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Brainology Introduction Growyourintelligencearticleandactivity

Students will learn about the concept of expandable intelligence. Students will draw 6 pictures to help their brains add this new information to their long-term memories. Students can report back their findings to the class individually, with partners, or in small groups.

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622 views

Brainology Introduction Growyourintelligencearticleandactivity

Students will learn about the concept of expandable intelligence. Students will draw 6 pictures to help their brains add this new information to their long-term memories. Students can report back their findings to the class individually, with partners, or in small groups.

Uploaded by

api-293558742
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 6

I n tro d u cto ry Un i t

BACK TO CONTENTS

Introductory Unit Activity 3, Practice It: You Can Grow Your Intelligence
Description: An introductory article about brain science with a follow up activity
Objective: Students will learn about the concept of expandable intelligence.
Timeline: After the MAP Reflection - Approximately 25 min
Instructions: There are 2 versions of the article: Option A (Plain Text Version) and Option
B (Interactive Text Version). Choose the one most appropriate for your learners.
Option A (Plain Text Version):
To activate students prior knowledge, ask them to generate research questions about
intelligence. Record the research questions on chart paper. (Some examples are below.)
o
o
o
o

What is intelligence?
Do all humans have equal intelligence? How do we know?
What are the most intelligent animals on Earth?
What are the best ways to measure intelligence? How do we know?

Ask students if they would like to learn how to grow their intelligence, and explain that
the class will be reading research today about how to grow their intelligence.
Students will draw 6 pictures to help the students brains add this new information to
their long-term memories.
Pass out copies of the worksheet and discuss non-linguistic representations of concepts
(drawings) as a way to process and remember a new idea. You can connect the idea to
the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words and remind students that the brain has
an amazing ability to remember pictures.
Read the first section as a class and model the drawing and the response to the first one.
Ask students to read silently the next section and complete the second drawing.
Have students check for understanding with a partner using these frames:
o I made a connection to the article when I read because
o The article explores my research question when it talks about
o The article raises a new question for me,
which is because

Students finish the article and record


one research question from the class list
about which they would like to
independently research (for homework
or in a lab setting).
Students can report back their findings
to the class individually, with partners,
or in small groups. Use this opportunity
to differentiate for all levels of learners.

Differentiating Instruction: Option A


Content & Process

This lesson contains content intended for OnLevel and Advanced Learners. The text is
chunked by use of the graphic organizer.
Much of the lesson requires the student to
read the text independently, but discuss ideas
as a class. There are scaffolding suggestions
as well as extension opportunities.

13 | P a g e Copyright 2008-2013 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.

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I nt ro du ct or y U ni t

Reading for Activity Option 1 or 2

You Can Grow Your Intelligence


New Research Shows the Brain Can Be Developed Like a Muscle
Many people think of the brain as a mystery. They dont know much about intelligence
and how it works. When they do think about what intelligence is, many people believe that
a person is born either smart, average, or dumband stays that way for life.
But new research shows that the brain is more like a muscleit changes and gets
stronger when you use it. And scientists have been able to show just how the brain grows
and gets stronger when you learn.

Brainology Curriculum Guide for Teachers

Everyone knows that when you lift


weights, your muscles get bigger and you
get stronger. A person who cant lift 20
pounds when they start exercising can get
strong enough to lift 100 pounds after
working out for a long time. Thats because
the muscles become larger and stronger
with exercise.
And when you stop
exercising, the muscles shrink and you get
weaker. Thats why people say Use it or
lose it!

Fotosearch

A section of the cerebral cortex

Inside the cortex of the brain are billions


of tiny nerve cells, called neurons. The
nerve cells have branches connecting them
to other cells in a complicated network.
Communication between these brain cells is
what allows us to think and solve problems.

2010 Mindset Works

But most people dont know that when


they practice and learn new things, parts of
their brain change and get larger a lot like
muscles do when they exercise.

HEALTH & SCIENCE News You Can Use


Page 1 of 3

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Axon

Dendrites
Fotosearch

A typical nerve cell

When you learn new things, these tiny


connections in the brain actually multiply
and get stronger.
The more that you
challenge your mind to learn, the more your
brain cells grow. Then, things that you
once found very hard or even impossible to
dolike speaking a foreign language
or doing algebraseem to become
easy.
The result is a stronger,
smarter brain.

Copyright 2002-2014 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.

I nt ro du ct or y U ni t

How Do We Know the Brain Can Grow


Stronger?
Scientists started thinking that the
human brain could develop and change
when they studied animals brains. They
found out that animals who lived in a
challenging environment, with other animals
and toys to play with, were different from
animals who lived alone in bare cages.
While the animals who lived alone just
ate and slept all the time, the ones who
lived with different toys and other animals
were always active. They spent a lot of
time figuring out how to use the toys and
how to get along with the other animals.

