the learning brain - suggestions for teachers...
We have shown you a little about how the brain learns, but how does this relate to your practice on a day-to-day basis?
Below we have crafted a list of hints, many of which you are no doubt already using in your work. When reading these hints it is important to bear in mind that this is not a case of 'one size fits all' because as you know the brain is deeply personalised. Indeed, it is unlikely that you consider any two children in your class to be identical learners, but we hope these hints help you in creating a neuroscientific teaching style and environment.
1.
Wherever possible relate the subjects you are teaching to the child's prior knowledge, experiences and personal goals, i.e. demonstrate the relevance of the topic to them.
2.
Build on existing knowledge in order to feed into the ready made networks of activation in the brain.
3.
The brain is a natural pattern detector so help pupils to see patterns and use them to predict outcomes where possible.
4.
Try and give pupils a concrete demonstration of abstract or otherwise unobservable concepts. This allows their senses to experience the concept firsthand and could even involve physical movement, for example having the children pair up as bases in DNA helices or being the electrons in chemical reactions.
5.
Attention can be gained either through attention-grabbing stimuli (bottom- up) or through voluntary direction (top-down). For example the bottom-up approach may require an 'over-the-top' chemical reaction or emotive video clip, whilst the top-down approach may relate to assessment requirements. It may be helpful to use both approaches at different stages in the learning; the bottom-up approach is likely to arouse curiosity which may then result in directed attention to discover the underlying causes or understanding.
6.
Attention cannot be maintained for long periods of time (~20 minutes); try to break up demanding tasks so as to hold their attention, which will improve learning.
7.
Our short-term memory, which is important for learning, can only cope with about seven individual items, and although some children will be able to cope with nine items, others will struggle beyond five. However, an 'item' can contain chunks of information and by appropriate 'chunking' it is possible to optimise a child's short term memory. For example, a child might only remember seven random letters when shown separately, but when they are written as words they can recall more letters (equivalent to seven words) because the words have allowed a natural 'chunking' of information.
8.
Memory has both phonological and visuospatial components and it can be beneficial to work with both of these. For example, giving verbal directions to someone when they are lost as well as drawing a brief map of their route will aid recall of the information, even after the event (when the map or verbal directions cannot be accessed, only recalled).
9.
Our memory shows the 'Primacy and Recency Effect'. This means that things encountered at the very start and very end are most likely to be remembered.
10.
Repetition is only useful if the pupils maintain attention and interest. An alternative to repetition is rehearsal, which involves covering the same concept or topic but in a different way. For example, teaching the water cycle through physical movement and writing a descriptive monologue of a rain drop lifespan. Both will teach the stages in the correct order but are substantially different to avoid automatic regurgitation and loss of attention.
11.
Learning should be fun and interactive, this allows the student to experience the learning rather than passively receive it.