Purpose:

To inform my colleagues of the importance of sleep, naps, and breaks in

education and what do to about it. My colleges will learn how this topic affects
student learning and comprehension in order to learn how to make changes in

the school accordingly and to notify students and their guardians of how
important sleep is towards their educational performance.

Self-Assessment
Write down how many hours of sleep on average
you get per day
How many of you think that the average amount of
sleep you get is generally enough to allow you to
learn well in school?

Expressive Objectives

How can the lack of sleep and breaks negatively affect

learning abilities and comprehension?

Can you successfully come up with ideas of how to design a

school or classroom so that breaks can be more

comfortable and relaxing?

Main points
Sleep Resistances
Sleep Stages
How Sleep Affects Learning & Memory
Best Time for Learning

Breaks

Sleep Resistances
Technology
Environment
Household Tension
Late Bedtimes
Irregular Schedules
Stimulants
Bratsis (2012)

Sleep Resistances (cont.)

How to deal with students experiencing sleep
resistances:
Wake them up politely
Water
Stretch
Activities/Mind Breaks
Phone home
Positive reinforcement
Fair discipline
Mathis (2014)

Questions:
What is one main reason that students are
lacking adequate sleep?
What are two things you can do to work with
a tired student?

Sleep Stages:
Non-REM sleep
Transition
Light
Deep
REM sleep
Dream
Doyle & Zakrajsek (2013)

WebMD

Questions:
What is the most important stage?
Why is it important that we strive to get the
maximum hours of sleep for our age group?

How Sleep Affects Learning &

Memory
Shifting memories
Protects memories
Lack of sleep:
Difficulty paying attention
Poor academic performance

Emotional Anxiety
Doyle & Zakrajsek (2013)

Bratsis (2012)

Maddox, Glass, Schnyer, Zeithamova, Savarie, Bowen, & Matthews (2011)

How Sleep Affects Learning

& memory (cont.)

Does reviewing content before sleep

positively correlate to better
comprehension?
YES / NO

Doyle & Zakrajsek (2013)

How Sleep Affects Learning & memory (cont.)

How much sleep do students need each night?
National Sleep Foundation:
Children/Pre-teens: 10-12 hours

Teens: 8.5-9 hours

National Institutes of Health:
Adults: 7.59 hours

Bratsis (2012)

How Sleep Affects Learning & memory (cont.)

Naps:
A daily 20 to 30 nap learning becomes stable
Taken 8 hours after you wake
26-min nap increased performance by 34%
Nap for 70 -90 minutes reach REM sleep

Doyle & Zakrajsek (2013)

Questions:
How many hours after you wake should you
nap?
How long is the ideal nap supposed to be?

Best time for learning

Start school no earlier than 8:30 am

30 minutes after you wake up

start retaining new info

Review before bed

Depends on person
Hereditary
Larks: morning
Night Owls: afternoon
Payne & Tucker (2012)

Doyle & Zakrajse(2013)

Shute(2014)

Questions:
School should start no earlier than what time?

When is the best time to review information?

Breaks:
Importance:
More attentive

Learn better
Learn more quickly
Practice social skills
Pellegrini, & Blatchford (2002)

Breaks (cont.)
Recommended: for every 50 minutes of learning, there are 10
minutes of breaks
Younger kids need more breaks
Eyes closed
Head on desk
Daydreaming and thinking following new learning
No distractions
No new information
3 minute mind break
Back- to-back classes = no full comprehension

Whitmer (2014)

Doyle & Zakrajse(2013)

Pellegrini, & Blatchford (2002))

Questions:
What time of the day are breaks important for
young students?
For every 50 minutes, how many minutes of
breaks are recommended?

What should students do during mind breaks?

Activity
Targeted Objective: Given the information we just
discussed, my colleagues will come up with ideas of how
to successfully design a school or classroom so that
breaks can be more comfortable and relaxing.

What new components would you bring into or

change within the school so that breaks are more
effective?
Furniture?
Lighting?
Amount of breaks?

Expressive Objectives
How can the lack of sleep and breaks negatively
affect learning abilities and comprehension?
Can you successfully come up with ideas of how
to design a school or classroom so that breaks
can be more comfortable and relaxing?

Closure

It is important to get at least 7.5 hours of sleep each night so that

your brain can transfer large amounts of information from short
term to long term memory.

The lack of sleep, naps, and breaks negatively affects learning

abilities and comprehension in a classroom.

Sleep is important for learning and retaining information.

Reviewing content before sleep positively correlates to better

comprehension.

Being aware of your students resistances can help you better

prepare them to combat their problems.

Putting relaxing breaks into your classroom schedules will help

them process information better

REFERENCES
Bratsis, M. E. (2012). Better grades through sleeping? The Science Teacher, 79(8), 76. Retrieved
from
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA308436795&v=2.1&u=lom_cornerstc&
it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=e2975051ec1fd8f0d26c5b119dc8115a
Doyle, T., & Zakrajsek, T. (2013). The new science of learning (first ed., pp. 15-34). Steerling,
MI: Stylus Publishing, LLC
Kerby, A. (n.d.). Effects of breaks on elementary school students classroom behaviors (Master's
thesis). Retrieved October 19, 2014, from Google Scholar.
Maddox, W. T., Glass, B. D., Schnyer, D. M., Zeithamova, D., Savarie, Z. R., Bowen, C., &
Matthews, M. D. (2011, March 1). The effects of sleep deprivation on dissociable
prototype learning systems [Electronic version]. SLEEP, 34(3), 253-260.
Mathis, M. (2014). Strategies for dealing with sleepy students. In Teach Hub. Retrieved October
19, 2014, from Google Scholar.

REFERENCES
P a yn e , J . D . , & Tu c k e r, M . A . ( 2 0 1 2 , M a r c h 2 2 ) . M e m o r y f o r s e m a n t i c a l l y r e l a t e d a n d u n r e l a t e d

declarative information: the benefit of sleep, the cost of wake. In PLOS ONE.
Retrieved October 18, 2014, from Google Scholar (10.1371/journal.pone.0033079).
P e l l e g r i n i , A . D . , & B l a t c h f o r d , P. ( 2 0 0 2 , 0 2 ) . Ti m e f o r a b r e a k . P s y c h o l o g i s t , 1 5 , 6 0 . R e t r i e v e d f r o m
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Shute, N. (2014, August 25). Pediatricians say school should start later for teens' health. In npr.
Retrieved October 19, 2014, from
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W h i t m e r, R . ( 2 0 1 4 , A p r i l ) . I n s t r u c t i o n i n m o t i o n : g i v i n g s t u d e n t s a m u c h - n e e d e d b r a i n b r e a k a n d
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