How to Use Your Brain to be Successful in School

Event Description:

We are at a pivotal point in our culture, and even our ability to continue to exist in a world being destroyed by climate change. We are concerned about the effects of technology, social media in particular, on our Generation Z’s. We are seeing the inequities in our society through the pandemic. However, in every crisis there is an opportunity. We believe that new neuroscience (see Iain McGilchrist, Lisa Feldman Barrett and others) combined offer opportunities to help students learn “how to learn” as they enter high school
We are unique in two ways. We serve 11 communities in our vocational school. We are a vocational school. Our students choose a career area at the end of grade 9 (1st year in high school). Their education combines that of mastering skills in that career area. Carpentry, health careers, pre-engineering are examples.

Our event will be a week long awareness campaign involving all grade 9 academic teachers as well as a representative from each cluster of vocational areas. Teachers will participate in a training designed to give them the basics of “how the brain learns”. They will use brain science to teach beyond the next curriculum unit, emphasizing what is happening “in your brain” while you are learning. Teachers will then meet to reflect on how their understanding translated into changes in the presentation of their material as well as the structure of their lessons. We will finish with a teacher reflection and a report to use in building next year’s program.