Podcasts about how learning works

Marie Norman and Mike Bridges share about the 2nd edition of How Learning Works on episode 466 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. Quotes from the episode Our student-centered approach to teaching requires us to teach the whole student, not just content. -Mike Bridges Resources How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, by Marie K Norman, Susan A Ambrose, Michele Dipietro, Marsha C. Lovett, Michael W. Bridges Innovative Design for Education and Assessment (IDEA) Lab Affiliate income disclosure: Books that are recommended on the podcast link to the Teaching in Higher Ed bookstore on Bookshop.org. All affiliate income gets donated to the LibroMobile Arts Cooperative (LMAC), established in 2016 by Sara Rafael Garcia.”

In a back-to-back special, we're continuing to explore how learning works through the book “How Learning Works: 8 Research Based Principles of Smart Teaching”. Picking up from our last episode with Dr. Marie Norman at the University of Pittsburgh, a short walk down Forbes Ave towards Carnegie Mellon, you can find the office of today's guest, Dr. Marsha Lovett. Starting as a professor in Carnegie Mellon's psychology department, Dr. Lovett now serves as Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning Innovation. She manages the Eberly Center, a team of teaching consultants, learning designers, data scientists, and technologists who help instructors create meaningful and demonstrably effective educational experiences (and still, she has time to teach her psych classes). Dr. Lovett's psychological background was front and center in our chat with her, where we talked about the importance of motivation and engagement in learning, the power of generative learning, and how organizations can really tell if the information they're teaching people is sticking, and working. If you enjoyed our last podcast, this is a great follow up to dive even deeper into how learning really works, so with that…let's bring it in!

How does learning really work? Who better to join us on the podcast than Dr. Marie K. Norman -- the co-author of “How Learning Works: 8 Research Based Principles of Smart Teaching,” to answer the question? After graduating from University of Pittsburgh and acquiring her Ph.D, Dr. Norman began teaching at Carnegie Melon and has been there for 14 years, including designing programs for the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence. More recently she's moved back to her alma mater as an associate professor of Medicine, Clinical and Translational Science, as well as the Director of the university's Innovative Design for Education and Assessment (IDEA) Lab, where her research focuses on everything from the application of research-based learning principles to teaching to cross-cultural issues in education. We had a great time sitting down with Dr. Norman, where we chatted about exactly how learning works, what generative learning is, why it's so effective, why both challenge and engaging content is so important, and what new updates are being made to the newest edition to “How Learning Works: 8 Research Based Principles for Smart Teaching.” You want to build a high performance workforce? You aren't going to want to miss this episode...

Welcome back to The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we cover the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning (for schools) and emotional intelligence training (in the workplace) with tools, ideas and strategies that we can all use for increased results. I'm Andrea Samadi, and launched this podcast to share how important an understanding of our brain is for our everyday life and results--whether we are a teacher in the classroom, or in the modern workplace, and release content to help all of us, specifically on the topics of health, wellbeing and productivity. This weekend, I heard a message from New York Times Best Selling author of the book, High Performance Habits, Brendon Burchard[i], that got me thinking about where we are right now in the world today. He said that while there might have been times during the Pandemic where we laid low, or held back in protective mode, the pendulum has swung the other way now, and that there is a high need for us ALL to be “more productive as a nation”[ii]  as we enter this next phase of the economy, and showing up with our A-game is not just timely, but crucial. I know that listeners of this podcast are high performing, with learning new things at the top of your list, so with this in mind, for today's EPISODE #233, I wanted to go back and review our TOP 12 Most viewed YouTube Video Interviews, as chosen by you, the listener, so we can all go back to the basics, and review some of the most important lessons learned on this podcast, since we launched just over 3 years ago. I used to love listening to radio icon, Casey Kasem's American Top 40[iii] back in the 1980s on my clock radio when I was in high school, where he would leave you in suspense as he counted backwards, to the #1 song, but for this countdown, I will start with our #1 most listened to episode, with something I remember about each one, or the speaker, and a link that we can all use to revisit, and “Sharpen our Saw”[iv] as Dr. Stephen Covey would say, as we can go back and review these most listened to episodes with the 7th Habit. Since I keep an eye on the numbers of this podcast, whether it's with the audio interviews, or video, I thought it was interesting that the Top 10 list holds 8/10 people who were in our early interviews, or the 1st 100 interviews, with 2 people who came in later, and rose to the top. While I think ALL interviews hold important lessons, let's begin with our Top 12. Let the Countdown Begin… The #1 most watched interview, is our first interview with Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, EPISODE #77 on “Developing and Delivering High Quality, Distance Learning”[v] that we can all remember came right as parents and teachers were thrown unexpectedly into the world of online learning. Watch this interview by clicking here https://youtu.be/7nLe3P50j4Q and review their tips to help all of us succeed in this every changing world. Don't miss their return to the podcast for EPISODE #161 with their new book with John Almarode, “How Learning Works”[vi] where they tie learning and the brain What I will never forget with both these interviews is the timing of them. I'm sure no one will ever forget just how disastrous it was bringing our children to at home learning, and by the time we got to revisit everyone, for EPISODE 161, we were right in the middle of the Pandemic, and I remember in the second interview, we ALL had terrible colds. None of us cancelled this interview, that we did at 6am PST but we all said prayers for family members who were struggling with COVID, and we covered the content, using all of our energy to do so. I do receive emails about 2 two specific interviews from Education Departments in different parts of the country who ask if they can use them as models for their students on best practices for interviewing as well as for the content provided, which brings me to think about the fact that regardless of how we are feeling before we have to present something, “A Pro is at their best, regardless.” (Bob Proctor).   The second most watched interview was with Howard Berg, The World's Fastest Reader, with over a 90% comprehension rate on “Simple and Easy Strategies to Improve Reading, Comprehension and Recall.” Watch this interview here https://youtu.be/Al0B6HzxtEk This was such a fun interview, as Howard is an incredible teacher who I had no idea was like me, a former swimming teacher who learned about the importance of the student “wanting to learn” to swim that he translated into learning years later. I had met Howard years before I asked him to do this interview, and followed his work, using one of his speed reading strategies with my youngest daughter to help her to stay focused with reading. (It's a common strategy of putting your finger on the page while you are reading, but Howard can show you that this practice can significantly improve reading speed and comprehension with many other important tips to improve memory and learning, that I think includes using humor to engage your students. The third most watch interview is with Suzanne Gundersen on “The Polyvagal Theory in Practice” that you can watch here https://youtu.be/WCFrygUG-UI Understanding the Polyvagal Theory, and how our body shifts between rest and digest, fight or flight and total shut down became important for educators in the classroom to understand the states of minds of their students, and why they were acting certain ways, with strategies that can be used to calm down a student who might be struggling. I'm not going to skip this bit of feedback that you can read in the comment section of this interview, because it's important that when we receive constructive criticism that we hear it. This interview on stress reduction, I do hear often “why did you choose that hyper music for a stress-reducing interview?” The answer is pretty simple, I try not to be defensive, and hear the criticism, so I can take it in to learn and improve, but I honestly had no idea what music to use when I first started out. I can see now that I should have chosen a calmer selection of music for this interview.  We are all learning together here.  The 4th most watch interview is with Dawson Church on his Bliss Brain Book and Daily Meditations. Watch the interview here https://youtu.be/bH8yVKHjFN4 While I still use Dawson Church's meditations EVERY morning, that you can access through his book, I really could have used them in the interview when my landscapers came, and my dog Nitro went cray, barking for what felt like an eternity.  Dr. Church was a pro and explained “The Neuroscience Behind Remodeling our Brain for Happiness, Resilience and Joy” without skipping a beat. When this happened, I could see his calm brain in action, and it really did show from my end, knowing there was a lot of noise that I did cut out.  The fifth most watched interview is about Dr. Anna Lembke's popular book, “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence” where she takes us through the fact that “we are all running from something” and looking at where we are out of balance using her strategies to help tip us back to balance, towards increased energy and productivity. I had to reach out to Dr. Lembke after seeing her on Dr. Huberman's podcast, and she continues to show up on podcasts in my stream to this day, as this topic isn't losing its importance. Watch this interview here https://youtu.be/5Pu82wZRZwo What I loved about this interview was that she was all about “finding balance” and explained how it was possible to do this. She shared that we don't need to give up those things that we love, but take a break from them, and you will notice a brain reset in the process. In 6th place, we have Dr. David Sousa with his series “How the Brain Learns” that was handed to me from an educator over 8 years ago, who urged me to go in the direction of neuroscience. Dr. Sousa's series that's now in its 5th edition, is one of the books I picked up when first beginning to understand how our brain learns to read, do math, how the ELL brain learns, or the special needs brain learns—each book explains the science behind learning and the brain. Watch our first interview here for EPISODE #78 https://youtu.be/4welQLkKm5I and then review our second interview when this book went into Its 5th edition here https://youtu.be/148InRAxFts In 7th place, we have Marc Brackett with his early interview, EPISODE #22 on his book, Permission to Feel that you can watch here https://youtu.be/CeOzi8ZrFO4. I still follow Marc's inspiring work, but what I love seeing the most is when someone's work comes full circle. If you follow Marc on Instagram, you would have seen the post about his niece, Esme, who recently graduated from high school, and Marc posted a beautiful photo of the two of them, and wrote that he hopes that he is “as good an uncle to her as her grandfather (Marc's Uncle Marvin who inspired his work) was to him.” (Marc Brackett). When I think of the thousands of schools using Marc's Ruler approach, and the mark he's made on the world, I can't even begin to imagine how much he's inspired this young lady. I might just have to find her, and interview her to find out! Licensed and board certified behavior analyst (BCBA) Jessica Minahan comes in 8th with her book “The Behavior Code” that helps us to all understand and teach the most challenging students. Jessica's work was referred to me by Greg Wolcott, who we have interviewed on this podcast, twice, and Greg often sends over ideas and suggestions for speakers to feature. I wish I knew about The Behavior Code when I was a first-year teacher, facing a classroom filled with behavioral students. You can watch this interview here https://youtu.be/oQqFN110gMM  Mark Robert Waldman, comes in 9th with EPISODE #30 on “Brain-Based Experiential Learning and Living” where Mark began exploring the importance of mindfulness with creativity, and productivity that I learned first-hand in his Neurocoaching Certifcation Program, (that took me 2 years to complete). His program is the ONLY program led by University faculty who are currently doing peer- reviewed brain-scan research in the field of Network Neuroscience. If you watch this interview, you will see how Mark loves teaching everyone how to maximize our brain power for improved results, when it comes to money, happiness and success. He is now working on a new book with Andy Newberg, MD. On “Balancing Your Default Mode Network” Watch our interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54bmB6_gPGc  The 10th spot goes to Todd Woodcroft who at the time was an Assistant Coach with the Winnipeg Jets in the NHL. He's since moved up to a Head Coach Position with D1 Men's College Hockey, but if you follow his work, you would see that he still remains closely tied with the NHL, male and female player development as well as youth development. Our interview on “Embracing the Daily Grind in the NHL” is applicable for all of us, whether we are a teacher in the classroom, a coach, or working in the corporate world, as he makes a strong case for the daily habits that are embraced, not feared at the pro sports level. What's interesting with this interview, is that it's another case of things coming full circle, as many of the people Todd mentions in this interview (2 years ago), or who he worked with, have now moved forward in their career, using these principles, including himself, which to me shows that there is a science to success. When we “embracing the daily grind” or do things a certain way, we can attain predictable results. Watch this interview here https://youtu.be/uNFT4-Yg_kI  Kelly Roman comes in at #11 with our interview on the Fisher Wallace wearable medical device that combats insomnia, anxiety and depression. I just released EPISODE 231[vii] where I recap my personal review of this device that I didn't even know existed until interviewing Kelly Roman. You can watch our interview here https://youtu.be/jCtbngfXoYg that Kelly says is his all-time favorite interview. I think it's neat to look back to this interview, when I had no idea that a device like this even existed, to see my personal review that improved my sleep by much more the gold standard of 20 minutes each night. When I wrote this review of the device, I began getting emails about my experience, and whether I still use the device, leading me to release that recent update, sharing that I still do in fact use the Fisher Wallace device to keep my WASO scores low, and now that I know it increases serotonin, I'm sure it does help my mood to be more even keeled and worry less about life's usual stressors.  John Ratey, MD comes in 12th on our countdown with our interview #116 on “The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.” You can watch this interview here https://youtu.be/ZTa1zwpQcxQ  for a reminder of how important moving our body is for the proper functioning of our brain.  When I reviewed Dr. Ratey's interview, I was reminded of the intense research I do on each guest. I'm not sure where I read that Dr. Ratey spent some time as a Zen Monk, but I think it was something he hadn't thought about for some time. I often refer back to Dr. Ratey's interview where I first began to make the connection with the importance of exercise for learning and retention.  I could keep counting down and reviewing the Top 40, like Kasey Casem's Show, but I would be here writing all night.  To close out today's EPISODE #233, I wanted to go back to what I heard Brendon Burchard mention over the weekend, with the importance of ramping up our learning, and that we must become more productive as a nation. It's not the time to shrink back, and be protective, but lean forward, review our goals, notice what's working, and what isn't, “Sharpen Our Saw” and then move forward with everything that we've got. I hope that reviewing our TOP 12 most watched interviews gives you some ideas to gain more clarity and perspective with whatever it is that you are working on, raising your ambition to do just a bit more, and show up, with you're A game for a strong last half of 2022. I'll see you in a few days. :)   REFERENCES: [i] www.Brendon.com [ii] Brendon Burchard on “What to focus on as we enter this next phase of the economy.” https://www.growthday.com/iphone2 [iii] https://www.iheart.com/live/classic-american-top-40-6545/ [iv]The 7th Habit https://www.franklincovey.com/habit-7/#:~:text=Sharpen%20the%20Saw%20means%20preserving,emotional%2C%20mental%2C%20and%20spiritual. [v] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #77 Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, EPISODE #77 on “Developing and Delivering High Quality, Distance Learning.” https://youtu.be/7nLe3P50j4Q [vi] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #171 Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Almarode on Their New Playbook "How Learning Works"https://youtu.be/1Zw3E1OZnl4 [vii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #231 https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/update-one-year-later-on-my-personal-review-of-the-fisher-wallace-wearable-sleep-device-for-anxiety-depression-and-sleep-management/    

