Information Technology as brain-based Education

BRAIN-BASED TEACHING-LEARNING IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION:
THE NEEDS AND RESPONSES
Summary
This essay is a reflection of my learning of the use of brain based education in my practice to facilitate physical education. In this essay I have related the use of curriculum integration along with multiple intelligence. I have also discussed about the importance of media and information technology tools like computers and television in day-to-day education and the way it has influenced my teaching practice. The main body of the essay consists of the various initiatives undertaken by me on brain-based learning/teaching practice. In most sections after describing the scenarios, I have also related the same to the contemporary theories on brain-based education. As a result there might not be an exclusive section discussing and relating the various theories.
INTRODUCTION
It has been always my belief that learning happens only if there is interest towards a subject. As part of the module titled ‘Collaborative Analysis of Student Work’, I was introduced to the concept of the ‘brain-based learning’. This has a significant impact on the teacher-learner interface. Just the fact that brain-based strategies could evoke interest among learners and create a positive learning atmosphere was to me the first learning of the module. Brain based learning is a significant factor which helps the teacher to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, advantages and disadvantages of the learners and plan accordingly. In this essay, I would be detailing the various brain-based learning that was facilitated by me in the sphere of physical education.
MY EXPERIMENTS WITH BRAIN-BASED EDUCATION IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION
My Conflict with Control and Freedom in Class Room Space
Having grown in a traditional teacher-learner interface where the teacher has overwhelming control of the space and activities, I had for a long time found comfort in controlling the space occupied by the students. I believed that the amount of control that teachers have in the class is often seen by the administration as a measure of the quality of a teacher. I was also brought up in the same mould as a teacher, but to have control over the class and teaching a particular game without creating an environment (brain-based strategy) for the learners was a failure.
In this traditional teacher-learner interface I tried to implement Volleyball, which was completely new to the learners and to create an interest and teach the skills of the game was a challenge. I thought implementing a new game would definitely create an interest. But I was wrong because it was not the new activity, but an attractive activity that was needed to get a positive response from the learners. There was disinterest in students for the game because my focus was on thrusting the game skills to the learners in the name of school curriculum. I tried few strategies to create interest for the game but nothing worked out and the whole process fizzled out. This was a very good example of traditional teaching strategy that had failed.
Introducing Athletics to the school curriculum was and is one of my eternal dreams. So I took every step carefully and moved forward. I was careful because, when I tried to implement volleyball I was not successful. I by this time learnt that the learner’s emotions played a vital role in implementing any new activity. As a teacher I had to develop interest and create an enriched environment for the learners to accept the program.
I do believe that emotion plays a vital role in storing and retrieving the memory (Emotional Intelligence). The fact is emotions can have both positive and negative effects on learning. Sylwester, R. (1996). On the one hand, emotionally meaningful and salient information tends to be learned and remembered better. On the other hand, emotional reactions such as depression, anxiety, and stress can have a very negative impact on learning. The research by Neuroscientist states that when students experience stress or depression, a hormone known as cortisol is released in the body. Cortisol has been shown to be toxic to the hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with long-term memory. (Solomon. M and Robert L. Hendren, 2003.)
Humans’ Search for Meaning is Innate (Caine and Caine, 1994)
As a teacher I have to be careful to create a healthy atmosphere for the learners. To create a healthy atmosphere for the learners, I made the learner’s to understand the purpose of learning athletics. The learner’s were very clear that they learn athletics to develop their overall physique and there is no competition among them. The students also understood that they learn the athletics skills to enjoy and get an exposure towards athletics and also concentrate on their individual performance. The objective is also made very clear to the learners that they will work to improve their performance and perform the skills to their best of their ability on the athletics day and not to compare their performance with other students.
