The Key to

Building Better
Brains
Everything we learn comes
to the brain through our
senses.

How a child’s brain responds

to environmental sensory
data determines what
information gets his attention
 RAD LEARNING
Three main brain systems that are keys to
building BETTER BRAINS:

R – Reticular Activating System (RAS)

A – Affective filter in the AMYGDALA
D – Dopamine
Three main brain systems (RAD)
R- Reticular Activating System (RAS)
 Brain’s sensory switchboard
 Located at the lower back of the brain (brain stem)
 Reticular Activating System (RAS)

 Brain’s first sensory intake filter ; a primitive

network of cells in the lower brain stem
through which all sensory input must pass if it is
to be perceived by the higher brain
 Receives input from the nerves that converge
into the spinal cord from nerve endings in the
arms, legs, trunk, face and internal organs

 Sets the state of awareness, alertness and

vigilance of the rest of the brain
 Selectively alerts the brain into changes in
their environment that impact their
survival – sounds, sights, smells that may
indicate danger. When a threat is
perceived, the RAS automatically selects
related sensory information and directs it
to the LOWER, reactive brain, where the
voluntary response is FIGHT, FLIGHT OR
FREEZE (Raz & Buble,2006)
 Reticular Activating System (RAS)

 RASis now a filter that is most

attentive to changes in our
environment

 RAS’sresponse to the sensory

information determines the speed,
content and type of information
available to the higher brain.
 INSUCCESSFUL LEARNING, children are
stimulated to pay attention to important
information by getting the attention of
their RAS

 Children need novel or engaging

experiences that contain the sensory
stimulation sufficient to power their
information through the RAS’s brain filters
Implications for Classroom
 Reduce children’s perception of threat of
punishment or embarrassment in front of
classmates

UNLESS the perception of threat is reduced,

the brain persists in doing it primary job –
PROTECTING the individual from harm.
During fear, sadness or anger, neural
activity is evident in the lower brain and the
reflective, cognitive brain does not receive
input of important items, such as the
content of the day’s lessons
How do we prime our RAS to
promote attention focus on
lessons ?
 Modulate your voice when presenting
information
 Mark key points on a chart or board in
color
 Vary the font size in printed material
 Change seating arrangements
periodically.
 Add photos or children’s work on the
walls.
 Advertise an upcoming unit with curiosity-
provoking posters, and add clues or
puzzles each day. Then ask children to
predict what the lesson might be coming.
It can prime the RAS select the sensory
input of that lesson when it is revealed.
 Introduce a song to promote curiosity and
focus. Choose ones that will have a link
between some words in the song and
something in the lesson.
A – Affective filter in the Amygdala
part of the emotion- processing limbic
system
 THE AMYGDALA –
WHERE HEART MEETS MIND

 How well your child stores the sensory

input that makes it through the
amygdala filter is greatly influenced by
her emotional state at the time she
receives the information
How do we keep the amygdala from
blocking information from the higher thinking
brain ?

 Provideactivities that reduce stress and

increase pleasurable associations with
learning

 Provide activities that build curiosity,

positive emotional associations and
reminders of pleasurable prior experiences
and academic successes
 Reading to students or shared reading by
student pairs
 Creating opportunities for students to
experience intrisic, incremental progress,
not just feedback after final product
assessment
 Using humor, not sarcasm
 Collaborative group work
 Positive peer interactions
 Student choice of practice
Hippocampus
 consolidation center where new sensory input is
linked to previous knowledge and to memories of
past experiences retrieved from memory storage
D- Dopamine

 Important neurotransmitter that helps

increase focus and enables the brain to
stay attentive

 increases capacities to store long-term

memories

 Carries information across synapses

 Is
released when an experience is positive
and pleasurable
neurons firing in sequence along specific sensory pathways
Learning activities that can induce the
release of dopamine include:

 Physical movement
 Personal interest and connections
 Social interactions
 Music
 Novelty
 Sense of achievement
 Intrinsic reward
 Choice
 Play
 Humor
 SENSORY INFORMATION
RAS
SENSORY CORTEX

LIMBIC SYSTEM
(AMYGDALA AND HIPPOCAMPUS)
DOPAMINE CORTISOL

PLEASURABLE THREAT/STRESS

data goes to data goes to

HIGHER BRAIN AUTOMATIC CENTERS for
(reflective, thinking brain) FIGHT/FLIGHT/FREEZE response
(reactive, non-thinking brain)
From Sensory input to Higher Thinking
 When sensory information is not blocked
by the RAS and amygdala filters, the
information can reach the powerful
thinking and reasoning networks in the
prefrontal lobes

 The higher thinking networks process new

information through what are called
executive functions including judgment,
analysis, prioritizing and decision making
 Itis in the executive function networks that
new information is mentally manipulated
to become a MEMORY.

 When the pre-frontal cortex processes

new information with mental manipulation
such as problem solving, planning,
predicting, the new information is
transformed from SHORT TERM MEMORY
INTO LONG TERM MEMORY
 How the brain builds memory ?
 When a child’s brain turns sensory input into
memory, she learns.

 Construction of new memories allows a brain

to learn by experiences and predict the
outcome of one’s behavior

 The more we learn, the more information

stored in our neural networks, the more likely
our brains are to relate new information
- hence LEARNING promotes LEARNING
 Rote memory –involves simply memorizing and
soon forgetting

 Short term memory – holds data in a child’s

mind for a minute or so ; to keep a working
memory from slipping away, it needs to enter
the network of the brain’s neural circuits

 Long term memory – created when short term

memory is strengthened through review and
meaningful associations with existing patterns
and prior knowledge

 Relational memory – takes place when child

links new information to something he has
already stored; no connections, no new
memory
 Two Essential Brain Processes

1. Patterning – meaningful organization,

coding, and categorizing of information;
prediction is what the brain does with the
information it patterns

2. Neuroplasticity – growth of new neural

connections and the pruning of unused
connections between neurons
Self-Directed,
Engaged Learning
 Itis through learning that people realize
their potential. It is through learning that
their minds become attuned, ready to
meet whatever life brings.

 Schools need to find ways to promote

self-directed, engaged learning in
students throughout their lives.
References:
 Wilson,Donna, “Flourishing in the First Five Years”
 Shiller,Pam, “Start Smart: Building Brain Power in the
Early Years
 Galinsky, Ellen, “ Mind in the Making”
 Healy, Jane, “ Your Child’s Growing Mind”
 Evans,Judith, “Early Childhood Counts”, (The
International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development)
 Brazelton, T.Berry M.D. and Greenspan, Stanley M.D,
“The Irreducible Needs of Children: What Every Child
Must Have to Grow, Learn and Flourish”