This is Season 3, Episode 13 of FocusED, and it features our guest, John Almarode. It was originally recorded live for a studio audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience for Delaware teachers and leaders. Don't miss what Dr. Almarode says about the importance of clarity for learning, evidence of learning, the science of teaching…and so much more. _______________________________________ John Almarode Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners John is an Associate Professor of Education in the College of Education at James Madison University and works with preservice teachers and graduate students across multiple teacher preparation programs. John is a bestselling author (of 11 books) and has worked with schools, classrooms, and teachers all over the world on the translation and application of the science of learning to the classroom, school, and home environments, and what works best in teaching and learning. Today, we discuss John's book, Clarity for Learning and what that means for teachers and students as well as school leaders who are looking for instructional excellence in the classroom. ________________________________________ FocusED Show Notes with John Almarode Don't miss what John says about clarity of learning for teachers but also students. What do we want our students to learn? How do we want them to learn? How will they know if we've learned? Relaying feedback to learners is important but it's also important for learners to relay feedback to us. Having learning intentions and success criteria is one thing, but they can't just be practices on the board. Teachers need to pay attention to the verbs in the standards: “compare and contrast” versus “explain” and other behaviors that we want students to communicate and display. Don't miss the secret that John tells us about what separate teachers who have the highest degrees of learning and growth. The science learning has been around since 1885. Once you learn something, if you don't practice retrieving it, you'll forget it. Unfortunately, we don't always use the science. Our work now: how do we support teachers with the science of learning to apply it in the context of the classroom so that we can learn more about the science of teaching. John talked about his other book, How Learning Works, as a place to go to support teachers now in terms of where we might start with the science of learning. It is very difficult to learn in an environment where you don't feel like you belong. ~ John Almarode Listen to John describe what happens in a threatening environment; students will simply not care about what the teacher planned for them to learn. John ends the episode with a message about focusing on what really matters most versus what we don't have any control over. _________________________________________ Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you'll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

