Brains.org is designed not only for educators, but also for parents and individuals who simply want to learn about the topic. This site is valuable because the articles it displays about the brain varies greatly. For example, brain and caffeine, brain and commercial influence, and brain and rewards/punishments.
The article Stress - a land mine for the brain (http://help4teachers.com/stress.htm), by Dr. Kathie F. Nunley, greatly ties in with our learning materials for this week. She states that "...stress is an inevitable part of the education process, research shows that it can actually undermine the learning process." This information caught my attention because there were a number of times that my students saw the stress in my body language, and in return I also noticed that some of them emulated my mood. Also during stress, the memory systems are negatively influenced, thus causing problems with our problem solving skills and decision making abilites, and according to Dr. Nunley stress cripples our short term memory which causes difficulty in retrieving previous information.
Being aware of the implications of stress could make us better teachers, parents, and students. The information on stress should also lead us to practice stress-relief activities such as walking, taking deep breaths, and even drinking cold water or tea. We should always try to remember the negative results of large amounts of stress when we are teetering between "good stress" and "bad stress."
I believe that the one of the best strategy we can use to keep students in positive mood is humor strategy. I believe that the journal entry about “An Explanation of the Relationship between Instructor Humor and Student Learning: Instructional Humor Processing Theory.” Is very useful for all because students in the classroom come from various social, cultural and economic background specially in developing countries. So teacher should be able to create happiness in every student mind. Therefore, when giving instructions teacher should be careful about the student background. Otherwise teacher could not be able to get happier all of them.
ReplyDeleteSo I suggest every one must read this journal entry.
I think you have chosen the best two articles about the “relationship between instructor humor and student learning” and “ stress a land-mine for the brain”.
ReplyDeleteIn the above articles discuss about stress how harmful to the brain and instructor humor. Very close relationship can be seen between them. How can we create happiness in the student mind to minimize stress. Good.