Teaching ≠ Learning: Educators must remember that learning is different than teaching, that is, because one is teaching does not automatically mean students are learning.
Educational Neuroscience Explained
A teacher’s challenge: To get the brain out of its Couch Potato Mode.
The human brain is dedicated to survival of the animal and of the species. It is going to do what it needs to survive. To preserve energy, the brain is programmed withhold effort and not to put energy into activities that are not needed or successful. But it can be tempted from this position if it expects by pleasure. A teacher’s challenge is how to get the brain out of it’ couch potato mode and commit its limited energy reserves to learning. This is the basis of Educational Neuroscience.
When there is a low expectation that effort will result in success, effort drops. This is seen in animals in the wild. When there is a low expectation of success, their effort drops. Survival depends on energy conservation. There is no output of energy if the probability of success is low.
The same with humans. When there is a low expectation of success, effort drops. The human brain is wired to keep track of where it pits energy and its rate of success. The brain keeps tract of behaviors that lead to success and failures.
But this can cause problems for humans. The brain keeps tract of behaviors that do not lead to success, for example, doing math, and efforts towards a goal that does not pay off. Correspondingly, it is programmed to withhold further effort due to failure or lack of significant progress.
Judy Willis, a neurologist who is a leading authority on the neuroscience of learning and an author of nine books and more than 200 articles about applying neuroscience to classroom teaching strategies.
A Leisurely Walk Might Result in Danger
Imagine our ancestors taking a leisurely walk through the savanna to the river for the group’s daily supply of water. But before reaching the river, he or she notices something novel and unusual in the brush. By paying attention to this event, the brain might be insuring the survival of the species.
The above story exemplifies one very important point: the brain is hard-wired for survival by selectively paying attention to its environment.
According to John Medina, author of the New York Times bestseller "Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School", “The primary purpose of the brain is keeping the body alive and to preserve the species to reproduce.”
“The primary purpose of the brain is keeping the body alive and to preserve the species to reproduce.”
John Medina
Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, asserts that the brain is a survival organ and is hard-wired to selectively devote its attention to details in the environment that will enhance the chances of survival in the wild thereby increasing the probability of continuation of the species through reproduction.
In like manner, David Ropeik, a former Instructor at Harvard University and author of How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts, posits that “the human brain is a survival machine, not a figure-it-out computer. After you wake up in the morning, its primary job is to get you safely to bed at night, not to get good grades or discover something.”
The question then becomes what is the brain hard-wired to selectively pay attention to in order to survive?
Reflect back on the beginning story, what caused the brain to become activated and thus altered to possible danger?
The sudden movement in the brushes was a novel event coupled with movement and a disruption in a pattern (comparative thinking) of the environment caused by sensory stimulation, thus alerting the brain to possible danger and thereby assuring the survival of the species.
“For survival, what would the brain select to filter? Novelty and change. The question then becomes is the novel item or change represent a danger? Is it a threat to survival or will it improve survival?”, Median advances.
To deal with this selection, the brain has a sensory intake filter called the reticular activating system (RAS), in the lower part of the posterior brain, posited by Judy Willis and Tim McTighe in their book Upgrade Your Teaching: Understanding by Design Meets Neuroscience. They continue to explain that the RAS edits incoming information to the brain and determines what the brain attends to and what sensory information gets in.
In other words, if the RAS doesn’t “see” the input, then the RAS doesn’t select it. For example, how does your right foot feel? Before your right foot was mentioned, you had no idea of how your right foot felt.
In other words, you don't see the sensory input if your RAS doesn't select it. For an example, check here.
Educational Neuroscience Teaching Practices are designed to prevent classrooms scenes similar to this one.
Now the question becomes what makes a bit of information special so that the brain pays attention to it?
Willis and McTighe argue that the “RAS’s involuntary programming gives priority to information that is most critical for mammals to survive in the unpredictable wild.” They continue that “any changes in the expected pattern can signal a threat of death or, alternately, a source of nutrients that can help ensure survival.”
This hard-wired criterion of selection by the RAS for brain awareness means the brain gives priority admission to sensory input about novel events, movement, changes in expected patterns (what is new, different, changed, unexpected as a result of comparative thinking), sensory stimulation, or any personal interaction.
From another point-of-view, John Almarode, executive director of teaching and learning at James Madison University, believes that, “Our brain wants immediate behavioral relevance.”
In developing Educational Neuroscience Teaching Practices, I keep the above story in mind when choosing the categories for teaching practices because of the importance the RAS gives to certain type of incoming sensory information. No matter the importance that a teacher places on the data s/he wants to be comprehended by students, it will not be selected by the RAS until it meets its stringent selection criteria. It must be remembered that the RAS has no interest in solving Algebra problems or learning a Foreign Language, its sole purpose is survival.
Given the above criteria, many of the educational neuroscience teaching practices presented will deal with elements that the RAS considers to be “behavioral relevance” such as novelty, movement, comparative thinking, sensory stimulation, personal interaction, pattern recognition, and meaningfulness. Other topics included are due to the significance the brain places on vision and the importance of the hippocampus and amygdala in learning and remembering.
The challenge to educators is insuring that desired information passes through the RAS filter resulting in awareness of an experience or lesson. Just as the RAS region of the brain uses and relies on environmental stimuli for daily life, so too must teachers infuse into their pedagogy the RAS hard-wired qualities that insure our survival and by doing so, get their students' brains out of the Couch Potato Mode.
I know you will find the Educational Neuroscience Teaching Practices listed below useful and productive.