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A Neurologist Makes the Case for Teaching Teachers About the Brain
July 27, 2012 | Judy Willis MD
Do you recall some of your college professors who knew their subject matter but had zero teaching skills? Staying awake in their one-way-directed lecture classes required Herculean strength (or lots of coffee). They were never trained to develop the skillset of engagement strategies.
Even though I was a physician with a strong science background, when I decided to become a classroom teacher (and thought I'd teach science), I did not want to make that career change without the benefit of instruction and guided student teaching. The year I spent in my graduate school of education program was invaluable in my transition to becoming a professional educator.
Curriculum in schools of education has changed in response to changes in society, pedagogy and technology. As computer technology became an asset in classrooms, schools of education appropriately included that instruction in the curriculum. Many states made similar education program curriculum adaptations in response to multiculturism, increases in English language learners, and the use of the concrete-connect-abstract progression in math instruction.
Now that the neuroscience research implications for teaching are also an invaluable classroom asset, it is time for instruction in the neuroscience of learning to be included as well in professional teacher education.
Neuroscience Knowledge Strengthens the Lifeline
For today's students, educators are the lifeline they need to climb for access to the playing fields of 21st century opportunity, open only to those who acquire the necessary skillsets. Teachers who are prepared with knowledge of the workings of the brain will have the optimism, incentive and motivation to follow the ongoing research, and to apply their findings to the classroom. These teachers can help all children build their brain potential -- regardless of past performance -- bridge the achievement gap, and reach their highest 21st century potential starting now.
One example is the research about the brain's neuroplasticity and the opportunities we have as educators to help students literally change their brains -- and intelligence. To become a teacher without understanding the implications of brain-changing neuroplasticity is a great loss to teachers and their future students.
Beyond understanding the brain's neuroplastic response to stimulation -- how activation and use of memory networks makes them stronger -- future teachers need to recognize how stress inhibits neuroplasticity. It is only when information is processed in the brain's reflective, cognitive prefrontal cortex that new learning can be incorporated into networks of long-term, conceptual memory.
Seeing neuroimaging scans of students during stress states, such as those that build up with sustained or frequent boredom (information already mastered; no evident relevance) or frustration (repeated past failures in subject), offer powerful insights into the importance of classroom climate and differentiation of instruction. These scans reveal the increased metabolic state that blocks processing in the highest brain (prefrontal cortex; PFC) when this boredom or frustration alienates students from instruction. The amygdala is the switching station that, when hyperactive in response to high stress, switches input and output away from the PFC and down to the control of the lower, reactive brain. Behavior reactive responses from the lower brain are the involuntary survival responses of fight/flight/freeze (act out/zone out).
What Triggers Student Behavior
As students' stressors build, loss of information access to the PFC for memory construction means new learning is not retained. The lost communication from the PFC emotional control networks to the lower brain means the lower brain's reactive behaviors are in control. These students and uninformed teachers come to believe that nothing better can be expected. Students develop the fixed mindset in which the brain's primitive survival networks restrict effort toward goals that, by experience, are not expected to be reached.
Teachers who understand this neurological consequence of the brain’s programmed response to stress can change the educational and life outcomes for students who have been blamed and punished for unintentional acting out or zoning out. When teachers know about the brain's reactions to the stressors that promote the low brain control state of involuntary, reactive behavior, they become more aware of how much they can influence students' successful brain processing. When they understand that the brain responses in the high-stress state are neither voluntary student choices nor reflective of a student’s academic potential, knowledgeable teachers recognize that their interventions can reduce stress, return students' voluntary control of their behavior, and promote successful memory construction and cognitive processing in the PFC.
When new teachers understand how they have the capacity to reduce the stress of frustration or boredom by providing all students with opportunities to learn at their appropriate level of achievable challenge, their motivation will increase with the expectation of success. As we know, it does take dedication, motivation and lots of time to achieve the often onerous task of differentiation for all students. The background knowledge of neuroscience provides that extra motivation.
Bringing Neuroscience into Education
There are no more critical life supports than passionate, informed teachers who can resuscitate students' joyful learning. When educators learn about how the brain appears to process, recognize, remember and transfer information at the level of neural circuits, synapses and neurotransmitters, and when they share that knowledge with students, they share empowerment with their students. Informed teachers help students understand their ability to change their brains and experience success and renewed confidence. Students thrive in classrooms where teachers have the added tools from their neuroscience understanding. The result is nothing less than reigniting the joys of learning, even when they have been extinguished for years.
The most valuable assets for improving education won't be developed in a neuroimaging laboratory. It will be educators, with the foundational knowledge about the science of learning, who will be prepared to evaluate the validity and potential educational correlations from neuroscience research. These teachers will be the front line professionals who will recognize potential applications of laboratory research and develop the strategies that bring the benefits of this research to their students.