“Learn continually—there's always one more thing to learn” Steve Jobs Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning podcast, for episode #201 on “The Lessons Learned from our Top 10 All-Time Episodes” as we reflect on the episodes that YOU chose to be the most impactful since we launched back in June 2019. For those returning, welcome back, and for those new, I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you listening, have been fascinated with learning and understanding and applying the most current research that we can ALL use to improve our productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments.  I launched this podcast as a solution to bring these ideas directly to you.  As we are now well into our 7th season, with a focus on brain health and well-being this year, it hit me while recording our 200th episode, that it would be helpful to take a look back and review the top lessons learned since launching this podcast over three years ago. There's so much content that's been covered, and while I can't mention every episode, you can always go back and scroll through the website[i] and pick episodes that stand out to you when looking for something new to learn. I still listen to these older episodes, and always pick something of value from each one. Like we said as we recapped our 200th episode, we picked high quality guests intentionally, and the content reflects these high caliber speakers. What I Wish I Knew When We First Launched This Podcast: While preparing for this episode, I glanced at the top 10 all-time episode list (that I have included in the show notes) and a few things came to my mind that I thought would be helpful to share with this review. Before I get to the lessons learned from our top episodes, I wanted to share some lessons learned from the production side of things. Many people reach out to me asking questions about “how do you launch a podcast” or “what would you have done differently if you were to do everything over again?” There's definitely ONE THING I would have done differently. If you scroll all the way down on our Podbean website to our first 6 months,[ii] you might see the downloads next to each episode are lower than you might expect up until December 2019. This is not just because we were starting out, (earlier episodes averaged around 300 downloads in the beginning, compared to 1,000 per episode now, but I'll tell you one of the biggest errors I made launching this podcast, that impacted our numbers right from the beginning. If you look, next to each episode, you can see the number of downloads for that episode, and in the beginning, (episodes created in 2019) I saved the audio files in the M4A format which is the format that Camtasia (where I do my editing) defaults to, after saving an audio file. For those listening who don't deal with audio files, think about it as one of those errors that you want to prevent others from EVER doing in the future. Who knew that Spotify, our third largest source of traffic, (with Apple Podcasts as our first, and Podbean, our host as second) only accepts MP3 audio files, so when setting up this podcast, I realized 6 months into it, that I had an error message on the connection to Spotify and zero downloads from this source?  It took 6 months to notice this error because there's a lot with launching a podcast, but a mistake like this had to be fixed sooner than later. To do this, we had to reformat all audio files from M4A format to MP3 for our podcast to appear on Spotify, and that meant that any episode created in 2019, was reset to zero. This was a huge lesson to learn, (when downloads are important for the spread of your podcast) but I'm glad we fixed it early on. If you are thinking of launching a podcast, be sure to record ALL audio files in the MP3 format. I wish I knew this in the beginning. There weren't any other big AHA moments from the production side of things that stick out, other than the fact that there was this annoying crackling sound with the audio in our earlier episodes. I still have no idea what was interfering with the audio in the earlier days, and the new Rodecaster Pro Sound Board that we implemented in 2021 eliminated that problem, but I don't think I would have changed the way we launched. I wanted to see if this idea would gain traction BEFORE we purchased all the high-tech equipment that we use now, and will continue to improve as we move forward. Now, on to our episode lessons According to you, the listener, the #1 all-time favorite was EPISODE #120[iii] with my personal review of the Fisher Wallace wearable medical device for anxiety, depression, and sleep management with over 5100 downloads. I mentioned on our previous episode that I receive the most feedback from this one, as I think that people really wanted to know there is a real person behind the review, who really did try the device. LESSON #1 from EPISODE #120: The Fisher Wallace Wearable Medical Device Improved My Sleep by More Than the 20 Minute Gold Standard. If you listen to this episode, you'll see that I was looking to improve my sleep, which it did, much more than the gold standard of 20 minutes improvement each night, and it was a non-evasive, drug-free way to do this. I can't tell you how many people I talk to who say they “barely sleep at all” and with sleep being one of the top 5 health staples that we covered on a BONUS EPISODE[iv] where we reviewed Seasons 1-4 at the end of 2020, and the fact that in my brain scan evaluation from Amen Clinics on EPISODE #94[v], Dr. Creado told me that my brain looked sleep deprived, I knew it was important to take a closer look at new ways to improve our sleep. Remember that I am just providing my experience of testing out this device, and everyone is different, but I do highly recommend trying it if sleep is something you are looking to improve. They do offer a 30-day trial and I saw the benefits well before the 30-day mark. I mentioned that in addition to being able to sleep longer, I noticed having more patience, was less high strung or anxious and calmer with my day-to-day activities. The improvements were significant enough that I continue to use the device every morning, since this review, while meditating and I seriously thought I would just be using it only for the month that I was conducting this review. The 2nd most popular episode of all-time was EPISODE #162[vi] with Dr. Anna Lembke, the Medical Director of Addictive Medicine at Stanford University on her new book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. When I saw Dr. Lembke on Dr. Andrew Huberman's podcast and received a newspaper article written by Dr. Lembke on my car while I was hiking, (from a good friend who I was talking to about how addictive technology can be) I knew I had to reach out to Dr. Lembke for this interview. It wasn't until after I had read her book, that I figured out she was in the Netflix Documentary, The Social Dilemma[vii] where she discusses the addictive nature of social media, explaining that it taps into “our basic biological imperative to connect with other people—that directly affects the release of dopamine and the reward pathway” (32:35 The Social Dilemma) and she warns us that “there's no doubt that a vehicle like social media which optimizes this connection between people is going to have the potential for addiction.” LESSON #2 FROM EPISODE #162: A Dopamine Fast Can Reset Your Brain. There are many important lessons in this interview, but the one that stood out the most to me, and even surprised me during the interview, was that Dr. Lembke said that technology, or video games, or whatever it is that we are doing that we enjoy (too much) floods our brain with dopamine, and “if we can take a month off from our drug of choice” this will allow our brain to reset it's dopamine balance, and that after the month off, you can test it out and see if you are able to go back to whatever it is that you were over-indulging with, in a more controlled manner. If we can figure out how to reset our dopamine balance and keep our use of whatever it is that we enjoy to a level that it doesn't flood our brain, we will happier, balanced and don't have to give up entirely the things that we enjoy. Our next episode, The Neuroscience of Personal Change with “Stephen R. Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” from episode #68[viii] came in at the third most downloaded episode, and this one sat at the #1 spot until that review of the Fisher Wallace device took over.  What's funny to me about this episode, is that I remember sitting in the lobby at a local resort in Arizona, with my laptop open, as I was writing this script, and knew that I was missing something. The episode seemed boring, and it couldn't even hold my attention, so I did what I usually do when bored, and scrolled through my social media accounts to see if I could learn something new that would give me a new perspective and add something of value to this episode.  I'm always reading, watching, listening and learning from those around me, and add these ideas into the podcast. Then I saw it. I read a social media post from my mentor, Greg Link[ix], who I've mentioned in past episodes. He was the mentor who I drove 3 hours each way to thank for the ideas that he gave me over the years with this work. As co-founder of the Covey Leadership Center, Greg was the one who orchestrated the strategy that led Dr. Stephen R. Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, (1989) to become one of the best-selling business books of the 20th century according to CEO Magazine, selling over 20 million copies in 38 languages. He created the marketing momentum that helped propel the Covey Leadership Center from a start-up company to a $110-plus million-dollar enterprise with offices in 40 countries. When he writes something, I always pay attention and what he has to say is always insightful and profound. This time, what he wrote was full of his own personal insight on what was happening in the world today, (it was June 2020)[x]  and his post was a very personal reflection that mentioned the 7 Habits book, and Habit #5 “Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood.” It's been a couple of years since I read his post, but it stopped me in my tracks and made me think about how it's typical that when communicating, we often want to say our point first, without practicing what Stephen Covey called empathetic listening. I knew at that moment that I wanted to think about ALL of the Habits (including the 8th one that is covered in a whole new book) and see how neuroscience could be connected to this best-selling book. It was this episode that Chris Gargano, the Vice President and Executive Producer of the New York Jets,[xi] would find our podcast as he was looking for content for his Leadership Course that he teaches at NYU and mentioned it was “ambitious” to make these correlations, and looking back at this episode, it was a lot of work to dive this deep into each of the habits, with this new angle. The biggest lesson for me thinking about this episode is that the first three habits are all about managing ourselves, habits 4-6 are about leading others, and habits 7 and 8 are about unleashing potential. Habit #8 that Stephen Covey wrote a whole book on, is about “Finding Your Voice and Inspiring Others to Find Theirs” and it gave me some insight into why Greg Link might have sent me ideas over the years. It was the 8th Habit and he was living it. LESSON #3 FROM EPISODE 68: The 8th HABIT: Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs. I met Greg Link, through Bob Proctor, around the time that Doug Wead came in to speak at the seminars (2002) and my passion for working with young people with these leadership concepts was just emerging. If you see Greg's background, he was a busy guy, and when I met him, at a seminar in CA, we were in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton, (now The Langham Huntington in Pasadena) where he introduced me to Stedman Graham, (who is known as the long-term partner of Oprah).  Stedman was there with a Basketball Team and had just published the Teens Can Make it Happen Book.[xii]  It wasn't just me that Greg Link was giving ideas to, but he gave others (like Steadman) ideas for how to make a book successful because that's the 8th HABIT “Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs.” Photo: Andrea at The Ritz Carlton, Southern CA (2002) This hotel is now The Langham Huntington, Pasadena.[xiii] What's Your Vision? REMEMBER: We all have the ability to impact the world by taking our mental energy and creating a vision, channeling our physical energy with discipline, unleashing this energy towards what we are passionate about and tapping into our spiritual side to further develop our talents and abilities. We can all do this, and once we've got to where we are going, we can role model the way for others to do the same, just like Greg Link showed me. The 4th most listened to episode was #168[xiv] with Dr. Bruce Perry and Steve Graner on the book Dr. Perry wrote with Oprah, What Happened to You that brings together all the work Dr. Perry has done over the years at The Neurosequential Network.[xv] I put the link to Dr. Perry's resources in the show notes because this is where I first started to get to know his work as I followed the trainings that he did when the Pandemic first began. Dr. Perry's work explains how traumatic events impact the brain, and I did find Oprah's parts of the book to be difficult to read as they were highly emotional, but Dr. Perry's intentional use of offsetting the difficult parts of the book with neuroscience, made for a balanced learning experience. LESSON #4 FROM EPISODE #168: Came from Steve Graner, who I found out in the interview is a childhood friend of Dr. Perry who now works with him as a Project Director, implementing the Neurosequential Model for Sport[xvi] when he said “as a teacher and a coach, why don't I know this?” He went on to explain that he understood Dr. Perry's model much better as a coach than as a teacher, and applied his model to his coaching first, and then eventually to his teaching.” Even though he was Dr. Perry's childhood friend, he didn't know everything he was teaching, and when he looked at the model, everything made sense in a way he had never seen it before. This lesson made me see exactly WHY we must keep learning about the brain, and applying what we learn to our work and lives. Moving on to our 5th most downloaded episode, where this journey with social and emotional learning began, with my mentor, Bob Proctor, from EPISODE #66.[xvii]  I list ten important lessons learned at the start of our interview together, and dove much deeper into more lesson learned from working with him for 6 years on EPISODE 67[xviii] but when the news hit that my dear mentor had passed on at the beginning of February, it took me a week or so, but I eventually watched our interview on YouTube[xix] to see if I could learn something new while reflecting back on everything. I did pick up a few lessons, but one wasn't immediate. It took me some time to step back and look at something he said to me from a different angle to find the answer I was looking for. Have you ever done that? Looked at something from a different perspective to learn something new? This is how it happened. Lesson #5 from EPISODE #66 with Bob Proctor: Leave Everyone You Come in Contact With, With the Impression of Increase. During Bob's memorial service, everyone was sharing their stories of how Bob impacted them, and their lives, and it was his son Brian who said something that connected the dots for me. He said that Bob was always leaving people with “The Impression of Increase”[xx] and explained that he would always leave people in a place of abundance rather than lack and limitation. Brian shared this story of how Bob would put him to bed and whisper “success secrets” in his ear at night, and when my girls were little, I did the same to them, so that they would begin to infuse this mindset into their non-conscious minds while sleeping. Brian's story made me recall something Bob asked me when I was moving from Toronto, Canada, to Arizona, USA in early 2001. He said, “Are you going to fly first class?” And I'm not kidding, times were lean in those days, I didn't even know how I was going to afford a sandwich when I arrived, but I remember laughing at the thought, trying to hide how scared I was of the unknown and just shook my head “no” and wondered why he would ask me that. It hit me AFTER his memorial service, all these years later, while revisiting our interview, at the very end, he said “there's only one corner of the Universe I can change, and that's me. Andrea can only change Andrea. It's very important that we understand that. The only thing that Bob can change is Bob. You can't change anyone else. You might inspire others to change, or cause them to look at things differently, but the ONLY corner of the Universe I can be certain of improving is my own self” and he went on to say, “when we understand that, we will stop letting outside conditions define us, control us, and dictate where we are going to go and what we are going to do.” This took me right back to that day when he said “Are you going to fly first class?” and my bank account didn't have enough money in it for a first class ticket, so I said no. He was giving me the Impression of Increase, trying to stretch my mind to think beyond what I could see. There was coach, and there was first class. I don't think he expected me to be reckless and spend money I didn't have, but he wanted to show me there was another option. 20 years later, when traveling with the family,  we do always check to see if we can fly first class (depending on points and availability) but in those lean years, I didn't even consider this option. Bob couldn't do this for me, but he could say something to give me the “Impression of Increase” that maybe there was another way to move to a new country. He could motivate me by his example, but the work had to be done by me, over my lifetime. And the same for you, listening.  Keep learning, growing and applying everything that we learn.   This lesson took another turn while writing this episode and I was trying to find the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena where I had that photo taken the day I had met Greg Link and Stedman Graham in the lobby, (2002) BEFORE I had published my book for teens, and was just creating the vision for my future. My husband looked at the photo, and said, “I know I stayed there in 2019) remembering a sports team that he saw there, and he found a photograph he took of that exact spot, 17 years later. Who knew, when I stood there in 2002, that my future husband would stand there years later on a business trip. The Impression of Increase has new meaning now, and I'm grateful to have learned this lesson, showing me that we can ALL create the vision that we want, and create a truly beautiful life. Why wouldn't we choose this option, over lack and limitation? Photo of the Langham Huntington, Pasadena, CA (formerly the Ritz) in 2019 The 6th most downloaded episode was Dr. Michael Gaskell's EPISODE #172 on “Leading Schools Through Trauma”[xxi] which is the title of his second book. Dr. Gaskell has a unique story, because his books and strategies stem not only from his experience working in schools, and offering trauma-informed solutions from what he has seen working in his day to day world, but he takes it a step deeper, BEING a former student who was labelled himself as “anxious, low-performing, hostile and other terms that pointed to the characteristics of trauma.” (xi, Leading Schools Through Trauma).  I know that this being trauma-informed is an important topic, from Dr. Bruce Perry's work, as well as Dr. Lori Desautels[xxii] work and this interview provides hope that the work being done in our classrooms today can have a profound impact on our students of the future, who may show these signs of struggle for a reason.   LESSON #6 from Dr. Gaskell on EPISODE #172 is to look deeper into why a student might be misbehaving or struggling and invest the time to get to know this student. He says this is a “critical investment” and that he was one of these struggling students, and no one ever gave up on him. Michael Gaskell's book and interview helped me to understand how to recognize trauma, and offers tools, and resources for being trauma-informed in today's classrooms.  The 7th most downloaded episode was #174[xxiii] with Dr. Francis Lee Stevens on “Affective Neuroscience in Psychotherapy” where he explained what he thought was missing from psychotherapy and how his new book on affective neuroscience fills this missing link. With the rise in mental health issues that we can clearly see have emerged since the global Pandemic, and the fact that on EPISODE #188[xxiv] we uncovered that “one-quarter of Americans intend to improve their mental health in 2022”[xxv]    LESSON #7 from Dr. Francis Lee Stevens from EPISODE #174 we learned of the importance of addressing our “feelings” to make an impact on our mental and physical health, and that changing our thinking can help us cope with our emotions, but we need to address our emotions to have long-term change in our health. In his book “Affective Neuroscience in Psychotherapy” his goal is to “change the feelings” we have that we don't like, not just manage the symptoms. Our 8th most downloaded EPISODE #161[xxvi] came from our second interview with Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Almarode on their new book with Corwin Press How Learning Works. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey were returning guests from EPISODE #77[xxvii] on “Developing and Delivering High Quality Distance Learning for Students” that still is our #1 most watched YouTube interview with over 6,000 views.[xxviii] On this episode, it being an early one, as times were really busy, I remember having the worst cold, and for some reason, my internet kept dropping and disconnecting the interview. I'm sure no one listening noticed this, as editing does wonders, but this is what I remember from this episode, looking back. This book was written, as John Almarode explains “to build a bridge between the research and classroom practice” and in PART 2 of their book, they talk about how to Adapt promising principles and practices to meet the specific needs of your students—particularly regarding motivation, attention, encoding, retrieval and practice, cognitive load and memory, productive struggle, and feedback. Douglas Fisher describes the Promising Principle of Attention and explains that life in the classroom would be much easier if we had our student's undivided attention for the whole day, but this is just not reality. He breaks this principle down by showing us What attention in the classroom means? What goes into paying attention. What are the practices that we can enact as teachers to improve and address the need for our students to pay attention? What does the research say about the need for attention in the classroom? What can we do right now? LESSON #8 from EPISODE #161 on How Learning Works to me proves that there is a bridge between the science of learning, and classroom practices and this book provides the steps needed for us to cross this bridge and put theory into practice. What stuck out the most to me in this interview, aside from all of the resources and tools, was that Douglas Fisher explains in the beginning of the interview how he became interested in studying the connection between the brain and learning back in 2007 when he realized everyone was talking about the brain, and he knew nothing about how the brain was connected to learning, so he signed up for a Neuroanatomy Seminar with doctoral students, and went every Thursday night, from 7-9:40 pm to figure out how the brain learns, and how a teacher can use this. There are two Brain Fact Friday episodes that came in at spot 9 with the Neuroscience of Belief[xxix] and spot 10 with Overcoming Digital Addictions[xxx] that I'll let you go back and review, mostly because it's Thursday afternoon, and I'm still writing this episode, and think it's time to wrap this one up, and go for a run before the Arizona sun gets too hot! To bring this episode in for a close, let's Review the Top Lessons Learned from the episodes YOU chose to listen to the most since we launched this podcast over 3 years ago.  LESSON #1: The Fisher Wallace Wearable Medical Device Improved My Sleep by More Than the 20 Minute Gold Standard.  If you are one of those people who know that your sleep needs some help, I would begin with measuring your sleep using free apps that you can find on your phone. You don't need to start with all of the fancy tools but begin to get an idea of how long you are sleeping, how much REM sleep you are getting, and become familiar with what a sleep cycle looks like. If you want to hear the episode with Kelly Roman[xxxi], the CEO of Fisher Wallace Labs and their wearable medical devices to help improve sleep, while also treating anxiety and depression, go back and listen to episode #108. I really did think that after the month trial and my review, that I would stop using the device, because I really didn't think it was going to make that much of a difference for me. I'm grateful that I found this device, that's cleared by the FDA for the treatment of depression, anxiety and insomnia,[xxxii] and will always share what I think can help us to improve the quality of our life, especially around the Top 5 Health Staples. LESSON #2: A Dopamine Fast Can Reset Your Brain. I had heard of dopamine fasting before I came across Dr. Lembke's Dopamine Nation book but didn't understand just how easy it was to flood our brain with dopamine, causing us to feel off balance. I almost didn't believe her when she said in our interview that many of her patients can go back to whatever it was they enjoyed doing, with some modifications, after a month off, once their brain had reset, until I tried it myself. If there is something that you are doing, that's causing you to feel off balance, you should be able to kick whatever it is on your own, or with an accountability partner to help you and Dr. Lembke's interview explained exactly how to do this. LESSON #3: The 8th HABIT: Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs. This lesson begins with you and looking back, I can't forget those early days when I wasn't sure of myself and didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted and was still searching for my own voice. When I met Stedman Graham, and saw he had written a book for teens, I remember thinking “That book will do well, he's got Oprah to help him to promote it” and I almost shrank back from writing my own book for teens until I saw that even the long-time partner of Oprah took advice from those around him like Greg Link, who was role-modelling the way. Find Your Voice First and Then Inspire Others to Find Theirs. You won't be able to do it for them, but you can role-model the way for everyone you'll be watching you. LESSON #4 came from Steve Graner, who works with Dr. Perry at the Neurosequential Network when he said “As a teacher and a coach, why don't I know this?” This is exactly why we launched this podcast as we search for new ideas that can accelerate the teaching and learning process with the understanding of neuroscience made simple. If I had Dr. Perry's upside down triangle when I was teaching those behavioral kids as a first year teacher in Toronto, it would have explained everything to me, like it did for Steve. I wouldn't have operated by trial and error, (like I did when telling my students to run around the school building when they were misbehaving) since that was the only way they would listen. AHA Moment, they listened because they were regulated after the exercise, leading me to conclude, like Steve did at the very beginning of this episode, “Why didn't I know this?” Lesson #5 from Bob Proctor: Leave Everyone You Come in Contact With, With the Impression of Increase. This concept came from Chapter 14 of the book The Science of Getting Rich[xxxiii] by Wallace D. Wattles, written in 1903, and the concept still holds today, almost 120 years later. Wattles wrote “when dealing with other people, whether directly, by telephone, or by letter, (this book was clearly written over 100 years ago) the key thought should be to convey of increase” (CH 14, SGR, Wattles) since we all desire increase. We ALL want to be, do and have more in our life and are always seeking fuller expression. So how do we do this? Always look for the good in people and point it out to them. Tell them what you see. Don't hold back. There's so much good in EVERY person and when you look for it, you'll see it. Make this a habit and a way of life. Always “leave everyone you come in contact with, with the impression of increase.” LESSON #6 from Dr. Gaskell on EPISODE #172 was to never give up on a struggling student, since he was one of these students, who didn't fall through the cracks, and went on to attain high levels of achievement with his career, helping others to do the same. I think this is the beginning for Dr. Gaskell's work, as he continues to write more books and present on this topic around the country. This lesson reminds me to the quote by Theodore Roosevelt, that “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” I don't like the idea of giving up on anything, but this takes it to a new level when you think of the unlimited potential locked up inside ALL of our students, and not knowing what each student is capable of doing or creating in their lifetime. LESSON #7 from Dr. Francis Lee Stevens from EPISODE #174 we learned of the importance of looking beyond the thoughts we have that are bothering us, to the “feelings” behind the thought to make long term change possible. For example, if something is bothering you, it might take some time to figure this out, but you can go deeper and see if you can make connections to your past to when you first felt this way, and how this experience made you feel (like I'm not good enough) or something like that. When you can begin to make sense of why you feel a certain way, you can begin to heal the past, that brings healing to your present day. I did see the connection with Dr. Stevens' work, and Dr. Carolyn Leaf's work from a BONUS EPISODE that we released this time last year on her book “Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess”[xxxiv] that covers a 5-step process to reduce anxiety and toxic thinking. LESSON #8 from EPISODE #161 on How Learning Works to me proves that there is a bridge between the science of learning, and the classroom, and Douglas Fisher admitted he knew nothing about how the brain learns back in 2007. He mentioned he felt “incompetent and behind” without this understanding and that's what drove him to sit in a Neuroanatomy class with doctoral students to make this connection.  Listening to Douglas Fisher's introduction to neuroscience took me back to why we launched this podcast in the first place—to make neuroscience simple as I remember being awarded grant money to put my programs in Arizona schools, and an educator told me that I needed to understand the science behind learning, and write a new book for my program, and I began to question whether or not I was capable of doing this. 7 years later, I'm so glad I didn't give up on the idea of making neuroscience simple and easy for all of us to understand. I hope you've enjoyed reviewing these TOP EPISODES as much as I have and know that each time I listen to them again, I still do learn something new. I'll see you next week, and hope that wherever you are listening to this episode, that you and your families are safe. Until next time… REFERENCES: [i] Podcast website to see all past episodes https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/ [ii] Podcast website to see all past episodes https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/ [iii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning EPISODE #120 with My Personal Review of the Fisher Wallace Wearable Medical Device for Anxiety, Depression and Sleep Management. https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/personal-review-of-the-fisher-wallace-wearable-medical-device-for-anxiety-depression-and-sleepstress-management/?customizing=1 [iv]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning BONUS EPIOSDE and REVIEW of Seasons 1-4  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/bonus-episode-a-deep-dive-into-the-top-5-health-staples-and-review-of-seasons-1-4/ [v]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning EPISODE #94 on PART 3 of our Brain Scan Series: Andrea's Scan Results https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/how-a-spect-scan-can-change-your-life-part-3-with-andrea-samadi/ [vi]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning EPISODE #162 with “Dr. Anna Lembke on Her Book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/medical-director-of-addictive-medicine-at-stanford-university-dr-anna-lembke-on-dopamine-nation-finding-balance-in-the-age-of-indulgence/ [vii] The Social Dilemma Full Feature Netflix Movie Published on YouTube August 17, 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mqR_e2seeM [viii]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning EPISODE #68 “The Neuroscience of Personal Change”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/the-neuroscience-of-personal-change/ [ix] Greg Link Speaker's Bio https://premierespeakers.com/greg-link/bio [x] Pandemic, Recession, Unrest: 2020 and the Confluence of Crises by Susan Milligan June 2, 2020 https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-06-02/pandemic-recession-unrest-2020-and-the-confluence-of-crises?context=amp [xi] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning EPISODE #166 with Chris Gargano on “Accelerating Leadership” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/vice-president-executive-producer-of-the-new-york-jets-chris-gargano-on-accelerating-leadership-for-maximum-impact-and-results/ [xii]Teens Can Make it Happen by Steadman Graham, December 2001 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Teens-Can-Make-It-Happen/Stedman-Graham/9780684870823 [xiii] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langham_Huntington,_Pasadena [xiv] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning EPISODE #168 with Dr. Bruce Perry and Steve Graner on “What Happened to You” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/dr-bruce-perry-and-steve-graner-from-the-neurosequential-network-on-what-we-should-all-know-about-what-happened-to-you/ [xv] COVID 19 Stress, Distress and Trauma Series https://www.neurosequential.com/covid-19-resources [xvi] Neurosequential Model in Sport https://www.neurosequential.com/nm-sport [xvii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #66 with The Legendary Bob Proctor on “Where it All Started”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/the-legendary-bob-proctor-on/ [xviii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #67 on “Expanding Your Awareness with the Top Lessons Learned from Bob Proctor's Most Powerful Seminars” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/expanding-your-awareness-with-a-deep-dive-into-bob-proctors-most-powerful-seminars/ [xix] The Legendary Bob Proctor on The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast YouTube Interview Published June 4, 2020  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHWMCzfODU4 [xx] The Impression of Increase by Bob Proctor Published on YouTube October 8, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGoYzsugZ_0 [xxi]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #172 with Dr. Michael Gaskell on “Leading Schools Through Trauma” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/dr-michael-gaskell-on-leading-schools-through-trauma-a-data-driven-approach-to-helping-children-heal/ [xxii]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #16 with Dr. Lori Desautels and Michael McKnight on “The Future of Educational Neuroscience in our Schools and Communities”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/lori-desautels-and-michael-mcknight-on-the-future-of-educational-neuroscience-in-our-schools-and-communities/ [xxiii]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #174 with Dr. Francis Lee Stevens on his new book “Affective Neuroscience”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/psychologist-dr-francis-lee-stevens-on-his-new-book-affective-neuroscience-in-psychotherapy-science-based-interventions-for-our-emotions/ [xxiv]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #188 Brain Fact Friday on “Putting our Mental and Physical Health First”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-on-putting-our-mental-and-physical-health-first/ [xxv] One-quarter of Americans Intend to Improve Mental Health in 2022 December 20, 2021 https://www.healio.com/news/psychiatry/20211220/onequarter-of-americans-intend-to-improve-mental-health-in-2022 [xxvi]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #161 with John Almarode, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey on “How Learning Works” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/johnalmarodedouglas-fisherand-nancyfreyon-how-learning-works-translatingthescience-oflearningintostrategiesformaximum-learning-inyourclassroom/ [xxvii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #77 with University Professors Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey on “Developing and Delivering High Quality Distance Learning”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/university-professors-and-authors-doug-fisher-and-nancy-frey-on-developing-and-delivering-high-quality-distance-learning-for-students/ [xxviii] Our #1 Most Watched YouTube Interview with Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nLe3P50j4Q&list=PLb5Z3cA_mnKhiYc5glhacO9k9WTrSgjzW&index=56 [xxix] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #173 on The Neuroscience of Belief https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-on-the-neuroscience-of-belief/ [xxx]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #157 on Overcoming Digital Addictions with Neuroscience  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-overcoming-digital-addiction-using-neuroscience/ [xxxi]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning EPISODE #108 with Kelly Roman on “Wearable Medical Devices for Anxiety, Depression and Sleep/Stress Management” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/ceo-of-fisher-wallace-laboratories-on-wearable-medical-devices-for-anxiety-depression-and-sleepstress-management/ [xxxii] Fisher Wallace Clinical Trial Evidence https://www.fisherwallace.com/pages/published-research [xxxiii] The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles 1903 https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Wallace-D-Wattles-Collection/dp/1519738692/ref=pd_lpo_3?pd_rd_i=1519738692&psc=1 [xxxiv] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast BONUS EPISODE with Dr. Carolyn Leaf on “Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/worldrenownedneuroscientistdr-caroline-leaf-oncleaningup-your-mentalmess5-simplescientifically-proven-stepsto-reduceanxiety-and-toxic-thinking/

