preview

Teaching Strategies When Dealing With The Adolescent Brain.

Decent Essays

Teaching Strategies when dealing with the adolescent brain

The adolescent brain is still in the development process and will therefore require compatible strategies for learning. Research has shown that the brain undergoes a period of increased production of gray-matter during early adolescence. Nerve impulses are generated by the gray matter which handles processing of the brain’s information, while white matter transfers brain information from one lobe to another and then out to the spinal cord. The myelin sheath, a fatty layer that wraps around the neuron’s axon assists this transmission of nerve impulses. Only white matter has a myelin sheath; the sheath allows impulses to travel faster and more efficiently; however, isn’t fully …show more content…

Learning is a process of building neural networks in the brain, through concrete experiences, symbolic and abstract learning. A concrete experience is one where a young person can smell, hear, touch, and see the experience such as petting a dog. Seeing a dog in a book and looking at pictures of dogs is a symbolic experience. Then, at some point, young people will start to make generalizations about types of dogs they have never seen, or experienced, this is abstract thinking. The most important of the three is the concrete experience because without it the other two will have little or no meaning. Abstract thought does not completely develop until late adolescence; therefore, the most effective teaching styles encompass concrete experiences for adolescences.

Important Facts
A young adolescent brain can hold 7 pieces of information, plus or minus two items in working memory. Show them that the information fits together, and in a meaningful way. Short-term memory stores approximately 7 items of information for 30 seconds unless there are strategies in place to remember the items. Working-memory stores approximately seven items for 20 to 30 minutes, if not determined as meaningful the information will be lost and not stored in long-term memory. Teachers can use systems such as rhyme, rhythm, rap, chunking, storytelling, and mnemonics as

Get Access