Three Fundamental Educational Neuroscience Phenomenon & Four Teaching Techniques To Negate Them
Successful teachers know that for students to be successful learners, they must strive to initially engage their minds in classroom activity and instruction. They comprehend (some intuitively) that if you are going to successfully educate children and insure they comprehend subject matter, you must begin by engaging their brains.
Correctly, teachers develop their classroom activities and instruction based upon the premise that students only remember what they think about, and to accomplish this, their brains need processing time.
However, many educators, particularly high school teachers, teach in a manner that insures the non-engagement of students’ brains and leads to near certain inadequate comprehension of the material.
The belief that teaching by a smart person who delivers the content in a lecture mode has long been debunked by research and cognitive science (unfortunately, I feel this is the image of a teacher that many policy makers carry with them today).
Using a teaching metaphor, the lecture mode of instruction is often referred as a “sage on a stage;” the “sage” being a teacher who is known to lecture nearly non-stop for an entire class with minimal breaks in the flow of information.
John Almarode, assistant professor at James Madison University, refers to this teaching method as the Spray and Pray Method of Teaching, as the teacher "stands in front of the class, and hoses students down with information, while praying that something sticks. And afterwards, they wonder why students did so poorly on tests and demonstrate little to no comprehension of the material." They believe that their job is simply to give a decent performance, with the rationalization of “I taught it. It’s not my fault if they didn’t learn it.”
The Spray and Pray Method of Teaching is ineffective because it violates three fundamental educational neuroscience phenomenon that revolve around a core limitation of the brain - the capacity and duration of the human attention span.
The first phenomena is the Miller’s Law = 7 ± 2, or "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.
On the average, a person can hold 3 to 4 chunks of information for 10 to 12 minutes. This phenomenon was discovered by George Miller, one of the founders of cognitive psychology. While working at Harvard University, he conducted research on the limits of short-term memory for Bell Laboratories in 1956.
Miller suggests there is a fixed capacity for the average person to receive information and a limit on the number of objects they can hold in working memory. As a result of his research, Miller developed what is known as the Miller’s Law = 7 ± 2, or "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.” In short, the Miller’s Law states that the average person can hold seven pieces of information in their working memory for 30 seconds (7 pieces of information for less than 30 seconds).
If something does not happen to the information, it becomes lost– the memory becomes extinct! For the information to be re-learned, a person needs to be re-exposed to the information. This is referred to as maintenance rehearsal.
Miller’s research led Bell Labs to create phone numbers of 7 digits. Miller’s additional work with ”chunking” lead to the creation of the 10-digit area code phone number using the dash to aid in visual processing and memorization. Example phone number the number 8183128631 vs. (818) 312-8631.
The second phenomena, the 18-Second Holding Pattern
The 18-Second Holding Pattern states that without rehearsal and constant attention, information remains in the working memory for only about 15-20 seconds (McGee & Wilson, 1984) before it disappears (becomes extinct) and forgotten.
The first study of the 18-Second Holding Pattern was carried out in 1959 by Peterson and Peterson (Gazzaniga et al., 1998). They gave subjects the task of remembering a set of three consonants, such as SVL or XCL, that had been flashed on a screen for a fraction of a second. As soon as the letters were removed, they instructed the subjects to count backwards by three in time with a metronome. At three seconds, approximately 20% of the subjects had forgotten the consonants, and at 18 seconds, no one could remember them.
The third phenomena: Hermann Ebbinghaus and the Forgetting Curve
Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist born in 1850, is most famous for discovering the most depressing fact in education. People usually forget 90% of what they learn in class within 30 days. Also, the majority of forgetting occurs within the first few hours after class.
In publishing his Forgetting Curve, Ebbinghaus pioneered the experimental study of memory and performed the first real science-based inquiry into human learning. He is known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and was the first person to describe the learning curve. Both have been confirmed many times since.
Ebbinghaus developed a list of 200 nonsense words, each containing 3 letters a consonant, vowel, consonant: TAZ, LEF, RIN, ZUG. He then spent the rest of his life trying to remember lists of these words and in varying combinations and lengths.
His findings reveal that some memories are only for a few minutes, then vanish, while other memories persist for days/months, even over a lifetime.
He also discovered two other noteworthy factors pertaining to learning: the spacing effect that is addressed below and the Learning Curve addressed as a separate topic on this website.
Four Teaching Techniques to counter the three phenomena.
All four methods presented below are based on a need for teachers to provide class time for students to reflect upon recently presented material and for metacognition (thinking about their thinking and learning.).
Before beginning, a brief discussion of the neuroscience behind the four techniques.
All four methods are supported by neuroscientific studies connected to the functioning of the hippocampus, the brain’s Grand Central Station of memory along with MANY other functions. The hippocampus is a large curved structure buried deep within the medial temporal lobe on each side of the brain. It is behind the amygdala (the fire alarm of the brain) and gradually curves upwards as it extends towards the back of the brain.
The hippocampus is the key structure that weaves various memory streams into a unified experience forming declarative memories, the type of memories you can actively recall, reflect upon, and talk about. It aids in spatial navigation and most importantly, it works closely with the amygdala and PFC (the brain’s CEO) to evaluate the importance of incoming information.
