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The middle school mind is…different. As 13-year-old Logan LaPlante described in his Ted Talk Hack Schooling Makes Me Happy, “Neuroscientists say that the teenage brain is pretty weird: our prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped, but we actually have more neurons than adults, which is why we can be so creative, and impulsive, and get bummed out.” Truer words were never spoken around this subject. 
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Scoop.it!
Judy Willis, a neurologist & middle grades teacher, says adolescent brains learn more through interactive, interdependent group work. Did you know that "peer group influence plays an important developmental role in the psychosocial process of separation from parents"? What does this mean to teachers of middle school students? That "interactive, interdependent group work" helps middle school students "build happy, learning brains." This post will help you learn more about brain science, successful group work, how to plan for success, provides some researched-based guidelines and more.
Devon Clarke's curator insight,
October 22, 2014 4:44 PM
When it comes to adolescents brain development in our western society today we can rely on school systems to play a large role in this. In this article is talks about how cooperative work groups in middle schools are the best ways for children to learn (Willis, 2012). I found this article to relate very closely to an academic journal I read comparing social development in pre schoolers in a values education program (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263). In the experiment of the academic journal researches found that children put into the values education program had better social development and less behavioural issues (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263). Even though this article of cooperative groups deals with middle schools students, it proves to say that cooperative learning groups gets all children involved, and forms for the greatest levels of conceptual learning (Dereli-Iman, E, 2014, p.263). In the text book Exploring Psychology in Modules, they state that day care is an area that has a huge impact on a child's development (Myers & Myers, 2008, p. 148). As Whetten stated, good quality child care is a warm and stimulations place for children, and poor child care is boring for this children making them unresponsive (Myers & Myers, 2008, p. 149). From these three articles you can see that schooling for children plays a huge role in brain development, and it is important to make sure they are in a good environment. Thought the author of this article, Judy Willis did not use a lot of scientific reasoning and proof in her article I found her findings and background to be very impressive. It would have made the article a little bit better if she would have added in some statistics to back up her reasoning about cooperative groups (Willis, 2012). A possible diverse group that would be effected through cooperative learning are kids from other countries who do not speak the foreign language. If a child was put into a cooperative group and was not able to converse with the other children it could possibly lead to negative outcomes for that student. Sources: Myers, D. G., & Myers, D. G. (2008). Exploring psychology in modules. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Willis, J. (2012, September 14). Brain Research: Adolescents Learn More in Cooperative Groups | MiddleWeb. Retrieved from http://www.middleweb.com/2847/how-to-build-happy-brains/ Dereli-İman, E. (2014). The Effect of the Values Education Programme on 5.5-6 year old children’s social development: social skills, psycho-social development and social problem solving skills. Kuram Ve Uygulamada Eğitim Bilimleri, 14(1), 262-268. 
Ruth Virginia Barton's curator insight,
February 13, 2015 11:08 AM
Supportive middle school teaching strategies like cooperative learning, class celebrations, and community-school collaborations lower stress and increase resilience in students and create HAPPY MIDDLE-SCHOOL BRAINS, neuro-imaging shows. |
How different is the mind of a middle school learner? This infographic is divided into the following sections:
* Who are middle school students?
* How do they learn?
* How can you teach to reach them?
* How can we change that statistic?
There is also a white paper that you can receive a copy of (although you will need to provide your contact information). The white paper, Nurturing the Middle School Mathematical Mind, will provide additional information.