Humanities: Building a Better Brain/Mind/Head/Thinking

Today, Thursday, November 8th, started off with a miserable, no good, very bad Roots 1-5 Quiz.

Studying is important.  It helps a great deal.  Dunbar and Ryder both feel strongly that studying leads to improved performance.  Study more.  Do better.

And then the designing/creating/building fun began as we created models of our brains that demonstrate answers to the following four questions:

1. What are the functions of the right and left hemisphere of the brain?

2. Which is your dominant hemisphere?

3. What are some of the subjects that your thrive in? That you need to try a little harder in?

4. How can you use this knowledge to help you to succeed here at Mt. Blue and beyond school?

Those answers were developed from our work on this WebQuest designed by Ms. Sanborn: http://leftbrainrightbrain.wikispaces.com/

So far we’ve got Lego constructs underway, some remarkable art pieces, something involving a chess board and a bunch of blue stones, some Prezis, a few keynotes and even an essay or two.   These are due on Friday so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

The rubric for this WebQuest and project can be found here: http://leftbrainrightbrain.wikispaces.com/file/view/finalprojectrubric.pdf

Humanities: Left Brain – Right Brain WebQuest Continues and Final Product Explained!

Wednesday, November 7th, Humanities class was held in the food court.  Students could choose independent, guided, or “questions on-demand” work groups and could go with whichever best suited their needs.  

 

We continued working on understanding brain hemisphericity a.k.a. left and right brain-ed-ness-ess.  Ms. Sanborn design a webquest that started Tuesday and continued today.  The whole thing can be found at leftbrainrightbrain.wikispaces.com.

 

The following is the big demonstration of understanding piece.  There will be time on Thursday to work in class and the product is due on Friday.  The following is straight from the WebQuest:

 

For your final task, you will create a presentation using a program in which you will need to use the right and left sides of your brain together. Prezi allows you to use the strengths of the left side of your brain by allowing you to organize information in a way which is logical and orderly. The right side of your brain will also enjoy this program because, unlike a simple powerpoint or keynote, Prezi allows you to present information in a way which is aesthetically appealing and creatively ordered. By allowing the two sides of your brain to collaborate, your presentation will reach its highest level of effectiveness.

Start by creating a Prezi account… play around with Prezi for about five minutes. Now watch this tutorialon how to use the different tools that Prezi offers.

Once you have explored Prezi, you may decide that it is not for you. Maybe you would like a more hands-on experience. In this case, you have a few options:
1. Write a paper which reflects all of the same content knowledge that a Prezi would.
2. Create a model or drawing that reflects all of the same content knowledge. 

Now, here’s your final task: create a Prezi, model, drawing, or essay of some sort that proves that you understand the hemispheres of the brain and their functions. Your Prezi should prove that you are using both sides of your brain (i.e. use the right hemisphere to make it visually appealing and interesting, use the left hemisphere to make it well-organized and logical) and should contain all of the following components:

1. What are the functions of the right and left hemisphere of the brain?

2. Which is your dominant hemisphere?

3. What are some of the subjects that your thrive in? That you need to try a little harder in?

4. How can you use this knowledge to help you to succeed here at Mt. Blue and beyond school?

Here’s the really good news: you already have most of this information collected on your graphic organizer! Make sure that your Prezi includes all of the components and is also aesthetically pleasing and fun to watch! Have fun!