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Mindful_test_anxiety
This document discusses test anxiety and provides suggestions for managing it. It defines test anxiety as a condition that hurts students' efficient use of time, ability to employ correct problem-solving strategies, and memory of reviewed material. It then provides a quiz to assess test anxiety and recommends practices for teachers, such as journaling and mindfulness exercises, and for students, such as getting enough sleep, preparing properly, and using positive self-talk during exams. The goal is to help students and teachers address anxiety in a way that improves exam performance.
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Mindful_test_anxiety
- 1.
- 2. What do youlove about your work? What are some of your biggest challenges? In Pairs
- 6. Do you havetest anxiety? • Quiz: https://www.psycom.net/test-anxiety-quiz-assessment/ • Test anxiety hurts: • Efficient time use • Ability to employ correct strategy to solve problems • Memory of material you reviewed
- 8. Emotion = Energyin motion…Information
- 9. Image adapted fromNummenmaa et al., 2014
- 12. Whodunnit? A Public ServiceAnnouncement commercial for bicycle awareness: https://youtu.be/ubNF9 QNEQLA Inattentional Blindness We miss most anything that happens outside of our focus of awareness, but we believe we have seen everything and are unaware of what we have missed The Monkey Business Illusion by Dan Simons: https://youtu.be/vJG698U2 Mvo
- 13. The Cost ofMultitasking • You will need a stopwatch to time yourself • Time yourself doing the following: 1. As quick as you can, count down from 10 to 0, then immediately say the alphabet out loud from A-K 2. Now, alternate between the alphabet and counting down, 10-A, 9-B,... • Divide your second task time by your first task time
- 14. The Arithmetic ofDistracted Studying Assuming Distracted Study takes three times longer than Focused Study to achieve the same level of learning Focused Study Takes 30 Minutes Distracted Study Takes 90 minutes Focused Study gives you 60 Minutes (undistracted) free time 30 Minutes 30 Minutes Turns into 90 Minutes 30 Minutes 30 Minutes 30 Minutes Which could be 30 Minutes of Study 60 Minutes of Free time 60 Minutes 60 Minutes 30 Minutes
- 15. 47% Average time spent Mind-wandering 70% Leadersreport regularly unable to be attentive in meetings 02% Regularly make time to enhance personal productivity Killingsworth, 2010; Mindful Leadership Institute, 2010
- 16.
- 17. Autopilot Traits • Attentionis in the past or future • Distracted • Less Aware • Reactive or judgmental • Act based on habit patterns and assumptions
- 18. Suggestions from WE ARETEACHERS – www.weareteachers.com • Understand and embrace the good parts of stress. • Give students an outlet through journaling. • Practice mindfulness regularly, not just during stressful times. • Make accommodations when necessary. • Kids need more physical activity and sleep, especially before a big test. • Expose kids to an actual testing environment—stressors and all. • Get your principal on board to make it a school-wide effort. • Collaborate with parents. • Work on your own test-related anxiety. • Speak up, even when you’re not sure anyone is listening.
- 19. Practices teachers cando for students • Journal Prompts • Write out what they are concerned about right before the test.
- 21. Well rested =well tested! • Sleep consolidates learning and improves explicit memory • Sleep deprivation stunts learning
- 22. Students should dothe following: • Be prepared • Fuel up • Get there and settled early • Bring a positive mental attitude • Read carefully • Don’t pay attention to what other people are doing • Pace – watch the clock • Focus on calm breathing and positive thoughts
- 24. Viktor Frankl’s teachings, summarizedby Steven Covey. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
- 26. Mindfulness • Invitation topay attention
- 27. 1. Attention tobreath 2. Relax body 3. Ask: What’s important now? Micropractice Three Breaths
- 28. 5 Mindful BreathsExercise 30-SECOND MINDFULNESS PRACTICE
- 33.