The athletics day was introduced to motivate the learners and also create an interest towards athletics. The students were not pressurized at any point, because as a teacher I worked for intrinsic motivation and at no point worked on any extrinsic motivation. I do believe that creating a competitive atmosphere will ruin the whole program. The learners liked the approach and also appreciated the new techniques they learned on athletics. The athletics program was successful because the onus was on individual performance; there was no external pressure on the learners. The learners were given a lot of scope for individual improvement in skills. The other important factor is each individual can analyse their performance and work on their skills. The students enjoyed peer motivation and tried to give their best all the time.
Brain based education involves caring for the mental health of students, and its true, without prior knowledge on brain-based teaching, I was practicing brain-based teaching. I felt very happy that as a teacher my approach towards teaching has its own value. I like to emphasize that brain-based approach on athletics was appreciated by the learners. Thus, in my view brain-based education involves caring for the emotions of students and also the teacher should ensure that the school environment is safe, The teacher should Guide the students when home environments are dangerous, The last and important factor is creating a non threatening environment for the learners will solve most of the problems.
Curriculum Integration in Understanding Rules of a Game
Over the years I have taken care to create stress free environment for my learners as they perform more efficiently under these conditions. I do have the experience to believe it, I always teach physical education (P.E.) theory in the class. The learners never appreciated it because their valuable playing time shrunk on account of theory. Moreover learners had to sit in the class during P.E. classes, this developed disinterest in learners. As I had said earlier, the lack of knowledge on how brain learns is also one of the major factors for the failure of teaching theory during P.E. classes. As a teacher, I feel teaching rules of the games to the learners are very essential and to teach them rules I always prefer a calm environment. But I never thought about the positive emotions of the learners to make it a success. So in my eight years of teaching I never found it so easy to teach theory during P.E. classes. To be honest for the first time in my career I was successful in teaching P.E. theory and it happened because of integration.
Integration as a strategy
Integration in teaching was a revelation in my teaching and now I believe that it should be an integral part of my teaching. The post-CASW has given me tremendous confidence as a teacher and also helped to make my teaching practice innovative. Use of curriculum integration in P.E. has given me a new dimension towards teaching. This has helped me to solve my problem to teach theory in class as a P.E. teacher.
Brain based teaching methodologies include the integrated curriculum and cooperative learning. Students learn by forming patterns. Information in one discipline that is taught in isolation from another discipline forfeits the holistic approach. Students cannot see the whole of the pattern. Teaching should be organized around a theme or frame of reference. Art, music, science, language arts, and math should all be taught under the theme. Students do not learn in a linear approach, but in an immersed multi-tasking style (Caine, 1994; McBrien and Brandt, 1997).
Use of Information Technology
I would now like to discuss the role of technology in supporting brain-based education. The present generation needs different innovative methods in teaching and also different variations to stay focused in learning. So as a teacher it’s very important to study the learners mind. Today most of the students spend more time on electronic media like TV and computers. It’s very important that we should cater to the learners using these electronic media. I firmly believe that to enhance learning and also to create interest to learner as a teacher we should try to use these modern devices. Brain-based research states that technology can cater to the learners very effectively.
Technology played a vital role to my facilitation of learning the P.E. theory. To teach the rules of cricket, I teamed up with the technology teacher and planned a session. We the teacher’s planned to create a web page on cricket including the rules and other facts about cricket. We also made it a group activity. The technology teacher Ms. Anita worked on the technology part of the session and I gave the questionnaire and the information that the learners needed to download from the computer. The idea is to work during the technology class and not during the P.E. classes. The learners appreciated this approach because they did not miss out their practical P.E. sessions and enjoyed the group activity. The other important factor is that the students relished creating a web page on cricket rules. After creating the web page the learners were asked to present the rules. The learners really worked on it but I also felt that the students did not participate very efficiently during the presentation, so I changed it to an individual presentation were each student needs to present one rule without repeating the rule. This worked out very well; both the learners and the teachers enjoyed the session. I am also happy that use of technology is very crucial for the success and today’s students are too much into technology, so the learners adore these methods, use of technology to maximum.
