Presentation+Assignment

= =

Presentation Assignment Page

We will use this page to host our brain and arts integration articles, our presentations and our short info sheets about our articles.

Presentation Assignment Rubric

 * 1) Choose a partner to work on this assignment.
 * 2) Choose an article that deals with how the brain works in relationship to classroom instruction, or choose and article that deals with how to integrate the arts into the elementary classroom (use the area that you chose in class). Ideally you will search for an article that relates to your teaching philosophy. Remember that you will need to support your teaching philosophy with some basic research/brain research so this is a good chance to start looking for relavent data.
 * 3) Put together a short page with the salient points from the article. The page should have the title of the article and just a few bullet points that outline the important information that is addressed in the article.
 * 4) Create a short presentation to convey the important points from your article. Use images instead of text to convey the ideas and possibly add some background music to enhance the effect. You can either talk prior to, during or after the visual presentation - use your creativity. Feel free to use PowerPoint. Extra credit will be given to groups that use other creative presentation means (i.e., Prezi, Animoto, etc.)
 * 5) Post your article to this wiki page. To post you must first upload to the wiki, then go to this page and upload it to the page.
 * 6) Post your bullet point summary to this wiki page.
 * 7) Post your presentation or link to this wiki page.
 * 8) Please add a little text around your uploads. It may work best if you add the names of your group members and the name of the article as a header, and then add the 3 uploads under that text.

We understand that the technical aspects of wikis may be new to many of you. Just do your best to follow the directions above. We can always make additions or adjustments to the page later, so don't sweat it too much. The most important thing is that your content is finished and that you are ready to present to the class on Tuesday. The wiki is just an added resource that we can help you learn about along the way.

[|Chelsea and Tony's Presentation]
 * Tony and Chelsea: Learning and the Brain**
 * The presence of patterned and colored visual stimuli as well as sounds and objects to touch and manipulate, is ample stimulation for the developing sensory cortices of the brain.
 * Four methods of learning are Visual imagery, Exercising the brain, Imitation, and Learning while you sleep.
 * Visual imagery: Visual brain regions are necessary for forming visual images. A study was done that revealed at least two-thirds of the same brain areas are used when you imagine an item compared with when you actually see the same object.
 * Exercising the brain: Physical excercise may increase learning and develop new brain cells.
 * Imitation: One can learn better by observing the action first.
 * Learning while you sleep: After learning a task, your brain reinforces that task while you are sleeping.


 * Natalia and Hayley - Music and Learning: Integrating Music in the Classroom**
 * There are multiple ways in which music can be used in the classroom
 * Music can be used to learn and help us remember information.
 * Music in the classroom can also be used to change brain wave states, focus concentration, increase attention, enhance imagination, inspire, motivate, and facilitate a multisensory learning experience.
 * Types of music learning include:
 * Focus and concentration music
 * Creativity and reflection music
 * Welcoming music
 * Active learning music


 * Bridget and Suzan: The Art of Changing the Brain**
 * Learning is a physical change in the brain and successful teachers have this down to an art form
 * The brain carries out 4 main functions:
 * getting information (sensory cortex)
 * making meaning from information (back integrative cortex)
 * creating new ideas from these meanings (front integrative cortex)
 * acting on those ideas (motor cortex)
 * There are 4 pillars of human learning (If we ask students to do these 4 things, they will be using their whole brain)
 * gathering
 * analyzing
 * creating
 * acting
 * Feelings directly influence our behaviors and attitudes (influence if students are motivated to learn)
 * Teachers must find ways in which learning itself is intrinsically rewarding for students by KNOWING what naturally interests him or her and understanding how they think
 * Teachers must build on student's existing knowledge even when "wrong"
 * Ultimately the learner is in control, the teacher simply arranges conditions in order to engage the learner

[]
 * Dave and Lorraine: Brain-based Research Prompts Innovative Teaching Techniques in the Classroom**
 * Brain research suggests that the following are all important learning principles:
 * accessing pre-existing knowledge
 * engaging in active learning
 * using mental models
 * transferring
 * learning for understanding
 * Technology helps students visualize difficult-to-understand concepts
 * Using interactive technology offers an opportunity to:
 * learn by doing virtually
 * receive timely feedback to refine understanding and build knowledge
 * Organized knowledge connected around important concepts and mastery
 * leads to transfer
 * leads to deeper, more permanent understanding

__** Anne Marie & Katie: President's Committee Tackles Arts Education **__ http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-arts-education-report-20110511,0,172615.story

- President's Committee on Arts and Humanities creates a report focusing on art education in the U.S.

