Attachment: Exercise Boosts Brain Power

FCS FLASH ISSUE Number 90: September 30, 2008
October 5: World Wide: Intergeneration Day
October 10-12: San Ramon: FCS Program Plan Revision Retreat
October 11: Diamond Bar: Interior Design: Student Career Day
October 25: Monterey: Costume Society of America Distressed Costumes Workshop
November 1 - April 5: San Francisco: Yves Saint Laurent Exhibit
November 5-8: Chicago, IL: ITAA Annual Meeting: Evolving Patterns
November 13: Downey: Explore the World of Organic Foods
November 21-25: National Harbor, MD: Gerontological Society of America Annual Conference
December 4-6: Charlotte, NC: ACTE Convention & Career Expo
March 26-28: Sacramento: CAEYC Conference California Association for the Education of Young Children

FCS New Postings
Review The American Institute of Architects, AIA, Survey of Home Design Trends. It reflects on the downside in the housing market and the growing interest in green design. Roger Gerard, Shasta College takes a closer look at the airline industry’s inhospitable practice of “ bumping” passengers on oversold flights... find out how you can hang on to your seat. Follow this link to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Aging Initiative Website for a wealth of information about the EPA’s efforts to protect the environmental health of older adults. Finally, read what Marla Dickerson, LA Times , writes about the downturn in the economy and how it’s affecting retirement timetables.

FCS FLASH : Brain Rules
Each year we select an underlying theme for the FCS FLASH to bring you current and valuable information/activities you can immediately use in your classroom, as well as research information and links to help you develop your courses more effectively. During the last few years, our themes included using technology to enhance learning, applying Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education , identifying Student Learning Outcomes, and using classroom assessment techniques for better instruction. This year we will link you to new research information about the brain and strategies to help students learn easier and faster in the classroom and excel in the workplace. Our primary source will be John Medina’s Brain Rules , however we will include many additional and timely resources for you to review.

We begin with Medina’s first brain principle: If you want to get stronger and smarter, exercise! Researchers have found that the mental effects of exercise are far more profound and complex than they once believed. Scientists have actually coaxed the human brain into growing new nerve cells- simply by putting subjects on a three-month aerobic workout regimen. Exercise benefits the brain in two major ways: it helps generate new brain cells, and it strengthens the connections between those cells. Moreover, the positive impacts of exercise on the brain come quickly, and in under an hour. If you want your students to come to class with their synapses firing more efficiently, encourage them to exercise.

 

Try this:
Ask students how learning to get the most out of their brain would help them.
Explain
that you are going to share some brain strategies to help them thrive at school, at work and at home.
Distribute
the student guide, Exercise Boosts Brain Power, attached.
Review
this 11 PP slide presentation, Exercise Boosts Brain Power, and have students answer the questions on their guides as you go through the slides.
Discuss how students plan to use this information to help them learn better and faster.

Exercise can be used as a medicine -- a 'smart pill,' if you will...
John Ratey, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

This newsletter was brought to you by a grant from the California Community College Chancellor's Office Family and Consumer Science Collaborative Grant (#06-0160).
Please contact Joann Driggers ( jdriggers@mtsac.edu ) with any questions.
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