Exuberant Discovery

Thinking of my experience at NECC and how the most precious moments were those spent in creative, spontanious interaction with edubloggers...

Kohn (2004) explains it like this- when we are engaged and motivated and feel minimal stress, information flows freely through the affective filter in the amygdala and we achieve higher levels of cognition, make connections, and experience “aha” moments. Such learning comes not from quiet classrooms and directed lectures, but from classrooms with an atmosphere of exuberant discovery.

The Bloggers' Cafe is just such a place of exuberant discovery. Now-- taking what we have recently experienced, how do we create similar oasis for our students? How do we turn our classrooms into places of exuberant discover?

(above photo: edubloggercon07)

Via Mary Tedrow from the TLN community...
Ed Leadership online article titled "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education" by Judy Willis.

......In their zeal to raise test scores, too many policymakers wrongly assume that students who are laughing, interacting in groups, or being creative with art, music, or dance are not doing real academic work. The result is that some teachers feel pressure to preside over more sedate classrooms with students on the same page in the same book, sitting in straight rows, facing straight ahead.

Supporting Good Teaching Practices with Neuroscience

The truth is that when we scrub joy and comfort from the classroom, we distance our students from effective information processing and long-term memory storage. Instead of taking pleasure from learning, students become bored, anxious, and anything but engaged. They ultimately learn to feel bad about school and lose the joy they once felt.

My own experience as a neurologist and classroom teacher has shown me the benefits of joy in the classroom. Neuroimaging studies and measurement of brain chemical transmitters reveal that students' comfort level can influence information transmission and storage in the brain (Thanos et al., 1999). When students are engaged and motivated and feel minimal stress, information flows freely through the affective filter in the amygdala and they achieve higher levels of cognition, make connections, and experience “aha” moments. Such learning comes not from quiet classrooms and directed lectures, but from classrooms with an atmosphere of exuberant discovery (Kohn, 2004).