Stress is exceptionally toxic to the hippocampus. Biologically, when the hippocampus is even slightly impaired in any manner due to any type of stressors, memory is instantaneously and significantly impaired or temporarily disabled.
Educationally, information overload and boredom are stressors for the hippocampus. Acting as the brain’s surge protector and similar to a surge protector for your computer that shuts down when overwhelmed by a surge of electricity, the hippocampus does exactly the same thing when overwhelmed by stress in the form of excess information and boredom.
As you will discover as you examine the four teaching techniques, all help prevent the hippocampus from shutting down due to stress caused by being inundated by excess information and boredom.
Primacy-Recency Effect (similar to the Serial Position Effect)
A first successful teaching technique is the “Primacy-Recency” Effect. This phenomenon is based on research that indicates that people remember best what happens first, second best what happens last, and least what happens in the middle.
Primacy and recency are terms used in psychology to describe the effect of order of presentation on memory. The primacy effect results in information presented earlier being better remembered than information presented later on. The recency effect results in better recall of the most recent information presented. Together, these two effects result in the earliest and latest information in a given presentation being recalled best, with information in the middle being least remembered.
Remember that for any presentation, people are more likely to remember the first and last parts given the motto "First and Last - If you want it to Last!
Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. According to Wikipedia, the term was coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus through studies he performed on himself, and refers to the finding that recall accuracy varies as a function of an item's position within a study list. When asked to recall a list of items in any order people tend to begin recall with the end of the list, recalling those items best (the recency effect). Among earlier list items, the first few items are recalled more frequently than the middle items (the primacy effect).
A teaching model centered of both effects: The Primacy-Recency Effect and the Serial-position.
Primacy-Recency effect requires teachers to change the person, place, or activity every 10-20 minutes to maintain a high level of attention.
In practice, the moments in the “middle” should be dedicated to student-centered practice.
The last part of the class should be dedicated to summarizing important concepts, including bridging activities to the next class. This means teachers need to change the person, place or activity every 10-20 minutes to maintain a high level of attention.
Spaced vs. Massed Learning
Herman Ebbinghaus also discovered that one could increase the life span of a memory simply by repeating the information in timed intervals. That is, the more repetition cycles a given memory, the more likely it would persist. We now know the space between repetitions is the critical component for transforming temporary memories to persistent forms. Research clearly demonstrates that learning occurs best when new information is incorporated gradually into the memory in fixed, spaced intervals rather than processed all at once or jammed in over a very short time period.
In the field of psychology, this is known as the spacing effect. The spacing effect is the phenomenon whereby animals (including humans) more easily remember or learn items when they are studied a few times spaced over a long-time span (“spaced presentations”) rather than repeatedly studied in a short span of time (“massed presentations”).
So, what is the correct time period for review? Again, I refer to research by Ebbinghaus showing that the sharpest decline for forgetting is in the first twenty minutes, then in the first hour, and then it evens off after about one day.
In recent lab experiments, researchers have confirmed that the excitement between two neurons is temporally strengthened when learning first occurs but becomes extinct (forgotten) within 90 minutes if the same information is not sent by the sending neuron. The neurons will literally reset themselves back to zero as if nothing happened.
Illustration wise, learning to drive a car in 6 sessions/20 minutes per day over a week (spaced training) is more effective than a single block of a 2-hour practice session (massed training).
As any ex-college student knows, cramming the night before an exam is not likely to be as effective as studying at intervals in a longer timeframe which is a true example of distributed study/practice being more effective than massed practice.
Teaching Tip: Using two study sessions with time between the sessions can result in twice the learning as a single study session of the same total time length.
Employ this technique when presenting a new topic or reviewing. During the first 8 minutes of class, introduce the first half of a new topic or the topic to be reviewed. Following the initial presentation, students complete a corresponding 5-minute activity. Next, present the second half of the topic followed by a related review activity that encompasses the entire topic.
Press and Release
The Press and Release method of instruction is modeled on controlling how information should flow to students’ brains. A classroom utilizing the Press and Release model is designed so that there is a constant adjustment period of pressing (instruction) and releasing (a reflecting/recapping/summarizing activity). Normally, classroom time is divided into longer time for instruction (press) followed by a shorter time for reflection and metacognition (students thinking about their thinking).
Pulsed Learning Pattern
Similar to the Press and Release method of instruction is the “pulsed” learning pattern. This teaching technique is based on research that the brain prefers a “pulsed” learning pattern. The “pulsed” learning teaching pattern underscores that the best learning occurs when “focused” instruction/lecturing is interrupted by breaks of 2 - 5 minutes for diffusion activities to process the information.
A high school model of the “pulsed” learning pattern would resemble the following example: focused = 15/20 minutes, diffused/processing = 2/5 minutes, focused = 15/20 minutes, diffused/processing = 2/5 minutes, and focused = 15/20 minutes.
A You Tube video on Pulsed Learning.
In summary, although educators believe they are instructing students in the classroom, it is critical for all to remember it’s their minds they are educating and interacting with in the classroom.
Using any or all of the four teaching practices enables a teacher to be transformed from a “the sage on the stage” educators to a more effective one often referred to as “the guide on the side.” That is, the teacher can be seen not as an orator continually dispensing information, but as a more efficient orchestra director who knows how to integrate the different voices and talents of the students in the class.