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Teaching to the Student Brain

Guest post by: Andrew Mowat

Article Overview: Teaching without even a rudimentary understanding of the biological mechanisms of learning is like trying to navigate without understanding what a map is. If you teach, you need to know what happens in the brain when someone learns. Adult or child, student or someone you lead.

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Teaching to the Student Brain

Key Concepts

  • Brain-based learning was first described by Renate and Geofrey Caine in their book ‘Making Connections’ [Dale Seymour Publications, 1994], and is based on twelve principles:
    • The brain is complex and adaptive
    • The brain is social
    • The search for meaning is innate
    • The search for meaning occurs through patterning
    • Emotions are critical to patterning
    • Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes
    • Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception
    • Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes
    • We have at least two ways of organising memories
    • Learning is developmental
    • Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat
    • Every brain is uniquely organised


Interestingly, learning is brain-based - the term brain-based learning simply redirects our attention as educators to what the brain needs.

  • Group 8 Education has identified two significant mind states - the Blue Zone and the Red Zone - that impact on all forms of learning. These two mind states are relative to each other: triggering the Red Zone will reduce your capacity to be in the Blue Zone, for example. The Blue Zone describes the mind state of engagement, creativity, collaboration and optimism. The Red Zone is the mind state of disengagement and anxiety. A thriving classroom will be in a Blue Zone state. These two states have been described in the book ‘The Success Zone’.


  • Learning occurs in a number of domains concurrently and independently. Learning is leveraged when more than one domain is accessed in the learning experience. Students (and indeed adults) will have a preference for one or two of these domains. Some of these domains include:
    • Cognitive learning
    • Emotional learning
    • Social learning
    • Physical learning


  • Learning, observed as a change in thinking, feeling, decision-making or action, is effected by new connections between nerves in the brain. These connections are called synapses, and when first formed, are relatively fragile and ephemeral. A synapse that is created, but rarely used is quickly pruned by the brain. A synapse that is created and used regularly will survive and become ‘hard-wired’ into a habit. Synapse creation, then, is Darwinian - survival of the most-used.


  • There are optimal conditions for learning, for synapse creation. Some of these conditions are internal and neuro-biological. Others are external and tend to be socially-oriented.
Key internal conditions include:

      • Rest/lack of fatigue
      • Oxygen
      • Glucose
      • Hydration
      • Neurotransmitter balance (particularly dopamine, norepinephrine)
      • Absence of the mind states of fear and anxiety
Implications:

      • Consider the availability of healthy snacks and water as a part of your classroom. Traditionally, these are frowned upon in the classroom, but particularly when the teaching sessions are long, providing water and snacks will enhance learning. Further, crunchy foods add a calming and attention-focusing effect through the process of proprioception.
      • Peak function for student brains will most likely be in the morning. Exercise (during physical classes and breaks) will deplete glucose. There is also a post-lunch dip in discretionary attention and concentration. Organise learning so that high-focus and intellectual learning is scheduled for the morning. For young students, a story after lunch, for example, aids the transition through this low blood glucose period.
      • Concentration is boosted by breakfast, diminished by lunch. Students who eat a low GI breakfast have optimal concentration in the morning session. Studies also show that the students that do not eat breakfast, but compensate by a large lunch have the least optimal ‘learning brain’.
      • Blood Circulation stagnates when sitting for long periods of time. Short bursts of physical activity combined with breathing exercises re-stimulates a fatiguing brain. Star jumps, group shoulder massages, stretching exercises and similar activity allow for stronger focus at many levels.
Breathing Exercises also help at many levels:

      • Muscles relax. It is to hard maintain physical tension when students are breathing properly.
      • Blood pressure lowers. As muscles let go of tension, blood vessels dilate and blood pressure can return to a normal level.
      • Endorphins are released. Deep breathing triggers the release of endorphins, which improves feelings of well-being and provides pain-relief.
      • Detoxification improves. Good breathing habits helps the lymphatic system function properly, which encourages the release of harmful toxins. This cleanses the body and allows it to direct its energy to the right places.
      • Oxygen delivery improves. When you breath deeply and you are relaxed, fresh oxygen pours into every cell in the body. This increases the functionality of every system in the body. You will also notice improved mental concentration and physical stamina.
      • Simply running a quick breathing exercise will assist: breathe in counting to five, breathe out counting to five, focus on letting any tension go as you breathe out.
Key external conditions include:

      • Being in the presence of someone (teacher/leader/parent) who listens, unconditionally respects and universally believes in the ability to learn
        • Implications:
        • Staying calm under pressure has a huge impact on helping student brains stay in the optimal learning state
        • Being present (in the moment of engagement and teaching) with students helps them focus their attention. The greater your distraction away from them, the greater their distraction.
        • Use of deliberate language that engages assists the focusing of the student brain
        • Listening to, and believing in students are detected by them and help create the internal conditions of engagement.
      • The social environment has a huge impact on creating conditions for the brain to make connections. The following is effectively a list of critical social necessities.(adapted from David Rock’s work in coaching using the SCARF model.
      • Safety - physical, social and emotional.
      • Clarity - clarity around how it is we all behave, clarity of instruction, clarity of purpose. Giving too many instructions, for example, reduces clarity for students and learning is disadvantaged. Routine and predictability also leverage this.
      • Autonomy - the ability for a student to make their own learning and behavioural decisions. Strong learning comes from follow-up conversations around exploring the impact of those decisions.
      • Relatedness - the interconnection between a student and other people in the room and the school.
      • Fairness - the perception of needs being met and of consistency of behaviour/decisions
      • Where any of the above are diminished or absent, the mind state of the Red Zone is triggered, and broad/deep learning is restricted.


      • The physical environment also plays a significant part in creating conditions for learning.
        • Physical comfort - any impact of discomfort with reduce the available attention for learning.
        • Visual stimuli - bright, information-filled and visually interesting rooms promote the generation of connected thinking.
        • Table/seating arrangements - rows of tables and seats encourage conformity over engagement, for example.


      • Natural variation in attention and focus: take advantage of the brain’s unwillingness to stay strongly focused for long periods by varying where the attention of the student is directed.
        • Shifts in attention that could be effected by altering the nature of the engagement include:
          • Ask a peer
          • Write a response before we discuss this further
          • Q&A
          • Debate
          • Pair discussions - looking for further questions, any clarity needed or comments on learning
          • 3-5 students in a group discussion - looking for further questions, any clarity needed or comments on learning
          • Whole class discussion
          • Role play
          • Construct a (physical, digital or analogue) model
          • Relaxation response break
          • Illustrate
          • Develop an analogy or metaphor
          • Review and code notes
          • Review last 15 minutes major points
          • Stop and think of a question - what would be good questions to ask at this point
          • Move - create physical graphs using students as data points, or create polls where students place themselves on a scale according to the answer
          • Assume a position (easy) and explain a point
          • Play soft music in background
          • Demonstration (“as if you are going to do this with another student”)
          • Gap analysis - what is it that I/we don’t know, and how do we find this out?
(adapted from Making Connections for Long-Term Memory and Recall)

Next Steps

  1. Review your teaching practice in terms of how much you take into account the needs of the brain and the conditions needed for learning.
  2. Review your own ability to:
    1. Stay calm under pressure
    2. To be fully present with students in your class
    3. To listen to students, for them
    4. Believe universally in the capacity of all of your students to learn
    5. Unconditionally respect all of your students regardless of their behaviour, disengagement or learning struggles.
  3. Read The Success Zone (Mowat/Corrigan/Long)
  4. Teach your students about their brain and use this as a framework for a Blue Zone classroom
  5. Take a Success Zone webinar or seminar
  6. Try some coach training as a way of enhancing your teaching practice
  7. Spend some time watching videos at TED.com, including:
    1. Ken Robinson: Schools Kill Creativity
    2. Barry Schwartz: The Loss of Wisdom
    3. Tim Brown: On Creativity and Play
  8. Read widely (the following list are all hyperlinks):
    1. Quiet Leadership - David Rock
    2. A Mind At A Time - Mel Levine
    3. The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doige
    4. The Decisive Moment - Jonah Lehrer
    5. Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
    6. Cognitive Coaching: A Foundation For Renaissance Schools - Art Costa
    7. Mapping The Mind - Rita Carter
    8. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers - Robert M Sapolsky
    9. Musicophilia - Oliver Sachs
    10. The Element - Ken Robinson


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Article Tags: Andrew Mowat, brain, brainbased, coaching, education, education 30, learning, teaching
Referred by: http://www.dglong.com

About the Author: Andrew Mowat
RSS for Andrew's articles - Visit Andrew's website

Past school educator and principal, now life and leadership educator, coach and author, I am intensely interested and driven by creating/leveraging opportunities for growth, change and thriving. My vehicles for creating these opportunities are coaching, authoring, neuroscience and entrepreneurship. I have authored (along with Doug Long and John Corrigan) the landmark book "The Success Zone", which explores and showcases the art and science of engagement and influence. Join me in the journey away from Education 2.0 to Education 3.0 (and Leadership/Society 3.0).

Click here to visit Andrew's website Dashed Line

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Teaching to the Student Brain


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