Frontloading is More Critical Than Ever
If you've read this far, you have probably developed your foundation of the neuroscience of learning knowledge through professional development, reading or professional learning communities in your schools. Sadly, those opportunities are increasingly limited for new teachers.
With decreased funds for substitute coverage, professional development conferences, consultants and prep time, it is becoming more difficult for teachers to access new topics of expertise after leaving schools of education. There is also the problem of integrating new learning into the classroom without guidance and feedback. The time for future teachers to build the foundations of neuroscience knowledge is during their studies and supervised teaching experiences while they are in schools of education.
The future developments in neuroscience, with the most extensive and useful classroom applications, will likely arise from input that educators provide to scientists. When experience reveals particular strategies as repeatedly successful, classroom-to-research lab channels will be open for teachers to suggest investigations into what is happening in the brain in response to those conditions. Through this collaboration, their observations about what works for their students will feed neuroscience research. As the data is analyzed, replicated, applied and adapted, and as strategies become even more effective, what started as a teacher's observations will be disseminated to benefit students worldwide. After all, isn't sharing what we teachers do so well?
References
- Eisenhart, M., & DeHaan, R.L. (2005). Doctoral preparation of scientifically based educational researchers. Educational Researcher, 34(4): 3-13.
- NCATE report recommended instruction in developmental and cognitive psychology and neuroscience in teacher education as having beneficial effects on teachers and students.
Links to additional information about the neuroscience of learning
- "Neuroscientist explains how to stimulate young brains." Australia ABC TV Lateline
- Neural development and early intervention: Q&A
- Why Teacher Education Should Include Neuroscience & A Primer for Use in Teacher Education about the Neuroscience of Learning
- Stressors that reduce memory
- How to Plan Instruction to Reverse Fixed Mindset Using the Video Game Model
- Instructional approaches to reverse fixed mindset and renew student effort
- Development of the brain's networks relevant to Stress Consequences and Interventions
- Mind-Sets and Equitable Education
- Reducing Stereotype Threat in Classrooms
- Executive function tracts increase in strength with activation
- Three Brain-based Teaching Strategies to Build Executive Function in Students
- Writing and the Brain
- Development of the brain's executive function of goal directed behavior over desire for immediate gratification
- Neuroscience of Increased Cognition in Bilingual Brain
- Students who were taught that about their malleable intelligence sustained greater achievement (middle school math)
- Interventions to Promote Growth Mind-Sets for Equitable Education
- Reducing Stereotype Threat in Classrooms, through Student Understanding of Neuro and Cognitive Science, Improves Achievement of Black Students
- Teaching Students A "Brain Owner's Manual" (ASCD)
- Teaching Students A "Brain Owner’s Manual" (Johns Hopkins)
- How to Teach Students About the Brain
Comments (23)
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Educational Therapist
I completely agree with what you have presented here about teachers needing to be more informed of how the brain learns. However, I think it will be quite some time before it happens. Right now the information is spreading by individuals passing it along but I know of no school district that has implemented this type teaching. There will always be teachers who grasp a concept, really understand it, and do a wonderful job implementing it but most others will need a lot of training and guidance. For example, computers, many teachers want to be the computer guru of their school and really implement it into their classroom but don’t feel comfortable, are unsure how to do it, or not sure where to find and how to use the software, so they decide it’s best left alone and teach how they always have or use the computer for reinforcement games. Another area I’ve noticed that is still deficient in the college realm is the knowledge of identifying children who have learning difficulties. While in college teachers are taught what learning disabilities are but it is in an all-inclusive class with all the other special ed. needs. So, when these teachers are in the classroom, they are not able to identify these students. Every year I inform teachers of how to identify children with learning disabilities and it continues to amaze me that the colleges have not made this a more in-depth class when the percentages of children with learning differences increases every year. Yes, some of the best brain training I had was from NILD (National Institute for Learning Development) out of Norfolk, VA. They are reaching out to schools through the therapists they train, who in turn are spreading this neurological news and knowledge to the teachers with whom they have contact. I hope this trend continues.
Amazing article. I've always
Amazing article. I've always felt that to be a better educator, we need to understand how the brain processes information. If we can find new triggers, then we can incorporate those into our lessons and make them stick. Neuroscience is a definite area of interest for me!
Raising the level of professionalism in education...
necessitates that anyone working to educate children have a foundational understanding of the anatomy and functionality of the brain as we understand it. Only with this base of understanding is it possible to make informed decisions regarding the most effective and appropriate techniques to apply in any given educational situation. The ability to understand and specifically justify the decisions made in teaching are what raise it to a higher level and truly require the application of the art and science of learning. Additionally, the research done regarding the positive effect of sharing a basic understanding of neuroplasticity of learning with students requires that educators have accurate, clear information to share. I look forward to the changes you are able to effect with your work Ms. Willis!