Language teachers, picture this – your classroom full of totally engaged students. In this episode, you will learn how to improve student learning outcomes by creating a student-driven classroom. We'll cover what student-driven learning is, why it matters, and 2 simple principles you can use to make it happen in your classroom! Interested in exploring how the Mango app has been built upon principles of Second Language Acquisition Research, or to download our Setting Good Goals PDF? Click here to access: https://info.mangolanguages.com/glc-signupIf you liked this episode, please let us know by following our podcast! We appreciate you. We also invite you to check out our website at https://mangolanguages.com/ and follow us on social media @MangoLanguages. Meet your guide Emily! Emily Sabo (PhD, University of Michigan) is a linguist at Mango Languages. A Pittsburgh native, her areas of specialization are the social and cognitive factors that impact bilingual language processing and production. Having studied 7 languages and lived in various countries abroad, she sees multilingualism -- and the cultural diversity that accompanies it -- as the coolest of superpowers. Complementary to her work at Mango, Emily is a Lecturer of Spanish at the University of Tennessee, a Producer of the “We Are What We Speak' docuseries, and get this...a storytelling standup comedian!Wondering what languages were used in today's episode? أَهْلاً (AH.lan) and مَعَ أَلْـف سَلامة. (ma alf saLEHma) are ‘hello' and ‘goodbye' in Egyptian Arabic, the de facto national working language of Egypt; currently spoken by roughly 70 million speakers, most of whom live in Egypt. Salut (sa.LOOT) and la revedere (lah rehvehDEHreh) are ‘hello' and ‘goodbye' in Romanian, the statutory national language of Romania, spoken by ~24 million people. Bando alle ciance (BAN.doh ah.lay CHAN.chay) is the Italian equivalent of 'without further ado' (a colloquial expression that literally translates as ‘ban the chatter'). Interested in learning Egyptian Arabic, Romanian, Italian or one of the other 70+ languages that the Mango app offers? Click here: https://mangolanguages.com/Want to know more about the scientific research underlying this episode? Check out Ambrose et al.'s 2010 book How Learning Works. Chapter 7 (titled How Do Students Become Self-Directed Learners?) is of particular relevance to this episode, as it provides a nice review for how recent theoretical models for metacognitive learning activities can explain how language learning works in real-life situations. Or read through Mahdavi, M. (2014). An overview: Metacognition in education. International Journal of Multidisciplinary and current research, 2(6), 529-535.For additional information about the effectiveness of student-driven classrooms, check out these three recent papers: (1) Zheng, L., Bhagat, K. K., Zhen, Y., & Zhang, X. (2020). The Effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom on Students' Learning Achievement and Learning Motivation: A Meta-Analysis. Educational Technology & Society, 23 (1), 1–15. (2) Låg, T., & Sæle, R. G. (2019). Does the flipped classroom improve student learning and satisfaction? A systematic review and meta-analysis. AERA open, 5(3), 2332858419870489. (3) Shahnama, M., Ghonsooly, B., & Shirvan, M. E. (2021). A meta-analysis of relative effectiveness of flipped learning in English as second/foreign language research. Educational Technology Research and Development, 1-32.

