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Full-Text Articles in Education
The Adolescent Brain: Leaving Childhood Behind, Lori Desautels
The Adolescent Brain: Leaving Childhood Behind, Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
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.
Contagious Emotions And Responding To Stress, Lori Desautels
Contagious Emotions And Responding To Stress, Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
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.
Islands Of Personality And Trains Of Thought, Lori Desautels
Islands Of Personality And Trains Of Thought, Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
In the film Inside Out, 11-year-old Riley holds several islands of personality in her brain. These islands were created from her past core memories, experiences, interests, and passions. Positive and negative core memories create these islands that make up our personality or sense of self. Riley's included Family Island, Friendship Island, Soccer Island, and Goofball Island. Our brains form islands of personality (or, for the purposes of this discussion, islands of self) because of our interests, relationships, experiences, and how others in our lives have affirmed, supported, or possibly weakened our thoughts about who we are and …
Creating Core Memories In The Classroom, Lori Desautels
Creating Core Memories In The Classroom, Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
We all create core memories. When we encounter an experience with heightened emotion, our memory systems remember the experiences because of the intense emotions associated with the event. We know that memories can become diluted or distorted with time and distance. When we remember an event from our past, our brains secrete the same chemicals from the same neurotransmitters called forth when the experience happened, creating the same feelings.
How Emotions Affect Learning, Behaviors, And Relationships, Lori Desautels
How Emotions Affect Learning, Behaviors, And Relationships, Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
We need all of our emotions for thinking, problem solving, and focused attention. We are neurobiologically wired, and to learn anything, our minds must be focused and our emotions need to "feel" in balance. Emotional regulation is necessary so that we can remember, retrieve, transfer, and connect all new information to what we already know. When a continuous stream of negative emotions hijacks our frontal lobes, our brain's architecture changes, leaving us in a heightened stress-response state where fear, anger, anxiety, frustration, and sadness take over our thinking, logical brains.
Energy And Calm: Brain Breaks And Focused-Attention Practices, Lori Desautels
Energy And Calm: Brain Breaks And Focused-Attention Practices, Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
When presented with new material, standards, and complicated topics, we need to be focused and calm as we approach our assignments. We can use brain breaks and focused-attention practices to positively impact our emotional states and learning. They refocus our neural circuitry with either stimulating or quieting practices that generate increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, where problem solving and emotional regulation occur.
"Whatever! You Think I Care?", Lori Desautels
"Whatever! You Think I Care?", Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
I was thinking this afternoon of the misunderstood "language" from developing children and adolescents that we often receive as educators. This is the type of language that catches us off guard as we posture for the perfect discipline-minded "one-up" response. Sometimes it feels frustrating -- and actually downright awful -- when we hear our reactions unintentionally mirroring those anxious or angry emotions, personalizing these conversations when, in actuality, it has nothing to do with us!
Perspective: A Game Changer In The Classroom And In Our Lives, Lori Desautels
Perspective: A Game Changer In The Classroom And In Our Lives, Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
What is perspective? What does it have to do with teaching, leadership, and learning? The Oxford English Dictionary defines perspective as: "A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view." Blending this definition into our instruction, classroom cultures, and relationships, perspective drives all we are and do in our classrooms. Perspectives are bundles of beliefs, a mindset that we each embrace determining how we see one another, our experiences, and possibilities or lack thereof. As teachers, our perspectives directly impact student emotions and their learning, because emotions are contagious.
Survive And Thrive During Testing Season, Lori Desautels
Survive And Thrive During Testing Season, Lori Desautels
Scholarship and Professional Work – Education
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...