Darlington School: Private Boarding School in Georgia Professional Development Spotlight: Learning About the Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain
Darlington School: Private Boarding School in Rome, GA
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Professional Development Spotlight: Learning About the Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain

Christie Atkins | September 16, 2019 | 416 views

As the parent of a young adult with autism, I have long had an obsession with reading about learning. When my husband and I searched for treatment for our son when he was younger, we often found that the “experts” either were unwilling to share their opinions with us—likely, we suspected, because they did not know how to deal with his disability—or were so convinced that only one particular method of intervention could help that they refused to consider any others. During those years, we saw little to no balance in the advice we were given for him. We thus spent a great deal of time exploring how to help someone with autism learn, and we eventually were able to find approaches that significantly improved his condition.

Surprisingly, the more we learned about how to help someone with autism learn, the more tools I found for my mathematics classroom toolbox. I was thus really excited when I learned from Rebekah Kinney, Darlington’s professional development coordinator, that Dr. Janet Nay Zadina was coming to Darlington in Spring, 2019. Dr. Zadina is a former classroom teacher who left teaching to pursue research on learning and the brain as a neuroscientist, and I eagerly awaited to hear her incites on learning and the brain. When Mrs. Kinney told me about Dr. Zadina’s upcoming lecture, I immediately went to Amazon to order her book “Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain: Energizing and Enhancing Instruction.”

After reading—and re-reading—the book, I strongly encouraged Mrs. Kinney to consider “Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain” as a great option for a summer faculty read.  

Dr. Zadina’s book emphasizes seven pathways of learning in the brain: sensory-motor, emotion, reward, attention and memory, language and math, executive function, and social.

Each chapter addresses one of the pathways, and she begins each chapter with a presentation of the most current brain research on that subject. She then explains what the research means for educators and concludes with discussions of specific ideas on how teachers may apply them in their classrooms. After the Darlington teachers read Dr. Zadina’s book over the summer, Mrs. Kinney and I heard many positive stories about how eager the teachers were to design new lessons and activities in light of what they had learned. Our back-to-school professional development meetings included a review of Dr. Zadina’s discussion of the brain pathways, and we shared several videos and participated in activities that stimulated discussion on how we could best use her suggestions with Darlington students.  These discussions produced several thoughts and ideas that we’re confident will improve students’ learning at the school.

As I reflect on the “Brain Pathways” experience, I’d like to share some of the ideas that we have found particularly useful in the classroom. I have long known that sensory-motor learning is critical in teaching individuals with autism. With neurotypical students, though, I have learned that visual learning is just as important. Dr. Zadina noted that recall of material is six times better if visuals are presented along with words, so she suggests having students look up three pictures on their computers with each new vocabulary word. So now, when I introduce a new vocabulary term that students aren’t familiar with, I will call up several depictions from Google Images to illustrate the word’s meaning. Other Darlington teachers have also effectively employed Dr. Zadina’s suggestions. Reading teachers in Thatcher Hall received affirmation for their work in using the senses to teach phonics skills, having recently put an enormous amount of time and energy into learning and adopting the Orton-Gillingham methods of teaching reading and phonics. The Orton-Gillingham Method and its sensory component help all of our young students—the dyslexic and the non-dyslexic—to become accomplished readers.

Also, during the first half of my teaching career, I did not see the large number of anxious students that I have come across in the last fifteen years. The reasons for these all-consuming feelings range from hormones to illnesses in the family to angst over national disasters to panic of school shooters. We now understand that anxiety limits memory, and we are fortunate at Darlington to have both a top-notch Teaching and Learning Center, staffed by helpful, well-informed educators, and the most caring, highly-trained counselors of any school in the area. We now know, too, that It is vital for each teacher to have several methods available to calm students who need support when their emotions run high. Thanks to Dr. Zadina’s insights, Darlington teachers at all levels now have several amazing resources at our disposal to help guide us as we help students navigating through their anxieties.

We also learned from Dr. Zadina’s book that research tells us that the brain enjoys patterns. One of the very best things we can do for our students, it seems, may be to reward the brain by setting up activities that allow the student to seek out and to make discoveries on their own. This is one of the most important ideas I took from “Multiple Pathways to the Student Brain,” and it has produced a paradigm shift in my role as a teacher. At one time, I thought my role as a teacher was primarily being the one who disseminates information to my students. Now, I see it as my classroom responsibility to be the one who designs and implements brain-friendly experiences that will encourage the intellectual growth of my students. While once I thought that my students could only thrive in the classroom if I held strict order and silence during instruction. Now, I find myself encouraging them to discuss ideas with one another when I take pauses from teacher-directed instruction. I also look for ways to organize teams and groups so students can collaborate and learn from each other. Some of the quieter students may not enjoy competitions and class games to learn, but I find that even the shy students enjoy a Pair-and-Share activity where they can exchange ideas with a friend as their partner in learning.

Along with other Darlington teachers, I have found many of Dr. Zadina’s suggestions tremendously helpful in understanding better how to reach our students. Dr. Zadina’s suggestions about helping to wire the brain to retain new knowledge have been especially insightful. I understand better, too, how I can make it a significant part of my job to help each student connect his or her previous knowledge about a subject to what we are currently learning. And, to my surprise, it’s really been enjoyable to watch our students learn in new and innovative ways.