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Brainology is an interesting activity to introduce students to the idea that their brain controls their scholastic success rather than their innate ability. It gave them impression that in continuing lessons it would give suggestions of study skills and activities which would help students who struggle with the list of "challenges" provided. It started doing this already through its recommendation in the first unit of combining pathways, or parts of the brain, in activities in order to keep your brain engaged and working at a higher level. In addition, it gave students options for self reflection, which would allow them to think about what they are learning and how it may apply to their own life. I also like that although they used simple explanations, they still used the scientific terms for parts of the brain. For example, calling it the "Frontal Lobe" (its proper name) rather than something like "The decision making center". Although the program has a lot of positives I think it is limited in the age groups that it will most effectively reach. I believe that high schoolers and even most middle schoolers who are asked to participated in Brainology, will think it is stupid, and spend their time finding ways to make fun of it rather than focusing on the content of the material. In addition, I believe that the lesson seemed to have been broken up, by the reflections (the blue screen that pops up) in a confusing manner and it seemed like some of them would have been better to wait a little longer before stopping to write what the student had learned. This may have been the nature of the 45-minute parents' trial rather than the nature of the full length program. I am not sure. I hope that the full length program allows for more information and learning activities and forms of review other than the question and answer that was provided in the free trial.

Brainology Review: I found the Brainology program to have many positive ideas about student learning and intelligence. The premise behind the program, that fostering a "growth mindset" will allow students to understand that intelligence can be developed, is a technique I found intriguing and one that seemed to be supported by research. The program that students will see seems to coincide with this idea of developing a growth mindset through understanding the brain and how it functions. I liked that the teaching guide allowed the teacher to explore and learn about the ideas presented in that lesson through additional research while working with students. Each lesson also provided a variety of materials that could be used, in addition to the video portion of the program, to engage students and create discussion, which was one of my favorite parts of this program. I also found the many opportunities for student reflection within the program helpful and especially liked how the student's answers were saved in a journal which could be referenced at anytime during the program. While I found the ideas behind this program very positive and helpful, I found fault with the video presentation. While it was obvious that the creators were attempting to make their characters modern and relatable, I found the two students stereotypically and believe it would be difficult for students, especially older students, to get past these stereotypes and concentrate on the material presented. I also felt that the way the characters interacted with material reinforced ideas about learning, and especially about science, that could be harmful. Most of the material was passed down to the children in auditory, lecture-type format (the doctor or brain orb spent a lot of time talking while flashing images appear on the screen). There are some interactive activities in "the lab", but these seemed like reiterations of previously taught ideas and have no real discovery or thinking

This seemed like an interesting and engaging program for middle school students. The interactive approach I would say is the most effective element to this program. It allows the user to not only feel like they are participating in the activity, but also provides space for reflection. The reflection opportunities seemed effective because some were prompted and required while others were open-ended and optional. It was hard to tell if the program was set up like this, but I wonder if the reflections and other inputs ("My Challenges" and the agree/disagree multiple choice questions at the beginning) are used to cater the lessons and challenges to meet the needs of individual students. This would provide even greater interactivity, but it would be a negative aspect if it were not set up that way. The humor and multicultural characters were pluses as well. The characters' willingness to talk about their academic shortcomings is also helpful to students who may be self-conscious about their struggles. I'm not sure if there was something that I was missing, or if this is something that happened because I only signed up for a free trial, but I had issues starting up the program. If I clicked on the "save and exit" button in the program while I was in the middle of doing the program, it didn't seem to "save" because when I restarted the program, I had to go through the whole introduction again. I could skip through it somewhat quickly, but it was an inconvenience. I would imagine that for a student with a short attention span, it could be a major inconvenience. Of course, it could just be my error.

Why don't students like school?

This seems pretty helpful, almost a summary of the big take-away points from the book :)

This looks like a great model for teaching math discourse. Regularly incorporating an activity like this may also benefit EL students- they get to listen to other students using math language and try out their own language in a small group session.