I find this topic very
I find this topic very interesting. We educators have the power in our classrooms to actually increase our student's intelligence by providing education that keeps our students engaged and motivated. I find it difficult to keep my students from zoning out during my lessons. I would love some suggestions for keeping them motivated when they are not working at grade level.
I agree that they should know
I agree that they should know because it makes you so much more aware of what is going on with your student,even teaching the student about their brain encourages them to protect their brain.Superb article.
I agree that they should know
I agree that they should know because it makes you so much more aware of what is going on with your student,even teaching the student about their brain encourages them to protect their brain.Superb article.
I think the challenge will be
I think the challenge will be to take the discoveries being made in neuroscience research labs and construct bridges into classrooms. Modern pedagogy has been built on psychology, which is complex enough--now, through science, we can expand our knowledge of learning to include the physiological. One fascinating study by Alison Preston, PhD, (The University of Texas at Austin) is on what teachers call “prior knowledge.” Dr. Preston writes, “At this point, we have several studies that focus on the fact that our ability to learn new things is profoundly interested in what we already know.” However, in general, we are still a long way from clinical validation in school settings. Skillfully designed technology, including eLearning. may very well be the platform that will allow the integration of neuroscience into teaching methodology.
Brain-Based Learning in the Classroom Works
As a parent, classroom teacher K-12, Learning Disability Specialist, Educational Technologist, and researcher/practitioner with 30-years of published applied accelerated learning practice, this article reinforces the importance of brain research interfacing with the every-day classroom.
My work engages choral speaking, rhythm, and puppetry to improve cognitive skills, but more specifically, the ability to create the whole-brain learner with how to conceptualize and process new, incoming information. The training creates focus, attention,and retention. Perceptual changes are evident after 24 hours of intensive training. My published research is available on my website www.memspan.com/publications.html, and ERIC Clearing House.
The brain changes became immediately evident with puppetry instructional methodology - pub article - http://www.memspan.com/handwritingku.pdf
A summary of the research in school and private classrooms - The International Alliance for Learning (IAL) in June 2001 recognized this research as landmark Brain-Based Learning: http://www.memspan.com/abstract7.pdf This research is the tip of the future iceberg for instruction and learning.
I offer parent information through the nonprofit Innovative Learning Stratagems, Inc. website, www.StrategyTech.com, and develop educational, brain-based learning content through Mem-ExSpan, Inc. www.memspan.com.
Thanks for posting this important article!
Collaboration Between Scientists and Practitioners is Crucial
(The following is from Christina Hinton and Kurt W. Fischer, authors of "Mind, Brain, and Education," part of the Students at the Center series. www.studentsatthecenter.org)
Judy Willis makes the case that, " future developments in neuroscience, with the most extensive and useful classroom applications, will likely arise from input that educators provide to scientists." We could not agree more. Collaboration between scientists and practitioners is crucial for progress in the field of mind, brain, and education.
In medicine, researchers refine newly developed medications and procedures through hospital testing. In agriculture, researchers improve new seeds, equipment, and farming methods through field tests. In field after field, practical results inform research-based developments. In education, however, sustained collaboration involving reciprocal interactions between researchers and practitioners has been difficult. Education lacks a fundamental infrastructure for connecting the work of researchers and practitioners.
The need for this kind of structure grows as research from biology and cognitive science becomes ever more relevant to education. Teachers often lack the background knowledge needed to interpret scientific results, and scientists often lack an understanding of pedagogical goals.
These new challenges augment the need to build an infrastructure that supports sustainable collaboration between researchers and teachers. We suggest that research schools can provide that infrastructure. In research schools, researchers and teachers work together to carry out research that is relevant to practice, and education needs a strong infrastructure for grounding practice and policy in research as findings in cognitive science and biology become increasingly relevant to education. Research schools can be living laboratories for field-testing new techniques, training teachers and researchers, and promoting dialogue between researchers and practitioners. They can lay a fundamental infrastructure for connecting research on learning and educational practice and policy.
Research schools would improve pedagogy by grounding research in practice and vice versa. In this dynamic interaction, research informs practice, and results from classrooms and other learning settings shape research directions, while data on learning supply invaluable information for fine-tuning theoretical models. To offer just one example, classroom results have revealed that phonologically based interventions are effective for some children with dyslexia but not for others. This result guided neuroscientists toward a more sophisticated and differentiated understanding of dyslexia.
This last year I learned a
This last year I learned a new technique based on brain research that really helped me keep students from zoning out. It's called mirroring. By having the students mirror the motions you are doing with your hands, you are activating their motor cortex and keeping them very engaged. The students love this! Here is what I found from using this in my classroom: http://luria-learning.blogspot.com/2012/04/engaging-your-daydreamers.html
Sacha