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and EPISODE #167 on “The Neuroscience of Learning” that was inspired with an upcoming interview with cognitive neuroscience researcher John Harmon, who will take us through how learning happens in the brain as well as understanding what happens when performing a task (like throwing a football) while under stress. In Today's Brain Fact Friday, You Will Learn: ✔︎ The two most important ingredients required for learning and how they relate to your brain. ✔︎ Why being a know-it-all will get you nowhere when it comes to teaching and learning. ✔︎ How to use self-reflection to become more self-aware of your own learning process. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. This week, while preparing for our upcoming interviews, I had the opportunity to stop and think before writing this week's Brain Fact Friday. Sometimes life is so busy, that we miss this opportunity to reflect on where we began, and where we are going, and just peddle forward without this reflection, missing some powerful moments of learning. Whatever it is that you are working on, take a minute to look back to where you started. It will help you to see how far you have come, and give you boost that I'm sure you could use at this moment. This will create momentum to help propel you forward, while increasing your own self-confidence with this self-reflection. This is actually a question in Brendon Burchard's High Performance Planner[i] that was written based on the world's largest study of high performers and how they increase productivity and win. When looking at where we started with this podcast, June 2019, I thought back to some of the earlier episodes and remember before I was 100% comfortable with this topic, I would spend a lot of time preparing for interviews, reading EVERY book the person had written and carefully crafting their questions. Looking back now, I know it was because I wanted to be prepared, but I also didn't want to appear like I didn't know what I was talking about. Listening to these old episodes is another story, and not easy to do because we can easily pick up many areas that needed to be improved, (content as well as technical) but we must all start somewhere, and progress happens when we do. We can all benefit from looking back to day 1 of whatever we are working on- what can you LEARN from this? Once you have looked at where you began, look at where you are now, so I fast-forwarded to episode #144 that was recorded this past summer with Tom Beakbane,[ii] on “How to Understand Everything” and episode #146 with expert in psychology, cognitive neuroscience and neurotechnology, Dr. Howard Rankin, Ph.D.[iii] on “How Not to Think” I started to realize that it was ok that I didn't understand everything and saying so was freeing. I stopped reading every single book written by the person to be interviewed and stuck to their most recent and relevant book. While being prepared is important to me, I still practice interview questions, but stopped overdoing it, and think that this new awareness made me more relaxed with this whole process.  Self-awareness goes a long way and anything we can learn to help us to improve is something we should take note of.  I wonder if anything stuck out for you when looking back at where you first began to where you are now? With this new awareness, I was finally comfortable enough to invite someone on the podcast whose work in this new field of neuroscience still puzzles me. It's not like I could even explain what he does with his work, without reading his BIO but John Harmon said it best himself while preparing for his interview, when he mentioned to me that “understanding a subject and explaining it are two different things.” This lit up a whole bunch of lights for me. I remember recently talking about this same concept with Chey and Pav[iv] on their podcast[v] this summer about teaching, learning and leadership when they were talking about how a math teacher can practice problems they know how to solve over and over again with students, and get caught up in forgetting how to “teach” a new concept because they are using rote memory.  This math teacher began trying to solve problems with the class that they had not yet practiced. This is effortful, with some risk involved, especially if we fail. We risk “not knowing the answer” or “looking less than intelligent in front of others.” So with these learning lessons in mind, for this week's Brain Fact Friday, I want to focus on how we learn. We did cover a whole episode #161[vi] with John Almarode, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey on their new book How Learning Works[vii] that unpacks the science of how students learn and translates that knowledge into promising principles or practices that can be implemented in the classroom or utilized by students on their own learning journey that I do recommend this episode and their book. But for this Week's Brain Fact Friday—Did You Know That “Learning Changes the Brain?” and that “Moderate Stress is Beneficial for Learning?”[viii] So when I was reflecting back on the podcast, with what we have learned over the past couple of years, it was actually changing my brain. When I asked you to think about what you have learned since day 1 of whatever it is you are working on, it created a new neural pathway in your brain, and changed it as well. Learning Changes the Brain: From the point of view of neurobiology, learning involves changing the brain. We have mentioned on previous episodes that neuroplasticity, or how the brain “changes in response to a stimuli”[ix] happens when we are able to create an environment for learning that is free of distractions, allowing for breaks where we can have those Aha! Moments where we know and understand what we are learning and this actually produces new neurons which is called neurogenesis. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, from episode #100[x] who covered “The Neuroscience of Social and Emotional Learning” reminds us that “Learning is a very active process—not one of investigating and retaining like a squirrel ingests nuts or a file drawer stores information.”  Immordino-Yang, a professor of education, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education explains that “life exposes a brain to a limitless ocean of information. Even if a person manages to memorize a portion of it—to squirrel it away—it does them little good unless they can access it at the right moment and apply it to real-world contexts. Which is what I did when I realized that saying I didn't understand everything really made an impact on how I'm preparing for future interviews, and whatever you uncovered should have an impact on what you do moving forward. That's learning in action. The task of learning is to transform some of that information into knowledge that can be used and acted upon”[xi]  and this is what creates new neural pathways in the brain, that causes the brain to change with each new experience or pathway built. Moderate Stress is Beneficial for Learning: We also must understand that moderate stress is beneficial for learning, while mild and extreme stress are detrimental to learning. When I first began presenting on the impacts of stress on learning and the brain, all too often we would talk about stress reduction techniques, since it's true that too much stress can cause brain shrinkage, but the right amount of stress can promote learning. Since we are all different, what could be considered to be moderate stress for one person, could be severe for another, so each person needs to find their own balance of stress that in turn motivates them. You can see the infographic in the show notes with 12 ways to combat stress that came from my presentation with educators on Stress, Learning and the Brain[xii] but this week's Brain Fact Friday made me think about how it's important to find the right level of challenge or stress to motivate each person towards improved performance. If we know that learning changes the brain, and that moderate stress is beneficial for learning, what else can we do to facilitate learning? Two Key Ingredients for Learning: While researching, I found two key ingredients for learning: motivation or a willingness to learn, and the importance of a cognitively stimulating environment. Motivation or Willingness to Learn[xiii] is the starting point to learning anything new. “One way to motivate the brain is to expose it to anything new and unfamiliar.” (Page 13, The Science of Learning, How We Learn). When I think about some of the articles I read on the topic of neuroscience that go over my head, there is something inside me that causes me to stop and figure out the meaning one step at a time. When you have a clear “why” behind what you are learning, it's easier to put in the time and effort needed. “The ability to learn new things, whether that's calculus, or hitting a fast ball, or studying neuroscience, requires stretching the brain past the point of what's familiar or comfortable.” (Page 12, The Science of Learning, The Ways We Learn).  I remember students always asking me “why do I need to know this? How does this apply to the real world” and while the real-world application is important, I think that understanding how we are learning is the key to future success. Once we know how we learn best as individuals, we can learn anything and the opportunities we can create for ourselves are limitless. Raising Our Next Generation in a Cognitively Stimulating Environment[xiv] is another key ingredient for learning where we ask our children/students challenging questions that make them think instead of just sitting them down in front of the television, video games or computers. “Children who grow up in cognitively stimulating and linguistically rich environments tend to be more sophisticated in their knowledge of the world and their ability to grasp things.”[xv] As a parent, this one always catches me off guard, as there are many times that my children make a mess of the house creating forts to play in, and I have to remember to let them create these stimulating environments (for them) and suspend my need order in the home. When I sit back, watch and ask questions about their forts, there is always a story behind them, that goes much deeper than what I could ever imagine. It's also those times when we don't have access to WIFI that this type of creativity flows. When we spend more time in nature, walking together, laughing, and playing, we learn so much about each other away from our usual school or work environments. It's just being aware of how to create these stimulating environments to be sure that we are always encouraging learning to take place. Immordino-Yang reminds us that “education is not about hammering facts, procedures, and information into a person's memory; it's about building mental skills and dispositions that will help people learn and succeed throughout life.”[xvi] While practicing math skills certainly has its place, so does walking through a forest and letting the imagination and creativity flow. Immordino-Yang's work with students in Montessori schools also revealed many differences versus traditional schools, specifically that “Montessori students were more effective at directing their own learning” and that “they seemed more comfortable with not knowing things--which are characteristics that seem to correlate with improved learning at any age.”[xvii] Which brings this week's brain fact Friday into a close.  It's ok to not know all of the answers but when presented with something new and unfamiliar, we now have 2 new strategies to increase our own motivation (as well as for our students/children) and hold our attention, stretch our brain past the point of what's familiar, to the unfamiliar—which is how learning takes place. It is not easy, it takes time and effort, but we all have the ability to use an understanding of our brain, to improve our ability to learn. See you next week! FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI:  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi   Website https://www.achieveit360.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samadi/  Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Achieveit360com   Neuroscience Meets SEL Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2975814899101697   Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreasamadi/    REFERENCES: [i] Brendon Burchard's High Performance Planner November 2, 2018 https://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Planner-Yellow/dp/1401957331/ref=asc_df_1401957331/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312674808447&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12785229814380293351&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9030091&hvtargid=pla-570847548926&psc=1 [ii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #144 with Tom Beakbane on “How to Understand Everything” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/author-and-marketer-tom-beakbane-on-how-to-understand-everything-consilience-a-new-way-to-look-at-the-world/ [iii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #146 with Dr. Howard Rankin on “How Not to Think” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/expert-in-psychology-cognitive-neuroscience-and-neurotechnology-howard-rankin-phd-on-how-not-to-think/ [iv] https://www.cheyandpav.com/ [v] Chey and Pav Summer Series with Andrea Samadi https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-summer-series-with-andrea-samadi/id1479094332?i=1000530611931 [vi] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #161 with John Almarode, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey “How Learning Works” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/johnalmarodedouglas-fisherand-nancyfreyon-how-learning-works-translatingthescience-oflearningintostrategiesformaximum-learning-inyourclassroom/ [vii] How Learning Works: A Playbook by John Almarode, (James Madison University, Douglas Fisher (San Diego State University) and Nancy Frey (San Diego State University). https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/how-learning-works/book279410#description [viii] Neuroscience and How Students Learn article based on a talk by Daniela Kaufer Berkeley  https://gsi.berkeley.edu/gsi-guide-contents/learning-theory-research/neuroscience/ [ix] IBID [x] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #100 on “The Neuroscience of Social and Emotional Learning” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/professor-mary-helen-immordino-yang-on-the-neuroscience-of-social-and-emotional-learning/ [xi] Time Magazine Special Edition The Science of Learning Page 12 [xii] https://www.achieveit360.com/level-up-for-educators-neuroscience-meets-sel/ [xiii] Time Magazine Special Edition The Science of Learning Page 13 [xiv] Time Magazine Special Edition The Science of Learning Page 14 [xv] IBID [xvi] IBID [xvii] IBID

So often our experience with our team meetings can feel unproductive or basic - how do we really leverage our Professional Learning Community into dynamic teams that truly impact our students? Join us for today's conversation with Professor Douglas Fisher as we dive into the elements of PLCs and what actually makes them effective. Dr. Douglas Fisher, is Professor of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High. Previously, he was an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. Dr. Fisher is the recipient of an International Reading Association William S. Grey citation of merit and an Exemplary Leader award from the Conference on English Leadership of NCTE. He has published numerous articles on teaching and learning as well as books such as The Teacher Clarity Playbook, PLC+, Visible Learning for Literacy, Comprehension: The Skill, Will, and Thrill of Reading, How Tutoring Works, and most recently, How Learning Works. Dr. Fisher loves being an educator and hopes to share that passion with others. 

