Once you learn some basic neuroscience, it's easy to see the connection with learning. Using it for teaching is a fairly recent development, the two fields have traditionally been far apart. It started when neuroscientists began to compile years of studies on the brain and apply them to learning using new techniques such as MRI imaging. Soon, the fields of Educational Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroscience were born. Next, educators started to teach themselves about the brain; some neurologists such as Judy Willis have even become teachers. Neuroscience is complicated, but with the help of the Internet and some ambitious individuals, the key principles can be distilled into easily understandable chunks and accessed readily. We have prepared 6 neuroscientific concepts related to learning to give you an idea of what is available online, and included online resources or ways to to apply them to online learning environments.
Teacher Lens
Neuroscience is just one form of information and research that experts filter, analyze and interpret for us, creating theories, frameworks, strategies and tactics that we can apply in our daily practice. As educators it is then up to us to filter what we are presented and determine how, when and why we will implement strategies in our classroom and in online learning environments.
As you review the 6 tips use your professional lens to determine what strategies resonate with you.
8 Brain-based Tips
Below are 8 Tips to explore. Hover over them to reveal the topic. Click to reveal the information.
Tip #3 - Feedback
Overview
Learning happens when students receive feedback that corrects or confirms their foundational knowledge. Timely feedback lets students know they’re on the right track, corrects their course as necessary, and builds confidence. The dopamine reward system gives the brain a chemical boost from positive feedback that in turn builds confidence and strengthens the neuronal circuits responsible for the success. It’s a self-sustaining process: The more rewards it receives, the more the brain will seek to repeat the sensation, spurring students on to try more difficult challenges. As neurologist-teacher Judy Willis points out, the dopamine reward is only activated when the brain recognizes it has successfully faced a challenge, and when the challenge has been sufficiently difficult. Accomplishing easy tasks don’t produce the same pleasurable sensation in the brain as one that is at what Willis terms the “achievable challenge” level.
Application to Learning
Students can only learn from feedback if they are open to it. Studies measuring brainwaves show that having a growth mindset allows people to attend to critical feedback, while those with a fixed mindset don't pay attention to information that could help them learn (Dweck, 2006, p. 18). Intentional teaching of the mindset principles sets the stage for an environment in which mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn.
Brain-based teaching advocate, Eric Jensen recommends providing lower quality feedback at more frequent intervals, as opposed to infrequent, high quality feedback. Judy Willis’ analysis of video games as a learning model backs this up: input on incremental progress builds confidence and gives multiple opportunities to correct, and then apply and practice the correction. Jensen also reminds us that while students may appear to have learned something, it pays to check their understanding in a review a few days after the information was presented. This is because the fast pace of teaching may not have allowed everyone to completely process and consolidate ew information. As well, prior to consolidation, new concepts are very malleable, depending on students' experiences, thoughts and emotions and their initial understanding may need to be corrected. He suggests using peer-to-peer activities such as games, building and testing hypothesis, peer editing, and brainstorming activities.
Articles/Resources
Online
Use a variety of formats to give feedback: audio, video and textual. Text feedback for timeliness or use applications like VoiceThread for collaborative projects.
Google forms can be used to create quick quizzes, aggregate results and show students visuals of their results.
For classroom gaming resources, see The 23 Best Game-Based Education Resources for 2014.