Teaching The Way The Brain Learns
America spends billions of dollars on education but still fails most of its students because only 34% of students entering first grade ever complete college. However most well-paying jobs require a college education and individuals with the skills needed to switch from one job to another as new opportunities develop. Twenty-first century jobs require: strong technological skills; an ability to adapt to new situations and work collaboratively; innovative thinkers; and, create problem solvers who think outside the box. Our next generation of graduates will need to be able to adapt to the rapidly changing times.
How can we meet these new educational needs? We need to teach the way the brain learns. Recent technology has enabled us to watch as the brain functions. Our brains receive all information through our five senses. Our brains then process all this information through multiple linked areas. For example, reading initially involves the visual area of the brain, but the sight of a word immediately links this image with the linguistic area of the brain where words take on meaning and also possible visual images, i.e. forest may produce a visual memory of a walk through a forest reinforcing this word and all that it implies. Some words also provoke painful or happy thoughts which stimulate the area of the brain involved in emotions. That is why if we read a joke we laugh and if we read a sad story we want to cry.
Why is this so important? Research shows that when more parts of the brain are engaged in a learning experience, the stronger the memory. However, the area of the brain that involves emotions affects the function of all areas of the brain and thus our ability to learn. Pleasure increases the ability to learn and remember, while if upset or sad or angry, this primal area of the brain interferes with our ability to remember. Stress increases short term memory -that is why cramming works - but decreases long term memory. Two weeks after cramming for an exam we often remember how hard we studied, but not what we learned. So, first of all, learning needs to be fun and engaging to be effective.
Secondly, the constant engagement in language starting shortly after birth can increase a child’s chance of success in life. Why? Because the linguistic areas of a child’s brain develop rapidly up to age six. The fewer the words a child hears the smaller the verbal area of their brain will be for the rest of their life! Why aren’t we taking advantage of this? According to B. Harte and T.R. Risley’s The Early Catastrophe – The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3 the more words children hear, know, and use and the earlier this happens, the more words they will eventually own. Children need to be exposed to rich language experiences long before they can talk and this must continue throughout the first six years when the linguistic areas of their brains are most actively growing and changing. The greater a child’s vocabulary at six, the greater the chance that child will excel academically.
What I discovered from15 years of research funded by five federal grants was that students understood and remembered far better what was taught when we used multi-sensory instructional strategies compared to teachers who taught using traditional teaching methods. On standardized tests our students consistently outperformed similar students not exposed to interactive project-based learning strategies. Over fifteen years we compared various teaching strategies and analyzing the results. The main differences that proved most effective were: 1) we engaged many parts of every child’s brain in every learning experience, 2) many activities were open ended and challenged students to problem solve and 3) every activity was fun and stress-free. This confirmed what recent brain research has shown. Namely that the more areas of a brain engaged in an activity and the greater the pleasure doing the activity the better the long-term retention of the information learned. Stress significantly decreases long-term memory.
Education must: 1) begin when children are very young and the linguistic areas of the brain are rapidly growing; 2) involve lots of experiences, trips and activities that stimulate all the children’s senses including taste and smell; 3) provide challenges that stimulate creative thinking and problem-solving skills; and, 4) excite students’ curiosity. Everyone is discussing rigor, but far better is to inspire passion.