I have trouble wrapping any adequate labels around this episode's guest, Paco Nathan. Paco is a technologist, data scientist and an evangelist of a brighter data and technology future. He has an uncommon ability to synthesize the gaps and trends in this complex and evolving space, and gives me hope that we can create a more flourishing future within it.Show Notes:Origins of Artificial Intelligence and mentors (06:00)Humberto Maturana ("What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain")Fernando FloresFrancisco VarelaTerry WinogradCybernetics by Norbert Weiner (06:30)Project Cybersyn (07:00)Autopoiesis and Cognition by Humberto Maturana and Francisco VarelaExpert systems (13:20)Bell Labs (16:30)Hopfield network (16:50)Systems thinking (22:30)What is data science? (22:45)DJ PatilJohn TukeyThe complexities of today's world (29:50)Complexity and emergence (31:00)How Learning Works by Susan Ambrose (32:00)Panama papers (39:00)How to think in graphs daily (41:30)Have a shape in mind, even if you don't have the labels yetAmbiguity aversion (47:40)"Unknown unknowns"Dave Snowden and Cynefin Framework (47:45)Complex areas: no deterministic approach will arrive at a 'right answer'Medium posts: Sense and Scalability and Graph thinking (51:00)derwen.ai (52:30)How he takes notes (58:00)Lightning Round (01:01:00):Book: Ecotopia Emerging by Ernest CallenbachPassion: cookingHeart sing: sustainability and regenerative processes (open science)Screwed up: book storeRecommender systemFind guest online:Twitter: @pacoidWebsite: https://derwen.ai/paco'Five-Cut Fridays' five-song music playlist series  Paco's playlist

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #161 with 2 returning guests, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey from EPISODE #77[i] from last August 2020 on “Developing and Delivering High Quality Distance Learning for Students” that became our most watched YouTube interview and we also have the co-author of their new book that we are diving into today, How Learning Works, John Almarode. Watch this video on YouTube. To Learn More About How Learning Works https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/how-learning-works/book279410#description To Learn More About Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey https://fisherandfrey.com/ To See Past Episodes of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/   I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments so this podcast was created to share ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. My vision is to bring the experts to you, share their books, resources, and ideas to help you to implement their proven strategies, whether you are a teacher working in the classroom or online, a student, or parent working in the corporate space. Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Almarode Background and Short Bio: Just to view our speakers for today, our returning guests Doug and Nancy are also both teacher leaders at Health Sciences High & Middle College[ii], an award-winning open-enrollment public school in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego that they co-founded in 2007. For over 2 decades, they have dedicated their work to the knowledge and skills teachers and school leaders need to help students attain their goals. Their shared interests include instructional design, curriculum development, and professional learning. Doug and Nancy have co-authored numerous articles and books on literacy, and leadership that I've included links to in the show notes, including: This is Balanced Literacy,[iii] The Teacher Clarity Playbook, PLC+,[iv] All Learning is Social & Emotional,[v] The Teacher Credibility and Collective Efficacy Playbook,[vi] and most recently The Distance Learning Playbook[vii] with co-author John Hattie[viii]. Dr. John Almarode has worked with schools, classrooms, and teachers all over the world.  John began his career teaching mathematics and science in Augusta County to a wide range of students.  Since then, he has presented locally, nationally, and internationally on the application of the science of learning to the classroom, school, and home environments.  He has worked with hundreds of school districts and thousands of teachers.  In addition to his time in PreK – 12 schools and classrooms, he is an Associate Professor and Executive Director of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education at James Madison University.  When you view some of the teacher resources and videos on the Companion Website, you will meet John in the Intro and Purpose Behind this new Playbook. I'm excited to welcome back University Professors Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey, with John Almarode, to dive deeper into their new book, How Learning Works: A Playbook[ix] that unpacks the science of how students learn and translates that knowledge into promising principles or practices that can be implemented in the classroom or utilized by students on their own learning journey. Designed to help educators create learning experiences that better align with how learning works, each module in this playbook is grounded in research and features prompts, tools, practice exercises, and discussion strategies that help teachers to Describe what is meant by learning in the local context of your classroom, including identifying any barriers to learning. Adapt promising principles and practices to meet the specific needs of your students—particularly regarding motivation, attention, encoding, retrieval and practice, cognitive load and memory, productive struggle, and feedback. Translate research on learning into learning strategies that accelerate learning and build students' capacity to take ownership of their own learning—such as summarizing, spaced practice, interleaved practice, elaborate interrogation, and transfer strategies. Generate and gather evidence of impact by engaging students in reciprocal teaching and effective feedback on learning. Rich with resources that support the process of parlaying scientific findings into classroom practice, this playbook offers all the moves teachers need to design learning experiences that work for all students! Let's meet Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Almarode and uncover the science behind How Learning Works. Welcome back Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and welcome John Almarode to the podcast! It's so good to see you again after such a successful launch of your BESTSELLING Distance Learning Playbook[x] last year. How have you been and wonderful to meet you John!   Q1: I was excited to see your new book How Learning Works for so many reasons, but to start off with, something you say about your playbook is the reason why I tied Neuroscience, or an understanding to the brain to this podcast. You say that this playbook is about “how learning works—not by chance, but by design.” (Introduction) Can you explain what you had in mind when writing this book, that unpacks the science of how we learn so that educators can design a learning experience in their classroom based on the research and principles you have found to be effective? Q2: I love how the book has an interactive component where you can click through each of the 4 sections, watch videos for further exploration, and access the many resources, research articles and downloads available for each of the 4 parts of the book. Can you give an overview for the reader to be sure they don't miss anything that's important as they navigate through the online resources and what we should learn in each section? Q3: This book is full of the science and most current research behind learning and features so many valuable resources that point educators back to the research. Of course, I enjoy seeing well-known researchers who I have met along this podcast journey, one of them being Kent State's Dr. John Dunlosky, from EPISODE #37[xi] who covered with us “Improving Student Success with Principles from Cognitive Neuroscience” whose research I saw included in your resource section under resources related to learning.[xii]  I also saw a video series from Samford University on “Cognitive Principles of Effective Teaching” that we should all know as educators, and I can't miss my all-time favorite interview (besides you three of course) #42[xiii] with Dr. John Medina, whose research you've referenced from his Brain Rules series under your section of elaborate encoding in Part II under the Motivation Chapter. How did you choose the resources to back up the science behind How Learning Works and are there others that are important to you who I haven't mentioned? Q4: I think we have a good idea about what we can learn from How Learning Works: THE INTRODUCTION: covers the purpose of the playbook PART 1: covers what learning looks like in your classroom and different ways to think about learning. PART 2: Looks at barriers to learning with Promising Principles (Motivation, Attention, Elaborate Encoding, Retrieval and Practice, Cognitive Load, Productive Struggle and Feedback). Can you pick one of the promising principles (Motivation? Or one you want to talk about) and dive a bit deeper into mastering these principles? Q5:PART 3: I think this section is exactly what educators are looking for as it explicitly teaches skills to students to help them to self-regulate, and how to master these skills long after they have left the classroom (using explicit strategy instruction, goal setting, integrating prior knowledge, summarizing, mapping, self-testing, and elaborative interrogation). Can you pick one topic to expand on? Q6: For this final part of the Playbook, generating and gathering evidence, can you explain the goal so that this Playbook uncovers what worked well, what needs more work and what are the best next steps to follow? Q7: Final thoughts or anything we have missed that's important for us to all understand about How Learning Works? Doug, Nancy and John, thank you very much for coming on the podcast to share this new Playbook, that you can see I find immense value with. Thank you for your time speaking with me today, and for the work you have put into this resource to help educators to uncover How Learning Works, and create a plan for continued improvement in their schools, classrooms and Districts. To access the book  https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/how-learning-works/book279410#description There is also a 20% discount code POD20 that can be used for ALL books on Corwin.com To contact Nancy Frey or Doug Fisher https://www.fisherandfrey.com/ and they can find you both on twitter Nancy is https://twitter.com/NancyFrey and Douglas is https://twitter.com/DFISHERSDSU  To connect with John Almarode:  https://twitter.com/jtalmarode on Twitter and www.johnalmarode.com Thank you and have an incredible Friday! FREE WEBINAR To Learn More: John and Nancy are presenting a free webinar on Sept 13 at 3:30pm PT A Look at How Learning Works  FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI:  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi   Website https://www.achieveit360.com/   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samadi/  Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Achieveit360com   Neuroscience Meets SEL Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2975814899101697   Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreasamadi/    RESOURCES:   Companion resources for the How Learning Works Playbook https://resources.corwin.com/howlearningworks John Hattie's Visible Learning https://visible-learning.org/ REFERENCES: [i]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #77 with University Professors Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey on “Developing and Delivering High Quality Distance Learning”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/university-professors-and-authors-doug-fisher-and-nancy-frey-on-developing-and-delivering-high-quality-distance-learning-for-students/ [ii] https://www.facebook.com/hshmc.inc/ give [iii] https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/this-is-balanced-literacy-grades-k-6/book266872 [iv] https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/plc/book266974 [v] http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Books/Overview/All-Learning-Is-Social-and-Emotional.aspx [vi] https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/the-teacher-credibility-and-collective-efficacy-playbook-grades-k-12/book271561 [vii] https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/thedistancelearningplaybook [viii] John Hattie https://visible-learning.org/ [ix] How Learning Works: A Playbook by John Almarode, (James Madison University, Douglas Fisher (San Diego State University) and Nancy Frey (San Diego State University). https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/how-learning-works/book279410#description [x] Distance Learning Playbook by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/the-distance-learning-playbook-grades-k-12/book275865 [xi]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #37 on “Improving Student Success with Principles from Cognitive Neuroscience”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/kent-states-dr-john-dunlosky-on-improving-student-success-some-principles-from-cognitive-science/ [xii] https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovinglearning.pdf  