Learned helplessness can apply to both humans and animals. It is particularly applicable for our students, who may have LEARNED that they just cannot grasp math and/or science.

This is a great point, Connor. I wonder how students displaying learned helplessness behaviors compare to students we talked about this summer who choose not to learn. Could they be related? And how could we, as teachers, address this issue when it may be so ingrained in some of our older students?

Overall, I very much enjoyed this program. One of the greatest strengths of the program is that it appeals to the user-interface trend of learning that kids really enjoy; they get to interact with their learning materials! Rather than reading descriptions of the brain, students can click on different parts and hear descriptions, processing and/or reprocessing information at their own pace. Also, the program integrates knowledge of the brain with tips on how to use such knowledge of succeed in school. The role models are struggling students, thus the program provides characters that players can relate to. I found very few weaknesses with the program, although I did find some ways for the program to improve. My greatest concern is that the program can be hard to navigate. I managed -- I still don't know how -- to skip a large part of the program. I had to redo the program from scratch in order to go through it properly. Also, the very erratic jumps from image to image, for me, was a bit distracting, although perhaps a student observer may appreciate the quick pace of the program. Overall, although there are ways for the program to improve, I think it is a wonderful tool for brain and learning education.

As with all Western psychology, I cannot help but make connections to Buddhism (and to get more specific, I'm particularly fascinated by Tibetan Buddhism). I noticed on p. 55 of Why Students Don't like School that "If you can't pay attention to something, you can't learn it!". I am struck by how shamatha meditation is about stabalizing the mind and being present in order to practice vipashyana, which is insight into how the mind works. And since you can't separate your mind from anything you perceive....Buddhists posit that that insight into how the mind works, and how self and identity are constructed, leads to insight into the nature of reality itself.

As with all Western psychology, I cannot help but make connections to Buddhism (and to get more specific, I'm particularly fascinated by Tibetan Buddhism). I noticed on p. 55 of Why Students Don't like School that "If you can't pay attention to something, you can't learn it!". I am struck by how shamatha meditation is about stabalizing the mind and being present in order to practice vipashyana, which is insight into how the mind works. And since you can't separate your mind from anything you perceive....Buddhists posit that that insight into how the mind works, and how self and identity are constructed, leads to insight into the nature of reality itself.

Since factual knowledge is needed for critical thinking skills, I thought that OMG facts might be a good addition to my list. However, since this is a curious website on the wild wild web, I figure that it might be useful in a lesson about how citations and peer review work in academia. That is to say, you could ask students to consider how we know that this information is true. You can even teach them the word "epistemology"! It's also kind of fun, and I reckon the information is generally considered true.

Since factual knowledge is needed for critical thinking skills, I thought that OMG facts might be a good addition to my list. However, since this is a curious website on the wild wild web, I figure that it might be useful in a lesson about how citations and peer review work in academia. That is to say, you could ask students to consider how we know that this information is true. You can even teach them the word "epistemology"! It's also kind of fun, and I reckon the information is generally considered true.

This review has some very interesting ideas about centralization in schools- an idea I ran into a lot when researching my SEL program. I'm not sure if all of the ideas are applicable to a typical public school classroom, but there are some good points about the role of student choice in learning

This service claims to connect classrooms globally for collaborative projects, which could be a really neat way to involve students in meaningful work, especially in the sciences.

Goes more in-depth on what is meant by "Least Restrict Environment" in IDEA. This article definitely answered some of the questions I had about working with students with disabilities

Why dopamine is released both when using drugs and when climbing a mountain. Why Don't Students Like School: Chapter 1

Types of Memory Why Don't Students Like School: Chapter 1

Why Don't Students Like School? Chapter 1

Why Don't Students Like School? Chapter 2

Why don't students like school? Chapter 2

Why Don't Students Like School? Chapter 2

Why Don't Students Like School? Chapter 3

Why Don't Students Like School? Chapter 3