- 34. Thank you! Joseph Croskey,PhD Clarion University of PA [email protected] 814-673-3686
- 35. Resources • NAMI -https://www.namikeystonepa.org/ National Alliance on Mental Illness • WE ARE TEACHERS – www.weareteachers.com • Centre for Educational Neuroscience http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/ • Anxiety and Depression Association of America https://adaa.org/ • Child Mind Institute https://childmind.org/ • PsyCom https://www.psycom.net/
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Editor's Notes
- #2 Imagine a train racing towards you at top speed, and there you are, stuck on the tracks, a human target. Your heart races, your muscles tense, your body starts shaking, and your breath becomes labored as worry consumes your mind and manifests throughout your body. Intense, right? For the nearly 20 percent of people in the U.S. affected by an anxiety disorder every year, this is what anxiety can feel like https://www.psycom.net/ease-anxiety-tips
- #3 Dyad Take a few comments, briefly connect to what we’ll learn today We are going to start off by having you turn to someone next to you. We’re going to do a “dyad.” A dyad is two people talking with one another in an exercise. Here are the two questions to discuss. What do you love about your work? What are some of your biggest challenges? You’ll have about four minutes, so be sure each person has time to share. Notice, sometimes you are speaking and sometimes you are listening. (4 min) Comments: get a few participants to share some things that came up. (3 min) As a way of acknowledging the comments, find a way to very briefly relate what comes up to what you will be doing today. Note to teachers: This first listening activity is more like a regular conversation, without formal division into A and B.
- #4 Do some of your challenges look like this?
- #5 I’m sure many of you are coming from different places–thinking about work, commuting, planning projects. Often, our bodies are in one place, while our minds are in another. Let’s do a short practice to see what it would be like to fully arrive here, where we are, in mind and body. To do that, I will suggest a short experiment to do for just one minute. To do this, we’ll anchor attention in the present moment by paying attention to the breath. This is a great tool because you can only breathe in the present moment. To support attention on the breath, I’ll recommend that you close your eyes or lower them, so that you’re not habitually looking around the room at other people. And further, that on each in breath, you say to yourself, “breathing in…”, and on each out breath you say to yourself, “breathing out…”. This is a way to keep the breath in your awareness. Whatever pace you breathe at is fine, there’s no particular way you have to breathe. Let’s try it for one minute. Ready? Let’s begin. (after practice) Any comments, How would you describe how you feel? (take quick descriptive comments)
- #6 Love is letting go of fear by Gerald G. Jampolsky, Gerald Jampolsky
- #8 https://www.weareteachers.com/test-anxiety/ Test anxiety is the number one learning challenge of students today. According to the American Test Anxieties Association, it affects more than 10 million kids in North America Psychiatrist Grant H. Brenner M.D., FAPA, co-founder of Neighborhood Psychiatry in Manhattan describes anxiety as a dreadful feeling of unease and worry, perpetuated by fear, that often comes with repetitive negative thinking The title said accepting test anxiety Nexalin – brain wave treatment Dr. Stein says Accept the angst. When you’re feeling anxious, instead of practicing avoidance behaviors (running away from the dog) or over-analyzing the fear in your head (what happens if the dog bites me?) allow the uncertainty to be there and leave those worry questions unanswered, Dr. Stein says. “Opening yourself up to ambiguity gives you exposure to uncertainty without avoidance, and the brain eventually learns uncertainty isn’t actually dangerous.” We’re going to talk about different strategies to do that
- #9 Meteoreducation – most complex object we’ve discovered in the universe, more cells than stars in the universe Medial prefrontal cortex – brain development, up to teens – hyper self-conscious Amygdala, prehistoric brain – hand model http://www.pbs.org/the-brain-with-david-eagleman/episodes/what-is-reality/ Neuroscience is the study of the brain and the nervous system. Cognitive Neuroscience is “..a branch of neuroscience concerned with the biological processes of the nervous system which form the basis of cognitive functioning” (Merriam-Webster). It’s our thinking, remembering, reasoning, decision-making — how the brain learns, retrieves and applies information– everything involving conscious intellectual activity. Our brain is constantly changing and everything that we do physically changes it. Our brains are considered “plastic.” This allows us to change and mold our brains as our environment changes and dictates how our memories are used in the future. This is called neuroplasticity and as educators, we need to realize that we (as well as the students themselves) actually have the ability to physically change their brains – and their intelligence. The brain becomes what it