Use of Movie as Part of Curriculum Integration
A movie was planned as part of integration with the English teacher Ms. Dharma Kannan. To motivate the students towards athletics and physical training the learners were shown a movie “Chariots of fire”. This movie had a strong emphasis on athletics and physical training. The learners had to view the movie and write a review of the movie. The students after viewing the movie felt that they could not articulate appropriately their views about the movie. So an expert Ms. Jyoti Thyagarajan was invited to anchor a session to give a background of the movie and to facilitate the interactive interface. After the discussion the learners found better expression and related their experiences and interests on athletics. Even though the Idea of showing the movie was to improve their motivation level, it was heartening to actually know from them that they were motivated during the athletics day. I have to say that viewing movie proved as an excellent tool to impart knowledge on this subject. This has emboldened me to explore the use of various Microsoft tools like PowerPoint, Flash and other software tools to develop and sustain learners’ interest.
Peer Teaching
The other brain-based strategy that I practiced very efficiently was peer teaching. To impart knowledge of the game skills, I used the students with quick learning abilities and also student’s with prior knowledge of the skills to teach their fellow student’s. This strategy really worked well. I found that fellow peers woven in small groups were able to deliver the content more effectively. The students given the opportunity to take responsibility had taken it very well and delivered to the best of their ability.
Why peer teaching? There are three commonly cited benefits of peer teaching they are learning of academic skills, the development of social behaviors and classroom discipline, and the enhancement of peer relations (Greenwood et al. 1988). Researchers have also identified improvements in self-esteem and one of its components--internal focus of control. It is important to note that all such benefits accumulate to both tutor and learner.
CONCLUSION
Recent advancements in the neuroscience research have brought to the fore important information about the brain and how it learns. It has uncovered "unprecedented revolution of knowledge about the human brain, including how it processes, interprets and stores information" (Sousa, 1998). Brain-based learning is creating a relaxed, non-threatening environment that takes out the fear in students from failure. The research also states that the brain grows and adapts in responses to the external stimuli. Researchers also say that the human brain will constantly look for meanings, patterns and connections De Jong.L (1999). So it is very important to create improved learning strategies for the students to develop interest and also an authentic learning situation, which will increase the brain’s ability to make connection and patterns and store the information’s (McBrien and Brandt, 1997). The brain-based education to any teacher is a challenge because it gives the teacher to develop a curriculum to suite the needs of all types of learners.
Brain based education is completely different from the traditional teaching. Brain-based teaching strategies cater to the needs of the students with different learning abilities where as the traditional teaching strategies mostly focused on direct teaching and rarely suite different types of learners. This very clearly states that brain-based teaching is more successful than the traditional teaching. In my early years of teaching my focus was on imparting knowledge to the learners in a firm or hierarchical way but now I have changed and realized the importance of brain-based strategies and also started to work on these lines.
The confidence and comfort level of the learner is very important in the learning process. If the learner is enthusiastic and does not feel stress, learning will take place. If the conditions does not provide positive atmosphere, learning will not take place. This is what the Neuroscientists have derived and I too completely agree with it after my experience as a teacher. So brain-based education will definitely help the teacher’s to impart knowledge in a more efficient way and make teaching more challenging.
Based on my experience with above mentioned initiatives through Integration, I have plans to introduce health and nutrition, human body, first aid and rules of the games through integration. Now after exposed to brain-based strategies, I am confident that in the future I can implement the new games as I did with some of my work that I have discussed in this essay.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Ms Tara Kini and Ms Shuchi Grover for their endless support and patience in innumerable ways. My thanks to Mr. Sathish Jayarajan, the Principal, Mallya Aditi International School and Ms. Geeta Narayanan Director, Mallya Aditi International School, for providing a series of professional development opportunities. My thanks to Mr. Maheswaran for facilitating me to present this essay. REFERENCES
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