Learning to teach with the brain in mind!

Knowing how the brain works is the first step towards good teaching, but it requires the second step as well: knowing how to apply this knowledge to your teaching. Let's look at a few critical factors of learning and think about ways to weave them into your lessons, whether that means modifying textbook activities, or writing your own. The key factors include deep processing, repetition, emotion, extensive anything, the human factor, and most important, meaningfulness.

David is from Weymouth in the south of England, and now lives in Hiroshima with his wife and three dogs. He is a keen supporter of Manchester United.

Personal construct psychology and its implications in the classroom

George Kelly's principle work 'The Psychology of Personal Constructs' was written in the 1950's but anticipated and is highly compatible with many of the findings of recent brain research. In this presentation, David Paul will look at some of the key concepts in personal construct psychology and at the practical application of these concepts in the classroom.

Academic background:
David Paul has an MA in Social and Political Science from Cambridge University. He is the author of many best-selling books including Communicate, Finding Out, Communication Strategies and Teaching English to Children in Asia. He built up David English House into one of the most respected language schools in east Asia, and is now president of Language Teaching Professionals. He is the founder of ETJ.

Happy students learn more, work harder on tasks and approach those tasks with enthusiasm – and while those things are happening, the learning centers in the brain are lighting up with serotonin and endorphins.

Positive Psychology explores happiness, positive emotion and those things that allow us to flourish. In this session, we’ll look at some key ideas from positive psychology and brain science and ways to use them in the classroom via activities with clear language and communication goals. Specifically, we’ll look at some of the more recent developments in Positive Psychology and Brain Science. These ideas consider happiness in the greater context of well-being. This includes Martin Seligman’s PERMA Model (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of Flow and Barbara Fredrickson’s Positive Emotion Tipping Point (it really is a scientific concept, not just a metaphor). We will also consider negative emotions – the uses of stress as well as the dangers of amygdala hijack. We’ll connect them to practical, motivating English Learning tasks.

A handout identifying was to connect the ideas to your classroom will be provided.

 

It is well understood that people feel more comfortable mirroring near peer role models. However, being able to also mirror diversity brings with it many benefits. Diversity peering brings otherwise distant models into one's zone of possible development (ZPD) and increases one zone of proximal adjusting (ZPA). Such  diversity peering also promotes more empathy, altruism, and peace.