-The report shows a connection between art education and higher achievement in other core subject areas.

- Advocates "more money, better teaching approaches, and a fresh mind-set that doesn't treat art as a frill or an afterthought, readily cut when school budgets grow tight."

-The report provides a list for different ways to incorporate all aspects of art in the every day curriculum for general education teachers.

- "The idea is to encourage a variety of approaches rather than launch a federally-designed national arts education program."

- Article recommends the following: -Expand the use of practicing artists as special guests in the classroom to include instructional training. - Promote art education by weaving it into other subject areas. We feel this supports our philosophy of differentiated instruction in the classroom.

-The conclusion of the report supports that the arts are an important part of our culture and without them being included in education will lead to an impoverished society. Incorporating them in daily curriculum is a, "time honored way of learning, knowing, and expressing."

** Jim and Katy: Brain-Based Learning (Jensen) **

 * PE, recess, and movement all support learning! Early childhood movement wires the brain to make more efficient connections, and then supports later academic learning!
 * Chronic stress is bad! Stress affects attendance, memory, social skills, and cognition. Teach students better coping skills, and increase student perception of choice.
 * Make differences the rule, not the exception! In your classroom, validate the differences.
 * Young students have a short capacity for working memory. So teach in small chunks, let the students process the learning, and then rest the brain.
 * The arts have a huge impact on the brain! They boost attention, help strengthen the working memory, and support visual spatial skills.
 * Memories are not fixed but changeable! Every time students review, they change their memories. Memory is strengthened with structured reviews!

[[file:Making Meaning Many Ways.pdf]]

 * Art has the potential to enhance the making of meaning-when we limit ourselves to language we cut ourselves off of other ways of knowing.
 * The arts provide learners with supportive bridges into the unfamiliar or difficult while simultaneously pushing them to explore information from an entirely new perspective.
 * Integration of art into lessons allows students to use their hands, bodies, and voices in meaningful ways.
 * Making art allows for choices about how to integrate content.
 * The arts (act) as a catalyst to improve our students' achievement, confidence, and communication skills.
 * Integration of the arts into the classroom curriculum immerses children intellectually, emotionally, physically and therefore rigorously in the learning experience.
 * The arts require students to assume responsibility for their own learning.
 * Arts integrations are inclusive experiences that invite all students to participate in the learning process and supports all kinds of learners.

** Jennifer, Ann, and Donna: Art for the Brain's Sake (Robert Sylwester) **

 * [|Art for the Brain's Sake] **
 * The arts (along with such functions as language and math) play an important role in brain development and maintenance—so it’s a serious matter for schools to deny children direct curricular access to the arts.
 * Our brain’s language and music systems both must be developmentally stimulated – especially those subsystems that regulate highly controlled motor activity such as speaking, singing, writing, and playing musical instruments.
 * The arts involve movement on a higher, more extraordinary level causing elevated serotonin levels which are associated with high self-esteem and social status.Good school arts and physical education programs can play an important role in developing the fine motor control that allows youngsters to discover how remarkable the human body is—whether it’s drawing a picture with tightly controlled movements or dancing with abandon.
 * Arts cognitively stimulate both those who do them and those who observe them. The doers and the observers both discover something about the further reaches of being human.
 * We have multiple neural systems to process emotion and intelligence, but some may only infrequently activate in real life. The arts help maintain the strength of such systems by activating them in pretend situations during periods when real life doesn’t challenge them. Use it or lose it.
 * Arts develop and rehearse fine motor skills and many multiple intelligence systems: kinesthetic, musical, intrapersonal, and more.
 * Emotion and attention, central to all activity in the arts, are critically important brain systems that must be nurtured beyond their innate survival levels into the limits of human capability. Emotion drives attention, and attention drives learning, problem solving, behavior, and just about everything else.
 * Our brains developed two separate but integrated systems: emotion/attention, and reason/logic. The transcendent movement patterns that characterize the arts often provide the integration between the two. Only the mindless would suggest that education could function with one system but not with the other.