Education Commons^™

The Adolescent Brain: Leaving Childhood Behind, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

There isn't a more profound scene in the film Inside Out than the death of Bing Bong, Riley’s imaginary friend. As the main character approaches her 12th birthday, her brain is beginning to develop in ways that leave her imagination behind. This is the time when children between the ages of 10 and 14 begin dying to their childhoods to be born into their adolescence.

Survive And Thrive During Testing Season, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

Right now, students across the nation are embarking upon a series of standardized tests following intense days and weeks of test preparation accompanied by anxiety and worry from both parents and educators. Many of these test participants are English as a Second Language (ESL) learners with a wide diversity of learning potential, social and emotional challenges, strengths, cultures and interests. Among these young learners, there are many who put themselves to bed in the evening, get themselves up and ready for school, and do not have breakfast, arranged homework times or adult support to guide their school days...

Cracking The Code Of Student Emotional Pain, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

Every instructor wants to crack the code -- to determine just what children and adolescents need to transform feelings of defeat, cognitive and emotional exhaustion, and outright hostility into something positive. They want to connect with students whose stress response states are chronically activated. They want to help learners know that they are more than just their genetics or their history. They want to share with their most fragile students that the traumas of their past can strengthen rather than harden their minds and hearts. No one needs to live in constant conflict and pain.

Contagious Emotions And Responding To Stress, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

Neuroscience research suggests that emotions are contagious. Our brains are social organs, and we are wired for relationships. When we encounter or experience intense emotions from another individual, we feel those feelings as if they were our own. Mirror neurons in our brains are responsible for empathy, happiness, and the contagious anger, sadness, or anxiety that we feel when another person is experiencing these same feelings.

Brain-Compatible Study Strategies, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

Driving my 15-year-old daughter home from cross country, I asked her where she learned to study. She replied, "Mom, I have never been taught how to study, we just do it because teachers have way too much to teach! They assume we know, and Cornell Notes are their idea of teaching us how to study!" I thought about this conversation and began to create a template that can hopefully assist students to organize, plan and create capacity in their working memories to learn content for the long term.

Below is a brief, simply-stated template on study skills for fifth grade …

Brain Labs: A Place To Enliven Learning, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

Although emotion and cognition originate in different parts of the brain, they interact and play a powerful role in learning and memory. According to neuroscientists like Eric Jensen, priming the brain for particular states of engagement -- such as curiosity, intrigue, surprise, suspense, a bit of confusion, skepticism, and the feeling of safety -- prepares the mind to learn. Furthermore, incorporating emotion into our instruction and content supports long-term memory. This might not be news to teachers, but not enough students know how to optimize their brain for learning. That's why every child should have the opportunity to explore …

3 Things Students Desire To Hear From Teachers, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

A year and a half ago, I decided that I needed to return to the K-12 classrooms and really experience ground-level teaching, testing, core standards, differentiating, and emotionally connecting with children and adolescents in ways I had not for many years. I have been and still am an assistant professor in the school of education at Marian University, but the environments, experiences, and my own learning have grown and changed immensely from returning to the classroom 18 months ago.

I asked the university for a course release, taking the lectures, research, and strategies into the early adolescent grades. And three …

Calming End-Of-Year Stress, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

For many teachers and students, nearing the end of the school year can be a time of mixed feelings, sometimes including fear and anxiety. Students who walk through our doors with what Dr. John Seita and Dr. Larry Brendtro call "family privilege" look forward to time with friends and family, summer outings, and a freer schedule. These students are entering summer break "feeling felt and accepted" within their home environments. Their secure attachment with caregivers allows for expression, mistakes, and freedom to explore their self. Family privilege is defined as an invisible package of assets and pathways that provide us …

Addressing Our Needs: Maslow Comes To Life For Educators And Students, Lori Desautels

Lori Desautels

In the mid-1950s, humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow created a theory of basic, psychological and self-fulfillment needs that motivate individuals to move consciously or subconsciously through levels or tiers based on our inner and outer satisfaction of those met or unmet needs. As a parent and educator, I find this theory eternally relevant for students and adults, especially in our classrooms. After studying it over the past couple of years, my graduate and undergraduate students have decided that every classroom should display a wall-sized diagram of the pyramid, as students and teachers alike place pins and post-its on the varying tiers …