EXPLORING THE THINGS THAT AFFECT THE BRAIN AND ITS LEARNING ABILITY. ALYSSA BERGERON EDU 417 INSTRUCTOR DR. JOANNA SAVARESE-LEVINE FEBRUARY 3, 2014

NEUROTRANSMITTERS Neurotransmitters are very important to the process of learning. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that allow communication to take place between neurons. There are three neurotransmitters that you all may have heard of and those are: Dopamine: Controls the conscious motor activities of the brain as well as helps enhance the feeling of pleasure in the brain’s reward system. Acetylcholine: This enhances REM sleep. Serotonin: Helps to calm the brain down. This neurotransmitter is also involved in memory, sleep, appetite, and body temperature.

NEUROTRANSMITTERS CONTINUED These neurotransmitters are very important to the learning process, as well as students memory. If your child is not getting enough rest, the dopamine levels will be off. In fact, every neurotransmitter could be off. If your child is not getting enough rest, then as my student, they will not be able to have the capacity to grasp the information that I am passing down to them. Their memory may even be off and if that is the case, then it is not possible for them to really remember all of the different aspects of their day. Understanding these neurotransmitters and treating them with respect, could prove to be the difference of asking how your child’s day at school was and getting a full answer or an I don’t know. Of course, we know that sometimes children answer either way regardless, but lets make sure that sleep and diet are in the right spot so that students are getting as much information as they can.

Movement can help with learning as well. When a student is moving, blood flow is increasing. Parents, you may be wondering what exercise and increased blood flow can do for your student. Lets break it down: Exercise can cause new neurons to form and neurons are vital in learning and memory. Exercise can help people to focus better because it enhances cognition, and causes more connections between brain cells (Ronald, 2004). The more connections that are going on within the brain, the more learning is able to take place.

Your children need a good nights rest every night. Sleep is very important to your child’s learning. Not only does a child who gets a good nights rest show more alertness, he or she also is learning better. During sleep the brain is better able to consolidate information and store information in the memory (Wolfe, 2010). A lack of sleep can also negatively impact your child in the classroom. A lack of sleep does alter the brains functions. If the brain is not working up to it’s potential, student’s will suffer in the classroom. Establish a good sleep routine with your child, if you haven’t already, to ensure that they are well rested for the learning that their brain will take part in the following day.

Nutrition is important in every aspect of development. Nutrition is important to help a child grow, to help a child be healthy, and to help a brain develop properly. Ensure your student starts off the day on the right foot by either eating breakfast at home or having breakfast here at school with the School Breakfast. Students who eat breakfast show improvement on standardized tests, as well as improvement in the classroom (Wolfe, 2010). Breakfast can improve a student’s attendance, grades, and behavior, as well as help them to adjust to social adjustments (Dani, 2005). A full stomach causes less distractions for a student in the classroom. All nutrition is vital for students. Ensure all meals are balanced, but do not let your child skip out on breakfast. It is important.

Technology is all around our children. It is the society that they are growing up in. Make sure that the content your children are watching or playing, is appropriate to their age. Something that could also be helpful is if you ensure that the games they are playing can be applied to their learning. Leapfrog has a lot of material that I know parents are using these days. This kind of technology is preferred by me, rather than a violent video game. This is grade school. We need to make sure these children focus on the importance of learning and not on the violence of a game. Limit the time on the appropriate games to a maximum of 45 minutes a day. This will help to make sure that students are not overly involved in electronics, but it will give them a different way to learn with appropriate materials.

Encourage your children to exercise and encourage them to participate in classroom movements. Remind them that moving helps the learning flow. Exercise is good for development anyways, so try to remind your child of this as well. Keep moving to keep those connections forming. Develop a good night routine. Set aside enough time to get through your nightly routine, possibly a bedtime story, and then a decent bedtime. Make sure your child is getting the proper amount of sleep. The proper amount of sleep should be 12 hours of sleep a night (Wolfe, 2010). Try to get close to this amount with your child.

Make sure that your child is eating balanced meals every day. If you cannot do breakfast, look into the school’s breakfast program. Remember a full tummy in the morning can contribute to the start of a very successful day. Remind your children of how much nutrition can help them learn. Teach them that eating veggies helps to make their brains grow. Try to limit the use of technology that is not a positive reinforcement within the classroom. Encourage the use of technology that can help contribute to what a student is learning though. In a technology driven society, it is ridiculous to believe that technology will not be used. However, as parents, monitor the work that they are doing to be positive that what they are playing with will help them in the long run.

Ronald, Kotulak, T., Science Reporter. (2004 Mar 17). Exercise for the body is food for the brain, study says. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from Dani, J., Burill, C., & Demming-Adams, B. (2005). The Remarkable Role of Nutrition in Learning and Behavior. Nutrition and food science. 35(3), Retrieved from Wolfe, P. (2010). Brain matters: Translating research into classroom practice. (2nd ed.). Alexandria,VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Fischer, K. W., Immordino-Yang, M. H., &, (2008). The jossey-bass reader on the brain and learning. (1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.