Can you use this Brain Course?

Are you teaching grades 9 and up?  Do you have the freedom to choose your own materials? Here is my mini course (15 hours): Learning English via studying the brain.

1 introductory brainstorming:  What is the brain?  What does it do for us (brainstorm long lists of functions) PP presents them/ groups them: conscious/ subconscious.

2 Watch 5 minutes of a lecture “How the Brain works.”  Here are 2 options.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UukcdU258A&feature=related

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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5ao8mvMeFE

While watching:  PP get a list of brain parts; tic off the ones you hear.

3 Use these lectures, quizzes, crosswords etc . . . . from the site “Neuroscience for kids” to teach 15-20 parts of the brain and their functions.

4 This fun song reviews about 30:  Google (Pinky and the Brain Brain song)

5 Brain metaphors:  Discuss one or more of the following:

                The brain is/isn’t a computer. ( Discuss why/ why not).  More like this and endless ideas for metaphors can be found at “Neuroscience for Kids.”

             http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/metaphor.html

6   Take your class on a guided tour of the site Neuroscience for Kids.  Help them choose from the dozens of possibilities what they want to learn about.

Tourette’s syndrome?  Autism?  Personality change caused by  brain damage?  Multiple personality disorder? Alcohol / drugs and the brain?   Men’s’ vs. Women’s’ brains?

Choose according to the number of lessons you have left. 

7 Several movies deal with brain-related issues:  Awakenings, Charlie, A Beautiful Mind, and Rainman.

HAVE FUN!