Educational Neuroscience Blog

What:
I researched Judy Willis and about what she is researching currently is RAD teaching. RAD is a way that as teachers we can get the attention of our students. The R in RAD stand for Reticular Activating System (RAS), this is the part of the brain that is the fight or flight. So as teachers we need to create a low stress enviornment and try to engage our students in new ways. By using tiggers that are exciting to our students. A in RAD stands for Amygdala. This is the part of the brain that acts as a switch to let us know if we are stressed or not. We need to make sure that our students are not stressed and are happy. And the D in RAD stands for Dopamine. This is a chemical neurotransmitter, that if we have a high dosage of this our brain is receiving inforamtion all over. When this is high we are happy and engaged.

So What:
So from what i understnad about RAD teaching is that our students learn the best when they are engaged and not stressed out about what they are learning. So as an educator I need to be abvle to provide this envornment for my students. The classroom needs to be a place for enjoyment and for interaction with other students. I beleive that if the students are enjoying what they are learning they will remenber it and do well in the calss. So by knowing all of the ways to get are studetns attention will help us as teachers. There are a lot of educators that know the content area but lack in the engaging thier studentes part. I highly agree with Willis with this research as a way to look at teaching.

Now what:
I understand what RAD teaching is, but i dont know if i could fully implement this into my teaching. I need to understand more about the human brain and how it works to be able to fully use the ideas of RAD teaching in my classroom. I agree that this is a great way to have the classroom. I know that I would have improoved if my classes in high school if they would have been set up this way. I think that it is important to know how to have a relaxing climate in the classroom. As i get into the schools I am going to try and use RAD teaching in my teaching. Also as I am already teaching at a studio level i can bring this into the Dance room. In dacne there are so many ways i could use this, i could bring images and have the dancers make up dances about that image. I need to brainstorm and come up with lessons that I can use RAD teaching.