Welcome back, to a BONUS Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning episode that I want to dedicate to YOU, the listener. It took this podcast a bit over 2 years to hit the 100k download milestone, and like any goal we have (whether a sales goal or something you want to do, it might seem so far off, you wonder how you'll ever get there). If you are reading these notes on iTunes, click here to see all images. In February of this year, when we hit the 50k mark, it wasn't hard to project the download numbers and guess when we would hit this milestone, but it still seemed like a moonshot goal, difficult to imagine, and August (when we projected, we would hit this goal) seemed so far away. Do you know what I mean? Do you have something you are working on where the gap from you are now and where you are going seems like an impossible goal? Even when you have the belief?  Even when the evidence is there? I could hear how the episodes were helping people around the world thanks to the messages you sent me, but a part of me had just an ounce of disbelief, and I thought “is this really happening?” wondering if the momentum would continue to build. But the numbers never lie. They kept going up, and each month, we would surpass our monthly goal target. This weekend, while away with the family in Long Beach, CA, I look out of the window and can see the Legendary Queen Mary Ship[i] in the port as I watch our statistics graph project upwards (see image in the show notes) as we break records with our monthly downloads since launching, and surpass the 100k download mark, with the next milestone on our list to hit 1 million downloads which seems much more difficult but yet not impossible as we break this down into smaller targets. The Queen Mary ship is a symbolic metaphor to look at this weekend as “This iconic ship is now a floating museum, and tourist attraction.”[ii]  Sadly, the hotel is currently closed but my husband had an opportunity to stay on the ship on one of his work trips, and he took me on a tour on FaceTime, where I asked him to show me all of the rooms that had mystery and intrigue surrounding them. If you are like me, and love a good ghost story, look up the history of The Queen Mary that was named one of the “Top 10 most haunted places on earth”[iii] and look up the story of Stateroom 340B. The scariest thing we noticed was that there was no room 340B. Where it should have been, it was boarded up and no longer accessible for the public, unless things have changed, but we might not ever know this, as we mentioned this spooky hotel is currently closed to the public due to COVID-19. The Queen Mary's Stateroom 340B was boarded up.  The Queen Mary Hotel Rooms, just no 340B Stateroom.  Andrea Samadi standing in front of the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA.  This retired British ocean liner sailed on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 from Southampton, a port city on England's south coast, just 2 hours from where I lived in England before my parents immigrated to Canada.  On the Queen Mary Ship's website, I saw a quote written by King George V that made me think about anything new that goes out into the world. When you're create something out of nothing, like The Queen Mary before it was named, was known only as “Hull #534”[iv] which was the yard number where it was being built. Whatever it is that you are creating, the hope is that it makes an impact within your local community, rippling that impact throughout your state, country, nation, and eventually throughout the world. Listen to this quote and think about whatever it is that you are creating and I hope it energizes you, like it did for me. "Today we come to the happy task of sending on her way the stateliest ship now in being. It has been the nation's will that she should be completed, and today we can send her forth no longer a number on the books, but a ship with a name in the world, alive with beauty, energy and strength! May her life among great waters spread friendship among the nations!"[v] – King George V on the Queen Mary launch The Queen Mary Heritage Foundation is now developing a museum and educational facility to preserve and enhance the ship's remarkable story” and is an incredible reminder for all of us building our own Queen Mary Vision. This weekend, as I was walking around Long Beach, where we were staying for our daughter's gymnastics training, I was speaking with Julianne, another gymnastics Mom, who shared with me that Winston Churchill was on board the Queen Mary, 3 times, and along with this new knowledge that I just love learning, I also thought about how the Queen Mary spread “friendships” across the nations, and as I walked with my new friend in Long Beach,  thought about how new ideas really do bring people together, and make the world a smaller place. Winston Churchill on the Queen Mary Reference: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/420453315192219227/  My vision for this podcast has always been to make some sort of lasting shift with education (with the implementation of simple neuroscience connected to social and emotional learning) and the history of The Queen Mary Ship reminds me that nothing happens overnight, without hard work and dedication. Looking out of the window at the ship was nothing compared to standing right next to it. I'll post the images in the show notes but had to include this metaphor to show you that whatever you are working on can have a global impact, and it just takes one person (like you) to begin and create something.  As long as the numbers continue to trend upwards on this podcast,  I'll keep putting in the effort behind each episode and really am grateful for the opportunity to host this show and share everything I'm learning in this new field of educational neuroscience with you.  So, this 100,000th download episode is dedicated to you, the listener. I want to thank you for tuning in and sharing with me how you are using this understanding of simple neuroscience in your schools, workplaces, and personal lives. It does help when you send me messages on social media or tag me when an episode is useful. Also, a sincere thank you to all the incredible guests who gave up their time to share their knowledge, ideas, and strategies with us, giving back in such a generous manner.  Sleep scientist Antonio Zadra from episode #104[vi] said it best as he mentioned “of course it's the listeners who decide such things” when we hit the 90k mark, and that's when I realized that the key to long-term success in anything is to “find a need and fill it” as Norman Vincent Peale quoted and I think of the entrepreneurs I've met over the years who have used this motto to guide them.  Here's The Top 4 Lessons Learned from Launching This Podcast to See if These Ideas Can Help You With Your Goals “Where There is No Vision, The People Will Perish”[vii] (Proverbs 29:18) Even if your vision is shaky in the beginning, keep going! When we launched the podcast in June 2019, with a need in mind, I wasn't sure if this idea would take off. With any goal, being able to see where you are going is important and following the tips of those who've already achieved what you want to do is important. On our 50k milestone episode[viii] I talk about Lewis Howes from the School of Greatness Podcast[ix] who said ‘I built up my podcast through consistently providing quality valuable content and constantly being open to my own growth without being attached to the end result.” So we use this model of providing quality valuable content, keeping an eye on the downloads, remembering to not be “attached to the end result” but to just keep moving forward and applying what we are learning. There Will Be Problems and Challenges  I remind myself with other great stories, not to forget that with any worthwhile goal, there will be challenges. Presidential historian Doug Wead[x] said it often. “When you get up and do something, there will be problems” and this comes with the territory of taking action with big goals. The history of the Queen Mary reinforced this idea as although the Queen Mary attracted elite passengers, it was the government that kept her afloat.  “With the onset of the worldwide Great Depression, construction on the Queen Mary came to an abrupt halt. Eager to spur on the sluggish economy, the British government agreed to give a loan that would allow construction on ship #534 to continue, but only if Cunard and White Star would merge. (Like Cunard, White Star—famous as the owner of the ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic—had fallen on hard times.) In 1934, the new Cunard-White Star Line was born, and construction on the ship immediately resumed.”[xi] Nothing worthwhile comes without problems. Anticipate problems and challenges. I remember my first interview for the podcast with Ron Hall[xii] from Valley Day school where for some reason we couldn't figure out why we couldn't hear each other. After trying every possible setting on his end, we found the problem on my end, and thank goodness we didn't give up on that interview. It was a powerful one connecting me to many other speakers in the future. Problems will be unexpected, and they will keep coming---I think to see how dedicated you are to your vision. Will you give up at the slightest challenge, or find a way forward? Be Consistent and Relevant to Your Listeners.  I've mentioned that as long as the interest in these episodes continues, I'll continue to research, learn new ideas in this field, and produce content, with the hopes that it can help you to sharpen your saw with the understanding of how our brain impacts our learning, results and productivity, with this understanding of neuroscience made simple. I watch the numbers for each episode and know what parts of the world are listening. Thank you for keeping me in the top 100 iTunes Charts in the US, Great Britain, Canada, Finland, Australia, Russia, Spain, Mexico, Ireland and many others where we come in and out of the charts.   Being Transparent with My Own Learning  This year, I noticed that as I'm diving deeper into this content, that the more I'm learning, the more I realize just how little I know. But with each interview, each strategy can be gleaned and applied for an improved life. I know that the topic of neuroscience could seem intimidating especially when most of us have not studied this at school, but I hope that by being open with places it overwhelmed me, helps you to be patient with your own learning. Rome wasn't built in a day, and some ideas and concepts might take a few listens to sink in. I still go back and listen to some episodes on topics I'm struggling with and learn something new, and I hope this transparency reassures you that we can all learn anything, I really believe that, if we take the time to learn and apply it. Life really is about pushing ourselves to grow and learn from the lessons we experience along the way. If you look in the show notes, I have a METACOGNITION graphic that I created (adapted Dr. Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman's Spectrum of Human Consciousness Model) that shows how learning takes place in the brain, and we will dive deeper into How Learning Works[xiii] this week with Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Almarode's new book but understanding how our brain adapts to learning something new, until we hit those Aha! Moments is important. When we learn something new, we go through different stages on the way to metacognition, where we are aware and in control of our knowledge. It begins with Instinctive Learning, where we study and learn with curiosity and desire. We experience positive emotions when we attain success. Next, we move to Habitual Learning, where we form study habits. It is very important we develop proper study habits or else we will only get by until the work becomes challenging. Intentional Learning is where we will spend most of our logic, reason, and attention when solving mental problems. The challenge here is that we are working with our short-term working memory, which contains limited information. It is easy to get distracted at this level of awareness. Worries, fears, and doubts also operate at this level and can interfere with decision-making strategies. We must learn strategies to move forward in spite of fear and focus on the positive side of situations, taking a proactive approach to learning, instead of giving up at the first signs of a challenge. Finally, we arrive at Creative Learning, where all of the magic happens for decision making and goal setting. This process is strenuous on the brain and requires frequent brain breaks to reset our neurochemistry. We must have strategies for practice, study, and learning and be able to find a way to relax their brain and body. During these resting states, remarkable activity takes place, allowing the brain to creatively solve problems. When creativity is integrated with logic and reason, research shows we can solve conflicts and improve academic success. Metacognition occurs when we are aware and in control of the knowledge we are learning. When we reach this level, we begin to have “Aha!” experiences, where we gain insight what we are learning. This is the true magic of the learning process and proves that with the right strategy in place, but eliminating all distractions, we can all learn anything. Thank you again and stay tuned for our new episodes this week. We have Chrissy Barth on High Performance Fuel for Athletes and as I mentioned, 2 returning guests, Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher, with John Almarode on their new book How Learning Works, that explains the science behind how we learn. Next month we are looking forward to diving deeper with American psychologist and Chief of Stanford's Addiction and Medicine Clinic, Dr. Anna Lembke on her new book Dopamine Nation, and the following month, will finally get to speak with Dr. Bruce Perry on his new book with Oprah, What Happened to You that discusses conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. Stay tuned and thank you for helping us to achieve this milestone!  FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI:  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi   Website https://www.achieveit360.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samadi/  Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Achieveit360com   Neuroscience Meets SEL Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2975814899101697   Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreasamadi/  RESOURCES: See past episodes here https://www.achieveit360.com/episodes/  11 Facts About the RMS Queen Mary by Kim O'Connell June 8, 2018  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/544591/facts-about-rms-queen-mary REFERENCES: [i] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary [ii] https://www.queenmary.com/history/ [iii] https://www.queenmary.com/hotel/rooms/b340/ [iv] "Four-Leaf Clover Propeller to Drive Giant Liner 534". [v] https://www.queenmary.com/history/ [vi] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #104 with Sleep Scientist Antonio Zadra on “When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/sleep-scientist-antonio-zadra-on-when-brains-dream-exploring-the-science-and-mystery-of-sleep/ [vii] The Bible King James Version https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs%2029%3A18&version=KJV [viii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #109 “Achieving Quantum Leap Results Using Price Pritchett's You Squared Book” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/achieving-quantum-leap-results-using-price-pritchetts-you-squared-principles/ [ix] https://lewishowes.com/sogpodcast/ [x] www.dougwead.com [xi] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary [xii] https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/interview-with-ron-hall-valley-day-school-on-launching-your-neuroeducational-program/ [xiii] How Learning Works: A Playbook by John Almarode, (James Madison University, Douglas Fisher (San Diego State University) and Nancy Frey (San Diego State University). https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/how-learning-works/book279410#description  