does. Understanding the brain and how it works is critical for our educators to become high-impact, effective teachers. To have a student in a class with a teacher who really doesn’t understand the implications of brain-changing neuroplasticity is like sending your car in for repair to a mechanic who doesn’t understand how the engine works. In states of anxiety, the brain is affected by stress hormones like cortisol and excitatory neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine,” Dr. Brenner says. “These factors can lead to a decreased ability to regulate negative emotions, excessive negative thinking, and difficulty relaxing,” At the same time, the amygdala, or the emotion center of the brain, becomes overactive, which makes it harder for higher brain centers (those in charge of cognitive functions like learning and memory) to regulate emotional and physiologic states to calm down mentally and physically, Dr. Brenner says. The amygdala decides what emotions to give you from moment to moment by providing a constant threat assessment about your environment,” says psychologist Michael Stein, Psy.D. of Anxiety Solutions of Denver. “When it determines something isn’t dangerous, it does nothing and you feel calm. When it looks at something it perceives as dangerous, it rings an alarm to warn you about the danger and motivates you to do something about it—that’s what anxiety is, it’s the alarm system.” Why Does Anxiety Keep Coming Back? When the body experiences symptoms of anxiety, the brain interprets these signals from the body as cause for concern, worsening anxiety by creating a vicious cycle, Dr. Brenner says. “The more anxious we get, the more nervous we feel; the more nervous we feel, the more anxious we get,” he says. The important thing to know is not why you have anxiety in the first place, but what’s maintaining it now. “The basic idea is short-term avoidance of anxiety leads to long-term maintenance of anxiety,” Dr. Stein says. “When someone tries to make themselves feel better in the moment (avoiding a dog), it guarantees more anxiety the next time they’re in a similar situation,” he says.
- #10 Paul Eckman inside out
- #15 10-A, 9-B, 8-C, 7-D, 6- E, 5-F, 4-G, 3-H, 2-I, 1-J, 0-K
- #17 The modern world seems particularly distracting, and it’s easy to lose ahold of what we’re intending to do Studies find that we spend a huge proportion of our time mind-wandering, even when we’re supposed to be engaging with other people. If we were always choosing for our minds to wander, that might be okay. But notice that it happens even when we’re trying to be present! And that can compromise our ability to be at our best, and to fully take advantage of the moments in our lives. To make matters worse, we don’t have any strategies to optimize ourselves when heading into our days–only 2% of leaders have regular practices or habits to take care of their energy & their minds during the day in order to be at their best.
- #18 Often, we tend to run on autopilot. We act based on past habits, without paying much attention to what we are doing. One study based out of Harvard estimates that we spend almost 50% of our time thinking about something other than what we’re doing. (See Killingsworth study in introduction) Running on autopilot is something that happens naturally. The trouble with it is that if we’re just on autopilot, not really present with what we’re doing, how can we really listen to others? How can learn from what’s happening? How can we appreciate a good meal or quality time with others? We can’t!
- #19 [DOWN] One way to look at the challenge of working together is that these same autopilot traits are functioning when we’re with others. Often, we’re in a conversation with someone, but we’re not really listening. Our attention is elsewhere: planning what we’re going to say next, ruminating about the past, rehashing our judgments and criticisms about this person. Or, caught up worrying about ourselves, worrying about what they might think about me. Is there anything we can do about this?
- #23 http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/resources/neuromyth-or-neurofact/well-rested-children-do-better-at-school/ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sleep-hours-exam-performance_n_5516643 But the grades of students who slept seven hours each night during the exam period were nearly 10 percent higher than those of students who got less sleep. Students who extended their sleep duration from six to seven hours saw an average increase of 1.7 points (on a scale of 20) for each exam. And, yes, the researchers accounted for differences in the students’ study habits as well as their health and socioeconomic backgrounds. But why might a good night’s sleep translate into better academic performance? Because “new knowledge is integrated into our existing knowledge base while we sleep,” Dr. Baert said in the statement. Of course, adequate sleep has other benefits. Previous studies showed that more sleep not only boosts thinking ability but also can improve athletic performance. Medical experts say adults should get seven to eight hours of sleep each day. The study was published in a discussion paper for the Institute for the Study of Labor in Germany on June 14, 2014.
