Adolescent Learner- PD Day Aug 09

Andrew Fuller
Andrew Fuller Homepage
24 August 2009

Intro- Teaching is tough
Get to know the people who you will spend most of your time with
Remember; Life is short Life Is Short Video
Remember; Be a thief
Remember; Don’t be a superhero
Remember; Get to know your students
Remember; You’ll never win every battle
Remember; Ask for help
Remember; Allow yourself to make (12) mistakes (per day)
Remember; Keep a ‘Blue Day’ book

Session 1
Give up “Busy” and “Not bad” words and phrases
Maintain ‘rituals’ as these are coathangers for structure and routines
Aim to increase the motivation and pleasure in learning
Remember- it takes 6 weeks to form a new habit
When meeting with Parents:
-take notes
- listen - don't act or react
- 3 things to follow up on
-congratulate them
-de-toxify yourself



Neuro Chemistry
-Dopamine (Party animal; Leyton Hewitt) Increases focus Needs to be increased
-Adrenaline (Revved up) Not good in excess
-Cortisol (Released with adrenaline) Not good in excess
-Seratonin (Feel good, calm high) Good to be increased

Types of Memory
-Procedural; the memory of HOW to do stuff
-Declaritive; the recall of knowledge, information, concepts
Memory test - 'awareness' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

Tips;
Use the power of “I noticed…” statements
Know how to work with ‘tricky’ kids, and recognize that the famous, successful adults of 2009 were often ‘tricky’ kids themselves
Groups of ‘tricky’ kids- a classification;
-Manipulators (Angelica- Rugrats)
-Negotiator (Bart Simpson)
-Winston Churchill Syndrome
-Debators (Have the last word)
-Fearless (Daredevils)
-Passive Resistors (Ghandi)

Tricky Kids:
- Manipulators (dominate and control) - need to get their number Video - Girl at School
-Wheelers and Dealers (negotiate, funny) - remove their audience
- Defiants (stubborn) - engage through challenges
- Debators (must have the last word, determined) - make them feel caring but useful
- Fearless (risktakers) -
- Passive Resistants (vague and secretive) - work with younger students with dignity

Tricky People;
-Backstabbers (White anters)
-Blamers and whingers
-Bullies and tyrants
-Controllers (Micro managers)
-High and Mighty (FIGJAM)
-Avoiders
-Competitors
-Poor competitors

­­­­­­­­­­

Adolescents are:
Good at	Bad at
vigilance	transfer
self-focus	self organisation
social	anxiety
challenge	motivation (in face of failure)
taking risks	pattern recognition
.......forming new patterns ........	recognition
socialising	sequencing
playing games

The Maze of the Adolescent Brain
(Teenager song; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKaUL2mtAqA)
Kevin becomes a teenager http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLuEY6jN6gY
Search Youtube under 'harry enfield kevin' for more of Kevin's adventures
What they do well/ poorly
Changes in brain during adolescence (time of maximal change);
-Ability to reproduce
-Identity formation
-Rational thinking

What happens?
-Synaptic pruning (brain gets selective over what it keeps and what it ‘loses’
-Rate of change linked to IQ
-Shift from grey to white matter
-Myelination (brain prioritises and develops most used functions)
(Myelin- a ‘covering’ developed in puberty in readiness for adulthood related to a maturing of the brain physically, during synaptogenesis)
-Forming of brain maps and pathways, teaming up of brain cells
NB- Neuroplasticity is competitive e.g. if you don’t use it, you lose it during adolescence.
NB- Multitasking is not beneficial to the construction of new pathways, focused repetition increases success (24 reps = 80% success rate)
-Adolescent children are highly emotional people but are NOT good at reading emotions

Master the art of ‘Hit and Run’ conversations.
Students need;
-High challenge
-High feedback
-A safety net
-Team problem solving
-Fermi questions (linked to developing self-reflection and self-appraisal)

Best classrooms are like a ‘gang’
Have fun in class!
They need 24 repititions before getting it right.
Single one-off assessments are contra-indicative.
They need to be around adults who have fun.

Things that are a waste of time:
- uninvited lecture
- 'how many times did I tell you'
- 'after all I've done for you'
- self sacrifice and self denial
- repeating the same pattern over and over
- Spanish Inquisition confessional

Effective and Ineffective Communication; Gender differences
Females;
-Intimacy
-Interaction
-Connections
-Share problems
-Secrets
-Don’t stand out from the crowd

Girls use the language of elevelators

• intimacy and connection - do you like me, am I in the group.
• be good, get it right, but not too much of anything

Males;
-Hierarchy
-Status
-Independence
-Respect
-Competition

Boys use the language of seesaws

• status and independence - do you respect me
• jokes and pranks to solve or minimise problems

5 Phases to Learning (G.E.T.I.T.)
-Use assessment ‘autopsies’
-Audio works effectively
-Diagrams and graphics are also effective

-Constructing the process yourself
-Find ways of improving retention
-Maximise group sizes (3-5ppl)
-Use worked examples (backwards steps)
-Concentration tests (Moonwalking Bear- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4)

Concentration styles
-Happy wanderers (away with the fairies) - diagrams, flow charts, art.
-Finger safari (squirm, wriggle, have collection) - need sequencing
-Frequent flyers (transfer obscure ideas, minds go everywhere) - need sequencing, creativity to productivity
-Amplifyers - love challenges
-Social secretaries - (least resilitent learners) give them bizarre and trivia
-Spies (know everything that is going on) - learn through sound
-Star trekkers (blank) - POTBO

How the memory works;
-Best to commit to memory just before sleep
-Glucose aids memory
-Vagus nerve (back of neck)
-Develop self explanation

Seeing and experiencing things from our own perspective- each person has an individual perspective, and we need to be aware of adolescent perspectives.

Feedback/ Reflection from BBI team;
-Finding things which worked well in class, and reflect on the things that don't
-Good ideas like incorporating exercise, almonds
-Group work, works well for girls
-Dopamine and seratonin imbalances- some of the approaches to affecting these are tough for a teacher to address (e.g. diet, classroom routines, exercise, energisers)
-Turning things into class into some little competitions to increase fun and interactivity (e.g. running to mat- loser!)
-Engage students through mini competitive games and feedback
-Turning off lights and opening curtains to bring in more natural light
-Puzzles and board games increase fun and assist sequencing
-Helped to remind us that we sometimes reinforce wrong information through our words and our assessments
-Backwards steps lead to building new knowledge
-Importance of routines
-Coin in the slot- saying things in different ways before things are understood
-24 times repetition
-Cutting out admin time, getting straight to the learning
-Assessment process- return a test marked WITHOUT feedback and put onus on student to 'fill their own gaps'
-Girl groups working well, boys groups not so well (aim to mix some boys into mixed groups)
-Cliches don't work well
-Idea about how boys relationships are based on different foundation to girls
-Bridge gap after lunch rather than doing SSR
-"I notice statements"