Applying Neuroscience to Help Children Learn Best
There’s no need to repeat the findings of decades of research that when families are more involved or better partner with schools, the outcomes for their children are better, e.g., increased academic achievement, improved social-emotional skills and behaviors, increased graduation rates, etc. Besides a myriads of regulations and policies developed for students with disabilities and special education operations, the 2004 IDEA explicitly deals with the families’ roles and responsibilities as partners with educators in educating their children.¹ Although parents do not “directly” teach subject matters or assume a major teaching role at home, to understand how the brain affects learning and learning affects the brain will be a huge help.
Many parents and students believed that intelligence is determined at birth and students’ academic abilities will not budge even with intense effort.² As a matter of fact, students can literally change their brains by improving how they approach learning and how they study.² The learning experiences the child encounters can cause changes in the brain’s structure and function.⁵
Dr. Willis, a medical doctor who practiced neurology for 20 years and later became an educator, highlighted three brain elements that teachers and parents need to know about how the brain turns sensory information into knowledge and things they can do to help the student/child learn best. Billions of bits of information generated every second from the environment get filtered by the three brain elements: 1) the reticular activating system; 2) amygdala/the limbic system; and 3) dopamine (RAD).⁴
Everything we learn comes to the brain through our senses, i.e., sensory information input from our eyes, ears, face, mouth, skin, muscles, and internal organs. Once these sensory messages enter the brain, they are routed to one of the two areas: 1) The prefrontal cortex (PFC), the thinking brain where information can be processed and reflected; or 2) the lower, automatic brain: the reactive brain where survival instinct without much reflective thinking is taking place. Instead, flight/fight/freeze becomes dominant reaction in the person.³ Children will learn more successfully if information enters the thinking brain. The information is much less likely to be processed and remembered in the reactive brain.
Reticular Activating System (RAS): The RAS, the first brain filter, is a nerve reticulum that is located in the brain stem. The RAS receives the sensory information input from the environment and different parts of our body and determines what information continues to proceed to either the higher thinking brain or the lower reactive brain. Meanwhile, it screens out extraneous sounds and images when distractions exist. Furthermore, emotion plays a critical role in the process of determining where the sensory messages will go (see #2 amygdala below). When children experience negative emotions (e.g., stress, anxiety, anger, scared, loneliness, bored or in a sitting position without moving around for a long time, etc.), the sensory information is less likely enter the thinking brain. On the other hand, when the students are highly motivated and attentive to the instructive materials, and/or are in a good mood, the sensory information will make it into the thinking brain. In addition to the student’s emotional status, the physical state also affects how the RAS routes the information. When students are in good health, well rested, and well-hydrated, the sensory information tends to reach the thinking brain and good learning results. However, information will not be well processed and reflected on when students are exhausted and overwhelmed.
Educational and parenting implications:
The RAS is particularly responsive to color, novelty, and unexpected events, teachers/parents may bring in some kind of surprises when the child appears bored while working on the same worksheets/drills day after day.⁴
Keep the student healthy, well-hydrated and well rested. Encourage the child to take a short break and sip/drink water when feeling tired.
Observe the child for any signs of negative emotions or behavior problems. Try to find out the root causes for such emotions and behaviors. Good communication is critically important in discovering what happened at school/home that might be associated with the negative emotions or behavior problems (such as anxiety, stress, depression, etc.)
Amygdala (Greek for “almond”): The limbic system, located above the brain stem and below the cerebrum, primarily governs emotions and behaviors. Out of many important parts of the limbic system, we are going to introduce only two of them here, the amygdala and hippocampus, for they are linked to information and memories. It is believed that amygdala encodes emotional messages as a memory is formed and stored in areas involved in memories. For example, a 6th grader may not be able to memorize the times tables with 100% accuracy but remembers every details of a pleasant trip he had with his family and friends a long time ago.
The amygdala sorts out sensory information for understanding the situation we are in and assesses the situation prior to responding to it with a positive or negative reaction. When the reaction is positive, e.g., happy, relaxed, comfortable, and interested, the amygdala routes the information to the reflective, thinking brain. On the other hand, when we are in a negative emotion state, such as stress, anxiety, frustration, anger, or even boredom, the amygdala then takes up excessive amounts of nutrients and oxygen in the brain, which leads the brain into survival mode and blocks entry of new information into the thinking brain (i.e., the prefrontal cortex) and memory centers.³
In a typical school day, seemingly insignificant events may cause negative emotions and route students’ sensory input to the reactive brain. These events could be, but not limited to, overslept, no time for breakfast, good friends are absent at your lunch table, worrying they might not like you anymore, the math teacher who’s always smiling and quick to help you did not respond to your hand raising for help today, you are afraid she might think you are hopeless for math, etc. Any or some of the events are likely to close off the pathways through the RAS and amygdala that direct information into the child’s thinking brain and memory centers.³
Hippocampus: Shaped like a seahorse, the hippocampus is next to the amygdala. It uses sensory input, movement coordination and working memory from different parts of the brain such as thalamus, hypothalamus (both are part of the limbic system) and temporal lobes to form memories and convert the information to the long-term storage regions of the brain.
