The Latest Research on the brain and learning
Facilitator: Lori Gracey - lgracey@tcea.org
Session Description
Catch up on what the latest research has to say about how we learn and discuss how to apply that to your classroom or professional development.
Announcements
#2 - TCEA 2021
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Some Basics About Learning
Learning involves changing the brain.
Adequate sleep, nutrition, and exercise encourage robust learning.
Moderate stress is beneficial for learning, while mild and extreme stress are detrimental to learning.
Active learning takes advantage of processes that stimulate multiple neural connections in the brain and promote memory.
Brain Myths
Synyaptogenesis Theory (the idea that learning is due to the addition of new cells to the brain) - FALSE. Learning arises from changes in the connections between brain cells. It was found that rats raised in a laboratory with an environment that is enriched with stimuli to encourage learning have 25% more synapses than controls. This effect occurs, however, whether a more stimulating environment is experienced immediately following birth, or during maturity.
Brain development has finished by the time children reach puberty - FALSE. Brain development continues well into adolescence and adulthood, especially the development of the pre-frontal lobes, which are critical for executive reasoning and decision-making.
We only use 10% of our brains - FALSE. A healthy person uses 100 percent of his or her brain. Brain imaging has yet to produce evidence of any inactive areas in a healthy brain.
Left Brain vs. Right Brain - FALSE. The left and right hemispheres of the brain work together. There is no evidence that people’s learning differs in important ways based on one hemisphere being more dominant than the other.
Individuals have different learning styles - FALSE. Many individuals will state preferences for the way in which they want to learn, but there is no evidence that matching a teaching technique to a preferred style will improve learning, despite this hypothesis being tested multiple times. Appealing to multiple learning styles can be useful because cross-connections are created when people perform tasks in a manner different from their “preferred” cognitive style. It’s the variety of brain regions recruited through multiple neural pathways that makes learning most effective for all learners.
We can do multi-tasking - FALSE. The brain can’t attend to two or more attention-rich stimuli simultaneously — simply put, multitasking doesn’t work.
Two Research-proven methods to implement tomorrow
Greet Your Students at the Door.
Greeting students at the classroom door has both psychological and academic benefits. Engagement increased by 20 percentage points while disruptive behavior decreased by 9 percentage points—effectively adding an extra hour of learning to the school day.
(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1098300717753831)
Greet each student individually by name.
Also use a non-verbal greeting, such as a handshake, high five, or light touch.
Make positive and pre-corrective statements encouraging good behavior or suggesting how the student should begin the day.
Don't put too much on the walls.
Heavily decorated walls can overwhelm students, impairing their attention and memory. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096518300390)
Don't do this:
There’s no blank wall space.
Most displays are teacher created.
A large percentage of displays are purely creative.
Students aren’t referencing most of the materials.
You don’t teach with the materials on your walls.
More proven research on how the brain learns
The brain is a social organ.
Most people learn much better when that learning is done through social interaction.
Collaborating with peers turns out to lead to much better learning outcomes.
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/nine_things_educators_need_to_know_about_the_brain
The brain needs novelty.
It turns out that what the brain really craves is novelty. Novelty—being exposed to new ideas and things—releases dopamine, which is a neurochemical that's part of the pleasure center of our brains.
The brain has a short attention span.
It needs repetition and multiple-channel processing for deeper learning to occur.
Variation in activities matters!
Re-establish attention every five to 10 minutes.
Repetition supports learning.
Spaced repetition is necessary.
The brain operates on the “use it or lose it” principle. It's constantly building and re-building neural pathways. Those pathways that are used the most often get stronger and more well-established. Those pathways that aren't used get built over.
More information doesn't mean more learning.
Brain scientists refer to the point at which a person's brain becomes overwhelmed by new information as "cognitive overload." Too much new information results in cognitive overload, and this ultimately reduces learning.
There are two ways to reduce cognitive overload:
The quantitative method. Here, you simply provide less new information. You allow students to understand most of what they learn before presenting new information.
The qualitative method. Here, you change the way you present it so that it is less overwhelming.
Experience sculpts the brain.
You learn much better by doing something than by reading about it. Reading about something doesn't change the brain a lot; doing it changes the brain a great deal.
Fear and stress hinder learning.
Research shows that our emotions affect everything from how we perceive information, how we pay attention to it, the way we remember it, and how we solve problems.
This is especially true for children, who are less able to regulate their emotions.
Help kids feel comfortable in your class and they'll learn better.
Implement the best practices from SEL to ensure that students know you, know each other, and feel safe while learning.
Consider teaching students how to calm themselves or meditate when they feel stressed.
Learning happens best through teaching.
Teaching others is one of the most effective study methods.
In fact, one very effective study technique, called the Feynman Technique, is designed on this principle. It suggests that to learn something new or study for an exam, students take their subject, and then write about it as if they were teaching someone else—even a child. Figuring out how to explain something complex using simple, non-jargon language, and briefly, consolidates the learning that's already there and identifies gaps in knowledge.
So What Are Your TAkeAways?
Get the links from items shared in the chat conversation:
Video Streaming Made Easy
January 13, 2021
https://tcea.org/event/lunch-learn-video-streaming-made-easy/
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