- #24 https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/test-anxiety
- #25 SHARPEN THE SAW
- #26 Viktor Frankl And yet, we know that autopilot isn’t the only way it has to be! We have probably all had experiences at some point in our lives of feeling present–in nature, in our work, with other people. We’ve felt aligned with our values, awake, conscious of what we were doing. Fortunately there is the possibility to respond differently. A beautiful way of expressing this possibility appears in the work of Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, psychologist, and founder of logotherapy. The bestselling author Steven Covey summarized Frankl’s teachings with an anonymous quote: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”
- #28 1 min, 1 min sounds Get into the present, count five blue things in the room, Good practices for everyone, not just some who are stressed or experiencing anxiety Mindfulness is the psychological process of purposely bringing one's attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgment, which one develops through the practice of meditation and through other trainingy
- #29 Before getting into some of the research on this point, I want to highlight that moving from autopilot to aware is very simple and practical. There are many ways to do it, and here is one we can try now. This is something that you can do even in just three breaths–to refresh, to be more present, to get off of autopilot, to make a choice about what to do next. Let’s practice this. In just a moment, I’ll ask you to take three breaths. First breath: complete yet gentle attention to the process of breathing. Second breath: let the body relax Third breath: ask, what’s most important now? Let’s do that now, at your own pace. (Pause for everyone to do three breaths practice) Ask audience: How many people noticed a slight shift in their mental state even in that short time? Ask audience: When are some times that this practice could be useful for you? (take comments, write on whiteboard if possible. Typical responses include “before sending an email”, “when I first get home from work”, “before an important conversation”)
- #30 let’s do a 30-second mindfulness of breath exercise (Tool #1- Five Mindful Breaths Practice). This practice can help us all fully bring our attention to being present, and will be the first of many “Tools” that you can take away from this program and use. Lead 5 mindful breaths exercise: Script: Take a moment, close your eyes if you feel comfortable doing so, sit in an alert and relaxed position. Inhale to the count of 1, exhale to the count of 2. Give total yet gentle attention to the feelings of breathing. Take 5 breaths in, and 5 breaths out, breathing in to the count of 1, and out to the count of 2. (pause for five breaths) and now gently reorient your attention back to the room. Share with audience: The five mindful breaths is a simple ‘reset button’ exercise for your nervous system. Exhaling twice as long as inhaling actually stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, the “rest and digest” system. Lengthening the exhale calms the sympathetic nervous system, the “fight or flight” system. How was that experience? (take a couple of quick comments)
- #32 Center, breathe, picture yourself getting dressed in the morning getting your book bag getting ready to leave for school, bus stop etc Use all your senses, taste, smell, sight going into the testing center Get to your desk, find your place and pull out your utensils to take the test with Visualize calming down, feet on floor, hands on desk See the teacher give you the test, you put your name at the top You start answering each question confidently Finishing the answers to each question on the last page after you turn in the test and receive it you see the grade that you desired written on the test This helps because it makes you familiar with the situation and often the more familiar you are the less stressful it is Holding on to a rock, something to ground them. Crystal, peace pen,. You can give the students a class project before the test to create a peace stone
- #33 Hopefully these strategies will take you from this click
- #34 To this
- #35 Practice 5 Empathy - JUST LIKE ME & LOVING KINDNESS SIY Tan, C.-M. (2012). Search inside yourself: The unexpected path to achieving success, happiness (and world peace). New York: HarperOne To develop empathy & compassion. To create mental habits Sit in a comfortable position. Relax and alert. 2 min to rest mind on breath. Bring to mind someone you care about. Visualize him or her. FACE THE PERSON JUST LIKE ME This person has a body and a mind, just like me This person has feelings thoughts and emotions, JLM This person has, at some point in his or her life, been sad, disappointed, angry, hurt or confused, JLM This person has, in his or her life, experienced physical and emotional pain and suffering, JLM This person wishes to be free from pain and suffering, JLM This person wishes to be healthy and loved, and to have fulfilling relationships, JLM This person wishes to be happy, JLM LOVING KINDNESS Now, lets allow for some wishes to arise I wish for this person to have the strength, the resources, and the emotional and social support to navigate the difficulties in life. I wish for this person to be free from pain and suffering I wish for this person to be happy Because this person is a fellow human being, just like me (pause) Now I wish for everybody I know to be happy (long pause) End with 1 minute of resting the mind
- #39 Word list Nurse Sick Lawyer medicine Health Hospital Dentist Physician Ill Patient Office Stethoscope Cotton Nurse Sick Lawyer Cotton Table Doctor