“Nerve cells (neurons) forge information into memories by sending messages to other neurons through branches—called axons and dendrites—that almost touch the branches of each neighboring neuron. It takes lots of connections between neurons to relate each neuron’s tiny bit of information to that of other neurons so that all the bits add up to a complete memory. When you review or practice something you’ve learned, dendrites actually grow between nerve cells in the network that holds that memory. … e.g., studying the times tables many times, makes the network stronger, just like muscles become stronger when you exercise them. … Practice makes permanent.” (Willis, 2009, p. 3)
Educational and parenting implications:³
When observing child showing signs of stress (or upon learning the student/child’s unpleasant experience), help him/her calm down by a brief conversation, giving choices, providing assistance, breaking the task into smaller pieces of work, etc.
Provide children with positive learning experiences that sustain their attention and interest without producing stress or boredom, and are associated with pleasure, topics of interest, or satisfying goal achievement. In this way, sensory input will enter the higher reflective thinking brain.
Reviewing and practicing materials that are already learned to help dendrites grow and strengthen the network…. The neural pathways and the brain becomes more efficiently wired when reviewing new learning through actions, using the knowledge to create something, solve problems, or apply it to another subject. (Willis, 2009, p. 3)
Consolidating simple and easy-to-remember steps/information into automation so the student does not need to think about it, valuable extra memory space is then freed up, especially in active working memory. For example, students with strong math skills on four operations avail a lot of working memory space when dealing with algebraic problems.
Dopamine: It is one of the most important neurotransmitters (chemical messengers among nerve cells). Other than traveling through axons and dendrites as stated earlier, when information travels from one neuron to another, it needs to cross the gaps called synapse between neurons. Neurotransmitters such as dopamine carry messages across the gap from one neuron to another. Without neurotransmitters, information will not be able to travel from neurons to neurons and enter parts of the brain responsible for processing and memories for learning to occur.
The brain releases extra dopamine when an experience is positive or enjoyable.² During stress, dopamine is low while cortisol is high, which is secreted by the adrenal glands. Increased cortisol is correlated with decreased learning and memory because cortisol also affects the hippocampus. ”Dopamine increases attentive focus and memory formation. When dopamine is released during pleasant learning activities, it increases children’s capacities to control attention and store long-term memories.”³ “Positive emotions cause dopamine to travel to more parts of the brain, additional neurons are activated. Thus a boost in dopamine not only increases a sense of pleasure, but also increases other neurotransmitters, such as acetylcholine, that enhance alertness, memory, and executive functions in the prefrontal cortex.” (Willis, 2009, p. 3)
Educational and parenting implications:³
Engage in joyful activities, such as interacting with friends, laughing, physical activity, listening to someone read to you, and acting kindly increase dopamine levels.
Pursue activities that the child can get a sense of achievement or a positive experience.
Capitalize on the child’s strengths, such as artistic ability, leadership, helping classmates resolve conflicts, athletic skill, or even qualities like optimism, kindness, and empathy.
Learning activities that include physical movement, personal interest connections, social contacts, music, novelty, sense of achievement, intrinsic reward, choice, play, and humor can induce the release of dopamine and create pleasurable states in the brain.
Neuroplasticity: This is the ability of the cerebral cortex to change due to experiences.⁵ It includes the growth of new neuronal connections and the pruning of unused connections between neurons (“use it or lose it”).⁴ With every experience, the cerebral cortex changes both chemically and structurally.⁵ For example, when people learn to juggle, the areas of the brain that are involved in the skills such as manual dexterity became denser.⁵ Research has found that areas of the brain grow denser only when the task is challenging and difficult enough to require some work on the part of learner.⁵
For optimal brain development and learning, the Aspen Institute lists five physiological preconditions, some of them were already mentioned earlier:⁶ quality sleep, adequate nutrition, physical activity & exercise, emotional & social well-being & safety, and cultural well-being and a sense of belonging.
The brain affects learning that we have long been aware of, scientific evidence also shows that learning affects the brain. Brain development requires social relationships, emotional experiences, and cognitive opportunities.⁶ In helping the child succeed in the work s/he does, teachers and parents need to understand the brain basis such as the three brain elements (RAD), and the fact that social, emotional, and academic learning are interconnected. For healthy brain development and successful learning, teachers and/or parents need to provide the five physiological preconditions (quality sleep, a healthy diet, exercise, safety, a sense of belonging), coupled with appropriate challenges for the child. Positive social and emotional support are indispensable, so that sensory information input can enter the child’s thinking and reflective brain (i.e., PFC) for successful learning to occur.
References
Turnbull, A., Turnbull, R., Erwin, E. J., Soodak, L. C., & Shogren, K. A. (2011). Families, professionals, and exceptionality: Positive outcomes through partnerships and trust (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Willis, J. (2009). How to teach students about the brain. Educational Leadership/ASCD, 67(4), Retrieved from: https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/how-to-teach-students-about-the-brain
Willis, J. (2009). What you should know about your brain. Educational Leadership/ASCD, 67(4). Retrieved from: https://files.ascd.org/staticfiles/ascd/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el200912_willis.pdf
Willis, J. (2008). How your child learns best: Brain-friendly strategies you can use to ignite your child’s learning and increase school success. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Miller, E. M. & Clinkenbeard, P. R. (2021). Using neuroscience research to guide your parenting: Finding the signal and ignoring the noise. National Association for Gifted Children (June 2021). Retrieved from: https://www.nagc.org/sites/default/files/Publication%20PHP/bonuscontent/Signals%20June%2021_0.pdf
Immordino-Yang, M. H., Darling-Hammond, L, & Krone, C. (2018). The brain basis for integrated social, emotional, and academic development. Retrieved from: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Aspen_research_FINAL_web.pdf
Alicia Li, Ed.D
Professor
Department of Special Education & Communication Sciences and Disorders
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
tli@emich.edu