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast for Brain Fact Friday and episode #157 on a topic that I think we should be aware of: Digital Addictions: Do You Know What's Happening to Your Brain When You are Using Certain Apps on Your Smartphone, or Using Your Smartphone at All? EXCITING UPDATE: Stay tuned (early September) for an exclusive interview with Dr. Anna Lembke, Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine who inspired this episode. I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of our listeners, have been fascinated with learning and understanding the science behind high performance strategies in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments with ideas that we can all use, understand and implement immediately. This week's Brain Fact Friday kind of snuck its way into my schedule, as I wasn't planning on writing this topic and think there are many other podcasts that cover the subject of addiction[i] more thoroughly than I ever could, but it all started last Friday night when I was out at dinner with my husband and our two friends that we met on the hiking trails, Scott and Ruth. Scott, a business consultant who travels for his work, was home for a change, so we met up at a local restaurant and chatted about life, and what was on our minds that day. The conversation took a turn towards our phones, that we never have out at the table, and social media, and how addictive some of the apps are for the human brain. Scott mentioned he rarely uses social media, and I think I said something along the lines of “That's really smart” remembering the Netflix Documentary Social Dilemma[ii] that scared the living daylights out of me. I wrote this down (on my phone) while watching the movie that “Magicians were like the first neuroscientists” What do magicians and neuroscientists have in common? Both are concerned with how the brain works. In magic, people try to fool the brain and in neuroscience, they are trying to understand the brain and this documentary will show you how the creators of technology apps have designed their software to trick or fool the human brain, just like magic, into addiction. When we can use an understanding of neuroscience, or how our brains work in these situations, we can take a powerful stance towards being in control, instead of being controlled by these apps. I was blown away when I heard one of the app developers in this movie, say that he had to develop a code to break his addiction to Reddit. I don't use Reddit, but completely understood what he was saying. The next morning, we hit the hiking trails as usual, and we ran into Scott and Ruth along the way. Scott told me that he saw an article in the newspaper that might interest me about our conversation last night, and he had put it on the windshield of my car. “Sounds good” I said, forgetting what we were even talking about the night before, and then at the end of the hike, sure enough, he had pinned The Wall Street Journal on my windshield with an article called “Digital Addictions Are Drowning Us in Dopamine[iii]” by Dr. Anna Lembke (who also appeared in the Netflix Documentary Social Dilemma) with a headline that would catch anyone's attention these days “Rising rates of depression and anxiety in wealthy countries like the US may be the results of our brains getting hooked on the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure.” I read the article written by Dr. Lembke, a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University and saw that this article was an essay from her forthcoming book (coming out next week-August 24th) called Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence[iv] that was about a young patient of hers who came to her with debilitating anxiety and depression and what was interesting is that instead of prescribing him antidepressants like she would have done 20 years ago, she uncovered that he was playing videogames every day, and prescribed him with a 30 day dopamine fast. She explains that the problems she is seeing in the world today is because of “too much dopamine in the brain, a neurotransmitter associated with the feelings of pleasure and reward” (Lembke) and that “when we do something that we enjoy—like playing video games,—the brain releases a little bit of dopamine, and we feel good. But one of the most important discoveries in the field of neuroscience in the past 75 years is that pleasure and pain are processed in the same parts of the brain and the that the brain tries to keep them in balance. Whenever it tips in one direction, it will try hard to restore the balance, which neuroscience calls homeostasis, by tipping in the other.” (Lembke) This is the part that caught my attention because I know we've all heard of the fact that dopamine is the pleasure neurotransmitter, and too much of it is not good for the brain, but for this week's Brain Fact Friday, did you know that “as soon as dopamine is released, the brain adapts to it by reducing or downregulating the number of dopamine receptors that are stimulated. This causes the brain to level out by tipping to the side of pain, which is why pleasure is followed by a feeling of hangover of comedown” Lembke explains. “If we can wait long enough, that feeling passes and neutrality is restored. But there's a natural tendency to counteract it by going back to the source of pleasure for another dose.” (Lembke) When it comes to addiction, I have always wondered, why on the earth would someone do something that they know is not good for them? I finally understood addiction, with brain science in mind. When you do something over and over again (whatever it is—video games, drugs, alcohol, or a certain behavior) dopamine is released until you keep the pattern going and “The brain's setpoint for pleasure changes” (Lembke) and you have to keep doing the thing that once brought you pleasure, just to feel normal.  The minute you stop whatever it is you are doing, you feel the withdrawal symptoms that make you crave for that addictive thing. Dr. Amen has a graphic that explains the “Cycle of Addiction[v]” to help us to recognize the process and feelings at each stage. IMAGE REFERENCE:The Cycle of Addiction Graphic by Dr. Daniel Amen https://mk0amenclinicsg0ovs5.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/FBF-The-Cycle-of-Addiction-A.jpg Just try to take away someone's smartphone and watch what happens to them. “The smartphone is the equivalent of the hypodermic needle for a wired generation.” (Lembke) In some of the past episodes, I have spoken about ways to break bad habits you don't like by replacing the bad habit with a new, healthier habit, but this crosses a line that is much deeper than just wanting to replace a cup of coffee with some lemon water, like I suggest in EPISODE #35 (Jan. 2020) How to Use Your Brain to Break Bad Habits.[vi] Dr. Lembke explains that “it's hard to see cause and effect when we are chasing dopamine. It's only after we have taken a break from our drug of choice that we are able to see the true impact of our consumption on our daily lives.” Dr. Lembke suggests taking a break from whatever it is that you think is taking up too much of your mental real estate. Self-awareness is important here. I couldn't tell you what this might be in your life, but I surely can see it in my own. Dr. Lembke's 30 day detox idea “gives enough time to allow the brain to reset its dopamine balance” and she is seeing people feel better than they have in years with this reset. She even suggests that after the 30-day reset, that you can go back to whatever it was like you enjoyed (videogames being an example) if you are able to limit the time and be sure that it's not interfering with your day-to-day life. “Not everyone plays video games, but just about all of us have a digital drug of choice, and it probably involves using a smartphone-(Like we've mentioned before) the equivalent of the hypodermic needle for a wired generation.” (Lembke). To Review This Week's Brain Fact Friday Remember that whatever your digital drug of choice is, that the minute you use it, that  you will become “drowned in dopamine” like Lembke explained in her article, “causing the brain to level out by tipping towards the side of pain—which is followed by a feeling of hangover or comedown” and if we want to avoid this feeling, the most effective way is to reset the brain with a 30 day digital detox “to reset the brain's dopamine balance.” (Lembke). What makes this week's episode more interesting, is that after I had started writing this episode, I looked at some of the podcasts I follow at the start of the week, and I was just referred to Dr. Andrew Huberman's Podcast by Greg Wolcott, and his Monday's episode was surprisingly with Dr. Anna Lembke on “Understanding and Treating Addiction”[vii] that I highly recommend. This episode takes a deeper dive into addiction, how to beat it, resetting dopamine, and many other fascinating associated topics. If you have never taken a good look at areas of your life you could improve with this dopamine fast, I highly suggest trying it, as it builds mental strength, autonomy and like Dr. Lembke mentioned, her patients were never happier after this type of detox. Dr. Huberman says it really well on his podcast, “Be prepared, because the first 10 days will suck”[viii] and I couldn't have said it better myself, until you are able to reach the end of the detox and look back and learn some valuable lessons that you could never have seen while your brain was flooded with dopamine. To close out this week's Brain Fact Friday, I want to encourage anyone who wants to learn more on this topic to visit Dr. Andrew Huberman's podcast with Dr. Anna Lembke and to take a look at her book coming out next week, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. I'll end with two thought-provoking Quotes from the Social Dilemma Movie[ix] Think about this: ”If you're not paying for the product, then you're the product.” (thinking about the data collected from you while using an online product and how little attention we pay to the keystrokes we make on our computers). ”There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users': illegal drugs and software.” This one has new meaning to me after seeing the close correlation with drug and tech addictions. See you next week where we have more interviews than I was ready for, but let's see how many we will be able to release to help us to all sharpen the saw with our thinking, nutrition, and teaching, all with a deeper understanding of how our brain works. UPCOMING INTERVIEWS: Howard Rankin and Grant Renier on their new book Intuitive Rationality[x] where we will look into an Intuitive General Intelligence system that predicts near and future events, while taking into account the fundamentals of human behavior. Michael Rousell on his new book “The Power of Surprise: How Your Brain Secretly Changes Your Beliefs[xi]” with the powerful effects that surprise has on the human brain. Chrissy Barth, the Brainy Dietician on High Performance Fuel for Athletes. Returning guests (from our successful interview on High Quality Distance Learning[xii] Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Almarode on their NEW book How Learning Works[xiii] that unpacks the science of how students learn and translates this knowledge into principles and practices for the classroom. See you next week! FOLLOW ANDREA SAMADI:  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreaSamadi   Website https://www.achieveit360.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samadi/  Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Achieveit360com   Neuroscience Meets SEL Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2975814899101697   Twitter: https://twitter.com/andreasamadi   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreasamadi/  RESOURCES: Dopamine, Smartphones and You: A Battle for Your Time May 1, 2018 by Trevor Haynes https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/?web=1&wdLOR=c8834920B-429F-774A-AAFC-C88B7456E3C5   Social Dilemma Netflix Documentary featuring Dr. Anna Lembke https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224   REFERENCES: [i] 15 Best Addiction Podcasts for 2021 https://www.choosingtherapy.com/addiction-podcasts/ [ii] Why The Social Dilemma is a Must Watch by Harleen Kalsi Sept. 15, 2020 https://www.lifestyleasia.com/ind/culture/entertainment/netflix-documentary-movie-the-social-dilemma-quotes-cast-direction/ [iii] Digital Addictions are Drowning Us in Dopamine by Dr. Anna Lembke. (Saturday August 14/Sunday August 15, 2021) https://www.wsj.com/articles/digital-addictions-are-drowning-us-in-dopamine-11628861572 [iv] Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Dr. Anna Lembke August 24, 2021 https://www.amazon.com/Dopamine-Nation-Finding-Balance-Indulgence-ebook/dp/B08KPKHVXQ [v] The Cycle of Addiction Graphic by Dr. Daniel Amen https://mk0amenclinicsg0ovs5.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/FBF-The-Cycle-of-Addiction-A.jpg [vi]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #35 “How to Use Your Brain to Break Bad Habits”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/how-to-use-your-brain-to-break-bad-habits-in-2020/ [vii] Dr. Andrew Huberman's Huberman Lab Podcast https://hubermanlab.com/dr-anna-lembke-understanding-and-treating-addiction/ [viii] IBID [ix] https://www.lifestyleasia.com/ind/culture/entertainment/netflix-documentary-movie-the-social-dilemma-quotes-cast-direction/ [x] Intuitive Rationality by Grant Renier and Howard Rankin PhD https://intualityai.com/the-book/ [xi] The Power of Surprise: How Your Brain Secretly Changes Your Beliefs by Michael Rousell  Sept. 15, 2021 https://www.amazon.com/Power-Surprise-Secretly-Changes-Beliefs/dp/153815241X [xii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #77 with University Professors Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey on “Developing and Delivering High Quality Distance Learning”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/university-professors-and-authors-doug-fisher-and-nancy-frey-on-developing-and-delivering-high-quality-distance-learning-for-students/ [xiii] How Learning Works: A Playbook by John Almarode, (James Madison University, Douglas Fisher (San Diego State University) and Nancy Frey (San Diego State University). https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/how-learning-works/book279410#description

This episode continues exploring how the 5 Ps (planning, patronage, players, practice, and purpose) can help bridge the gap between group work and group play. The episode explores in-depth the last two Ps—the value of practice and the role of purpose—in designing and implementing group work.   Sources referenced in and consulted for this episode: Ambrose, Susan A. et al. How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. Jossey-Bass, 2010. Bain, Ken. What the Best College Teachers Do. Harvard University Press, 2004. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. Harper Perennial, 1996. Ericsson, Anders and Robert Pool. Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. Hodges, Linda C. “Ten Research-Based Steps for Effective Group Work.” IDEA Paper #65, August 2017. Marchetti, Carol. “Teamwork That Works.” Inside Higher Ed. April 17, 2018. Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge.

As we continue to explore How Learning Works, Dr. Julie-Ann McFann joins Jim to talk about learning, leaping, and... Wile E. Coyote. Learn how concept or mind maps can help students organize their experiences for deep, critical thinking.

Students’ prior knowledge-- what they bring to the classroom from their other learning experiences-- can be the proverbial double-edged sword. This week, Claire and Jim dive into the book How Learning Works and the first of the seven research-based principles it describes. Learn why “knowing” is not enough, and how we as teachers need to activate the knowledge students bring with them before we can build upon it. We also discuss the perils of situations when students’ prior knowledge is inaccurate, and why it’s important for teachers to identify what knowledge is important for our particular learning environment (think “grammar”). Plus, we discuss strategies for helping a handful of students “catch up” without boring the rest of the class!

What We’re Learning From Our Knitting   Margaret isn’t ready for the challenges of The Forzo Cuff by Laura Nelkin  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/forzo-cuff.  She will give away her slightly used kit to someone who is.   Just post on the Ravelry thread — first come, first served.   It is knitted lace.  Find the difference between that and lace knitting:    http://theknittingbuzz.typepad.com/the-knitting-buzz/2011/03/knitted-lace-vs-lace-knitting.html.  I   Catherine  continues her long trek with  Absolutely Essential Scarf by Bunny Muff   http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/absolutely-essential;  now becoming bored with a stitch that was frustrating her awhile ago.  She is also starting socks for a local charity campaign organized by The North Coast Knittery using Kramer Yarn https://northcoastknittery.com/.     Brainy Thing From the book How Learning Works  by Susan Ambrose et al. comes an outline of  William G. Perry’s theory of stages of Intellectual Development later modified by Marcia Baxter-Magolda.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Perry    His ideas don’t judge what you believe but how those beliefs are formed and held.   Behind the Redwood Curtain Rock slides are a fact of life in this area, particularly during a very rainy season.   Margaret talks about recent slides.    Knitting Tip:   Cokleymonster on our Ravelry Thread reminds us to  keep notes on our knitting as we go along.    Links: Facebook:  Also, join our Facebook Group  https://www.facebook.com/Teachingyourbraintoknitpodcast/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel Ravelry Group  http://www.ravelry.com/groups/teaching-your-brain-to-knit website https://teachingyourbraintoknit.com/ for show notes, photos of our knitting and crochet projects, Behind the Redwood Curtain places and things and anything else we decide to post.   This episode of Teaching Your Brain to Knit outlines Levels of Intellectual Development   How Intellectually developed are your ideas?   In this episode of Teaching your Brain to Knit we outline William Perry’s theories.  We also share how Margaret faces a wall of learning challenges with the Forzo Cuff;  how Catherine finds Persistence on the Absolutely Essential Scarf;  how to deal with rockslides in the Redwood area and a tip about remembering details of your Knitting.