Effect of an Enriched Environment

Even old animals got smarter and


developed more connections in their brains
when they got the chance to play with new
toys and other animals. When scientists put
very old animals in the cage with younger
animals and new toys to explore,
their brains also grew by about
10%!

Childrens Brain Growth


Another thing that got scientists thinking
about the brain growing and changing was
babies. Everyone knows that babies are
born without being able to talk or
understand language.
But somehow,
almost all babies learn to speak their
parents language in the first few years of
life. How do they do this?

The Key to Growing the Brain: Practice!

Nerves in brain
of animal living
in bare cage

Brain of animal
living with
other animals
and toys

Brainology Curriculum Guide for Teachers

2010 Mindset Works

These animals had more connections


between the nerve cells in their brains. The
connections were bigger and stronger, too.
In fact, their whole brains were about 10%
heavier than the brains of the animals who
lived alone without toys.
The animals who were exercising their
brains by playing with toys and each other
were also smarterthey were better at
solving problems and learning new things.

HEALTH & SCIENCE News You Can Use


Page 2 of 3
www.mindsetworks.com

From the first day they are born, babies


are hearing people around them talkall
day, every day, to the baby and to each
other. They have to try to make sense of
these strange sounds and figure out what
they mean. In a way, babies are exercising
their brains by listening hard.
Later, when they need to tell their
parents what they want, they start
practicing talking themselves. At first, they
just make goo-goo sounds. Then, words
start coming. And by the time they are
three years old, most can say whole
sentences almost perfectly.
Once children learn a language, they
dont forget it.
The childs brain has
changedit has actually gotten smarter.
This can happen because learning causes
permanent changes in the brain.
The
babies brain cells get larger and grow new
connections between them. These
new, stronger connections make the
childs brain stronger and smarter,
just like a weightlifters big muscles
make them strong.

Copyright 2002-2014 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.

I nt ro du ct or y U ni t

Growth of neuron connections in a child


from birth to 6 years old

They dont realize that any of the other


students could learn to do as well if they
exercised and practiced reading as much.
Remember, all of those other students
learned to speak at least one whole
language alreadysomething that
grownups find very hard to do.
They just need to build up their
reading muscles too.

At birth

What Can You Do to Get Smarter?

At age 6
2010 Mindset Works

The Real Truth About Smart and


Dumb
No one thinks babies are stupid because
they cant talk. They just havent learned
how to yet. But some people will call a
person dumb if they cant solve math
problems, or spell a word right, or read
fasteven though all these things are
learned with practice.

Brainology Curriculum Guide for Teachers

At first, no one can read or solve


equations. But with practice, they can learn
to do it. And the more a person learns, the
easier it gets to learn new thingsbecause
their brain muscles have gotten stronger!
The students everyone thinks as the
smartest may not have been born any
different from anyone else. But before they
started school, they may have started to
practice reading. They had already started
to build up their reading muscles. Then,
in the classroom, everyone said, Thats the
smartest student in the class.

Just like a weightlifter or a basketball


player, to be a brain athlete, you have to
exercise and practice. By practicing, you
make your brain stronger. You also learn
skills that let you use your brain in a
smarter wayjust like a basketball player
learns new moves.
But many people miss out on the chance
to grow a stronger brain because they think
they cant do it, or that its too hard. It
does take work, just like becoming stronger
physically or becoming a better ball player
does. Sometimes it even hurts! But
when you feel yourself get better
and stronger, all the work is worth
it!

E-mail questions or comments to:


[email protected]

HEALTH & SCIENCE News You Can Use


Page 3 of 3
www.mindsetworks.com

Copyright 2002-2014 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.

I n tro d u cto ry Un i t

Brainology Intro Unit Activity 3, Practice It: Plain Text Version Option A

You Can Grow Your Intelligence


Directions: Read each numbered section. Draw a picture that represents the main ideas in that
part of the article. Fill in the sentence frames to explain how your picture represents the idea.

This picture of a _________________________ represents the main idea


because ______________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________.

My picture represents the branches (dendrites) growing between brain


cells because ___________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________.

My picture represents the difference between animals who had toys and
stimulation and those animals that did not because ___________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________.

25 | P a g e Copyright 2008-2013 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.

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I n tro d u cto ry Un i t

The way babies learn to speak is represented in my picture because

______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________.

Everyone has a brain that can be exercised, and what I drew shows
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________.

Summary: Things that I learned from this article are ___________


______________________________________________________
and are represented by my picture because ___________________
______________________________________________________.

26 | P a g e Copyright 2008-2013 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.

w w w. mi n d setw o rks. co m

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