational system only addresses a small percentage of those.

Most of our education today focuses on a narrow segment of the brain, located in the left portion of the cerebral cortex.

Isolating certain parts of the brain does not promote

cohesion: ideally, all parts of the brain should work together.

According to research conducted at the California Institute of Technology during the 1950s, the left side of the brain gives us the ability to analyze, use words, and work with numbers. Conversely, the right side of the brain is responsible for our ability to unify concepts - to put details together resulting in the formulation of a complete picture - and to be creative.

Much as people are right or left handed, most people are right or left-brain dominant. Left-brain dominant people are most successful in our current educational system, which limits creativity, and relies mostly upon words and numbers.

Our system neglects to consider the needs of right-brain dominant individuals; the 50% of the population that is dubbed "functionally illiterate" by some educators.

There are many parts of the brain that do different things, as described in footnote one, but knowing these details is not essential to your understanding of our story.

Each brain has a unique personality, which is determined largely at themoment of conception, when egg and sperm join together. This uniqueness entails that every person will require a different educational experience. In our culture, however, these differences are not recognized, and most students are lumped into an educational system that caters to the needs of left-brain dominant individuals. Our society severely neglects the limbic system and the right cerebral hemisphere of the brain. This is very damaging to the development of mindfulness.

When the limbic system is excluded from proper stimulation, subjects become dull and lifeless. Emotions and their connection to thoughts are completely ignored; we are constantly given the message to stop feeling.

		Many people cope with the harshness of society by not showing emotion. As this becomes a habit, emotions are denied altogether. When abuse, forced busyness, or control from external authorities is imposed upon a student, the result is anger, apathy, and an abandonment of the sense of self. Over time, these feelings become so painful that the brain severs neural connections between the limbic system and awareness. The student, in order to adapt to the pain, unconsciously looses touch with his emotions.
An animal with its foot caught in a trap will chew its own leg off in order to survive. Similarly, the brain dismembers itself in order to preserve its more basic functions. This enormous loss is dealt with through denial. During their training, psychotherapists encounter this phenomenon first hand. In most psychotherapy training programs, forced memorization is halted, and the student is asked to assess his true feelings. Usually, the results of this comes as a very disturbing shock. When the soothing effect of denial is removed, the student realizes that he has lost touch with his emotions. By protecting ourselves from pain, we also inhibit ourselves from experiencing heightened degrees of happiness. The loss of such emotions is every bit as severe as the loss of an arm or a leg. An inevitable byproduct of this process is self-directed anger. Anger directed toward the self results in depression, the occurrence of which has reached epidemic proportions in our culture. Anger directed outwardly results in cruelty, scapegoating, violence, and also epidemics in our society. Footnote 1: Located at the center of our brain is the limbic system, which controls our capacity to form relationships with others. The basal ganglia, large structures deep within the brain, are responsible for our mental activity. Situated near our forehead, the frontal cortex enables us to make judgments and decisions, construct plans, and restrain ourselves from acting on impulse. Furthermore, it ensures that we stay focused and attentive to our tasks. The part called the 'cingulate gyrus,' over the corpus callosum, gives our brain the ability to shift our thoughts from one subject to another. (The word "gyrus" means a convolution.) Below the temple are the temporal lobes, which enable us to remember events, facts, and faces. A large bundle of fibers, the corpus callosum, joins the two sides of the outer shell - cortex - together, and transmits messages from one side of the brain to the other.

Awareness

Awareness involves self-awareness first (the hardest part) then being conscious of your environment, and being cognizant of the actual problem at hand.

You’re Brilliantly Designed for Optimal Awareness

Awareness is a natural human ability and an essential catalyst for Personal Brilliance. When we combine it with the other three catalysts, curiosity, focus, and initiative, we can come up with innovative solutions in all areas of our lives.

Your mind and body have built-in sensors that give you an incredible capacity to take in information, sort and process it and either store or delete it. Awareness is evidence of being alive. Information reaches your consciousness through the filter of awareness. You can control the extent of your awareness. Therefore, you control what you let inside your consciousness.

Awareness requires a great deal of your available attention. In a sense, it means consciously choosing to notice what’s happening in the present moment. In many environments, there are too many things going on to be aware of all of them, so you have to choose what to bring into your awareness and what to leave out. Sometimes, however, the choice is made for you, which is what happened when Ellen Degeneres lived in the apartment next to someone who did aerobics to a tape of whale noises at high volumes. At the time, Ellen found it annoying. But when it came time to speak "whale" for her performance in the movie Finding Nemo, she realized that her mind had integrated the whale noise information – and mimicking the voices was relatively easy for her. Awareness.

Breaking Through Awareness Barriers

We have an innate ability to observe the here and now, but this natural gift can be impaired by black and white thinking, judgments, emotions, and robotic behaviors. What's amazing is that removing just one or two of these blocks can dramatically increase your awareness.

The first step to breaking through awareness barriers is taking a close look at your most dominant blocks. Do you frequently operate on automatic pilot? Does your thinking tend to be “black or white,” all or nothing? Would you prefer not to know the truth about yourself or about certain situations? Do you tend to stick with pre-conceived notions or early judgments that you make? Is regretting the past or idealizing the future preventing you from seeing what’s true now?

Once you know what's interfering, you can begin to override your old programming and create an opening for greater awareness, both internally and externally.

Awareness

Amplifying & Practicing Awareness

Amplifying your natural awareness gives you an edge in all areas of life. People who are highly aware are in the best position to see more of their options. Rather than moving from one scene in their lives to the next while on auto-pilot, their eyes are wide open and they can see the big picture. Their ability to "take it all in" enables them to rise above paradoxes and find solutions. It also increases their enjoyment, because more freedom of choice means less stress and more fun.

Practice Awareness

I think of brilliant answers floating all around us. Recognizing the subtle messages, data, and perspectives we need to generate innovation is key. This requires awareness. Awareness can be amplified with practice. When faced with various situations use your senses to explore what's happening. Ask the following questions:

Globally, what do I sense?
What do I feel?
What do I see?
What do I hear?
What do I smell?
What do I taste?

Also, explore what's missing. For example, when you walk into your home, explore what you sense. Also, identify what might be missing. In my case, if I walked into my home and didn't hear the jingle from our Border Collie's collar as she routinely runs to greet me, I would know something was seriously wrong.

Combining awareness, curiosity, focus, and initiative often leads to innovations that are both helpful and lucrative. Phil McCrory, a hairdresser from Madison, Alabama was watching CNN coverage of the Exxon oil spill in 1989. They repeatedly showed an image of otters covered in oil. McCrory asked why can't human hair, which I sweep up each day, absorb the same way? He did some quick experiments and found that hair wrapped up in pantyhose absorbed nearly 100 percent of the oil.

After work with NASA, a patent, and a system for hairdressers all over the country to send him their clippings, he was on his way to implementation. The patent Phil McCrory obtained was sold and his idea now is being used in oil spill clean-up today. McCrory says, "I have ideas that are just wild, they seem to just fall out of nowhere." Awareness!

Learning Concepts