Wow! What an exciting semester it has been and where has the time gone?  When the four of us entered this class on the first day (well, truthfully...the first few weeks) we were a bit overwhelmed, confused, and had more questions than answers.  It took several weeks, and a lot of brainstorming,  before we were even able to narrow down a topic.  Slowly, but surely, things started to fall into place.  Our topic began to take it's shape, we began to see the real life application in our classrooms, and truly began to develop interest and excitement surrounding "brain breaks!"  Step-by-step, we identified how we would develop a methodology around our research questions and most importantly, how to analyze the results after conducting our study.  At this point, we are very anxious to actually DO our project.  ENOUGH PLANNING, let's get to it already! : )  We are a close group of friends and plan on discussing and comparing the results of our projects with each other and ultimately with our school, and the smartpd community. 

We just stumbled upon an article that offers a new perspective on why students need to keep moving during the school day. A pediatric occupational therapist weighs in and says that kids are sitting too long, affecting kid’s ability to learn and also leading to incorrect ADHD diagnoses. Children need to move in a variety of different ways in order to create the changes needed in the sensory system to improve attention. Lack of movement actually hinders attention, which leads many doctors to incorrectly diagnose children with ADHD when that is not the true problem. 

 

Very interesting! Read the whole article here :)

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/07/the-right-and-surprisingly-wrong-ways-to-get-kids-to-sit-still-in-class/

Why we really should be taking Brain Breaks..

Over the holiday break I came across an interesting article identifying some of the most important reasons we should be incorporating Brain Breaks into our classrooms. By now many of us know that Brain Breaks improve the function of the brain, allowing our students to perform better academically but there are many other reasons for us to incorporating all types of Brain Breaks as often as we possibly can. 

According to Dr. Spencer Kagan, there are 9 reasons to incorporate Brain Breaks:

1. Character Education
2. Emotional Intelligence
3. Positive Social Orientation
4. Creativity
5. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence
6. Process Orientation
7. Equal Participation
8. Engagement
9. Instinctual Playfulness

All of these reasons are an added benefit to the academic stimulus Brain Breaks provide to students. Kagan states that Brain Breaks are best and most effective when they are incorporated on an on-going basis for the reasons listed above, not strictly just for academic motivation and achievement. Areas such as creativity, social orientation and bodily/kinesthetic intelligence can greatly improve the circulatory system's function within the brain and provide the necessary nourishment to the brain. When we combine the reasons states by Kagan and the academic portion of Brain Breaks, we are allowing our students to become refreshed in a safe, active environment in which teachers can manage the energy and attention level of each student. The optimal environment for layering is that of relaxed alertness, which can be achieved through Brain Breaks and using them for reasons such as the 9 listed above. 

Check out Kagan's website to see more instructional tips and tricks for teachers based on his research. 

Collecting and Analyzing Our Data

Happy almost Thanksgiving!! As we are all packing up and heading home for the holidays, we wanted to let you know that we have finalized how we are going to collect and analyze data about brain breaks and their effectiveness. Hopefully we can entertain at least a few fellow commuters who may need a bit of light reading on their long and (hopefully) traffic-free trips home.

We have five ways that we are going to collect data during the course of our action research project:

1. Primary Behavioral Observation Chart: We will have two of these charts each day. The first chart will be filled in during the lesson directly before that day's brain break and the second chart will be filled in during the lesson directly after the brain break.

2. General Attitude Survey: This survey will be administered at the beginning of the study, before any brain breaks have been administered, and at the end of the study, after the three weeks of brain breaks have been completed. The survey will ask students how they feel about brain breaks in general and how they feel about each of the three specific brain breaks. A snapshot of the survey is included below.

3. Weekly Specific Attitude Survey: This survey will be in the same format as the General Attitudes Survey but will be given to the students at the end of each week of brain breaks, asking their opinion on that specific week's brain break (yoga, dancing, and fitness).

4. Pre/Post Academic Assessment: Although unclear on the specifics for this assessment, we are going to give a pretest at the beginning of the week and a posttest at the end of the week on the specific material being covered over the five-day period. This will be a way to measure academic success, and allow us to see if there is a correlation between type of brain break and academic success.

5. Anecdotal Notes: The observer(s) will record anecdotal notes about student behavior during the lesson directly before and directly after each brain break.

We will let you know more as we talk to our mentor teachers and find out exactly when this will all take place. Have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving!!

An Interesting Read For This Cold and Windy Day...

Hi guys! The other day I was looking up ideas for working with kids who have behavioral problems. I have seen a lot of physical and verbal aggression in the classroom recently and was searching for ways to lower the chances of these instances occurring. I found an article about using yoga to deal with different stressors both at school and at home, specifically focusing on kids who come from broken homes where support is lacking. The article states that "through yoga movements and conscious breathing, youth are learning to be still, to focus, and to relax and have greater self-control." The article says that yoga is providing an outlet for kids to express anger, anxiety, and stress. Although it focuses on entire yoga programs and not three-to-five-minute brain breaks, I think that we can use this information to make sure that the yoga that we do with our kids specifically focuses on moves that lead to relaxation. Hopefully kids that are wound up, angry, or stressed before a yoga brain break can find some sort of relaxation after a short yoga session. Fingers crossed!!

Read the article here!

Our Timeline

Thought all you brain breakers out there would be interested in the timeline of our research.

Because some of our team is switching classrooms in March, we have a limited amount of time to work with. We decided on the following setup and think it's pretty awesome:

Brain Break Implementation

We decided to have one week for each type of brain breaks, with two days of 3 minutes and two days of 5 minutes for each week. We also wanted to have a day of no brain breaks to test our questions against. 

 Let us know if you have any questions or comments!

And Voila…Our Methodology For Our Action Research Project!

Hey guys! Just wanted to share with you our finalized methodology for our action research project…we are all super excited to see things starting to come together and to show you our "map" of where we will go from here.

Again, here are our two research questions:

1. Does the type of brain break (yoga, dance, or fitness) elicit different academic and behavioral     performance results in first and second grade?

2. Is there a signifigant difference in student performance between a three or five minute brain break in the first and second grade classroom? 

We will all be conducting our research in our respective classrooms (two of us are in first grade in Baltimore City and two of us are in second grade in Howard County). Our classes have between 20 and 28 students, all of whom will be used.

Although we are not sure of exact dates at this moment, we estimate that the research itself will happen over three weeks, spending one week at a time on each of our three types of brain breaks (yoga, dance, and fitness). The research will be compiled between January and May of 2015.

Our independent variables are the type and length of the brain break. Our dependent variables are the students' behavior and their academic performance. To collect data, we envision using surveys that tell us how student's feel about each type of brain break. The surveys will measure attitudes and motivation before and after the brain breaks. In addition, we will use some sort of academic assessment---TBD---and observations.

Other than ourselves, our mentor teachers will help us collect and analyze data needed for this project. If necessary, some of us may use our PDS coordinators, school administrators, and grade team leaders if we decide that they would be helpful further on down the road.

We will keep you updated about new developments as they happen! We are excited to share this project with you all!!