While it’s true that arts education can help boost test scores in other disciplines, here’s a book that explains the most important reason to include the arts in schooling: brain development. Using the latest research on the brain and learning, Jensen presents the definitive case for making the arts a core part of your curriculum and integral to teaching in every subject and classroom.

Learn how to use musical, visual, and kinesthetic arts to increase opportunities for more students to learn, enhance their thinking, and make classrooms more positive and inclusive. Teaching tips throughout the book offer easy and practical ways to incorporate the arts into every grade level.

*Self-paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #693). Visit our Courses tab for more details.

Even smart kids do stupid things. It's a simple fact of life. No one makes it through the teenage years unscathed -- not the teens, not their parents. But now there's expert help for both generations in this groundbreaking new guide for surviving the drama of adolescence. This book explores what happens to the human brain on the path from childhood into adolescence and adulthood. Revealing the latest scientific findings in easy-to-understand terms, Dr. Walsh shows why moodiness, quickness to anger and to take risks, miscommunication, fatigue, territoriality, and other familiar teenage behavior problems are so common -- all are linked to physical changes and growth in the adolescent brain.

But WHY Do They Act That Way? goes beyond the well-known issues of hormones and peer pressure. It is the first book to explain the changes in teens' brains and to show parents how to use this information to understand, communicate with, and stay connected to their kids. Dr. Walsh actually likes teenagers and has worked with them and their families for more than thirty years as a parent, teacher, psychologist, coach, and trusted expert.

Through real-life stories, he makes sense of their many mystifying, annoying, and even outright dangerous behavioral difficulties and provides realistic solutions for dealing with everyday as well as severe challenges.

With this arsenal of strategies, parents can help their kids learn to control impulses, manage erratic behavior, cope with their changing bodies, and, in effect, develop a second brain. Dr. Walsh's proven tactics will be extremely welcome to frustrated parents trying to help their children through this confusing time of life.

David A. Sousa continues his successful tradition of translating current research findings into effective classroom strategies and activities in this new version of his bestselling text. The fourth edition of How the Brain Learns integrates the most current developments in neuroscience, education, and psychology to inform your instruction and enhance your students’ learning. Included are

•New information on memory systems, especially the changes in working memory capacity
•Updated research on how the explosion of technology may be affecting the brain
•Current findings on brain organization and learning, and revised sections on hemispheric specialization
•Evidence that supports the value of the arts in improving cognitive processing and creativity
•An expanded resources section with links to reliable information on the brain
•More than 150 new or updated references

Indispensable for all educators who want to better understand the way children learn, this classic volume will help you rediscover the joy of seeing students reach their full potential.