#003 - How Teachers Can Revolutionize Classroom Engagement 🍎💡
In this episode of Neuroeducation, host Angie Dee explores the neuroscience behind supercharging learning. She discusses the outdated methods of education still prevalent in schools today and highlights the importance of emotional receptivity, engaging children's interest, and offering choice in the learning process. Angie emphasizes the power of hands-on learning and peer teaching, which have been shown to significantly improve retention and enjoyment of the material. Listeners are encouraged to create safe and connected environments, foster student engagement, and incorporate hands-on activities to enhance learning outcomes.
Transform your parenting with 'Montessori Made Easy' a course to help guide your child to thrive in a digital world with creativity, independence, and resilience. Click to explore a toolkit that will help you navigate the messy parts of parenting and rediscover the best parts of parenting: https://teachplayconnect.com
Follow The Neuroeducation Podcast:
https://www.instagram.com/neuroeducationpodcast/?hl=en
https://www.tiktok.com/@neuroeducationpodcast?_t=8iBmpacOWAr&_r=1
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHtouj8CkOyCDrVIO98BHLw
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553970581049
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Introduction to Neuroeducation
00:01:10 - Outdated Education Methods
00:02:35 - Neuroscience and Learning
00:04:00 - Principle 1: Emotional Receptivity
00:06:15 - Principle 2: Engaging Children's Interest
00:08:30 - Principle 3: The Power of Choice
00:10:45 - The Impact of Hands-On Learning
00:12:50 - Learning Retention and the Senses
00:14:20 - Peer Teaching and Learning Retention
00:16:00 - Conclusion and Call to Action
Transcript
Welcome to Neuroeducation, where we're exploring the
Speaker:neuroscience of how to switch on the brain to supercharge learning.
Speaker:I'll be sharing with you innovative teaching techniques, effective parenting
Speaker:strategies, and educational advocacy. I'm your host, Angie
Speaker:Dee. Together, let's revolutionize children's learning.
Speaker:Hi everybody and welcome back to Neuroeducation. Thank
Speaker:you for being here. We are going to touch on something
Speaker:super exciting today. How to switch on
Speaker:the brain to supercharge learning. Unfortunately,
Speaker:what's happened in schools is that we have
Speaker:continued a very outdated method of education.
Speaker:If we look back to where schools were created, we
Speaker:know that post-war we needed to get a lot of
Speaker:children into schools and basically it
Speaker:was the easiest thing to get them into a box, behind
Speaker:a table, on a chair, writing out
Speaker:something on a sheet, textbook learning. And today we've
Speaker:added a thousand tests to that. So often,
Speaker:not only are they teaching to the test, we're
Speaker:still teaching in a very outdated method of education. What
Speaker:does neuroscience say about how we teach right
Speaker:now in this day and age? A lot of people say to me, yes, but
Speaker:we're innovating, Ang. Look what we've got. We've got laptops
Speaker:in all of the classrooms. Well, while laptops obviously
Speaker:is an innovation in some form, when you're getting
Speaker:them to type, and in a
Speaker:form where they're having to respond to a question that's
Speaker:still requiring very lower order kind
Speaker:of lower order thinking, it's still that
Speaker:very same outdated method of education just
Speaker:on a laptop. So what can we do to
Speaker:really switch on the brain to supercharge learning? There's
Speaker:quite a few things that we have learned through neuroscience. I
Speaker:mean, we can literally put little monitors on the brain. We
Speaker:have incredible research that show what kind of
Speaker:hormones charge the brain so that
Speaker:it is ready for learning and more receptive and
Speaker:remembers more of what it's learned. And
Speaker:we know that when children are interested and children are engaged,
Speaker:the hormones of serotonin and dopamine are
Speaker:flooding the brain at different times. Are they connected?
Speaker:Are they interested? If they're connected to their teacher and to
Speaker:their classmates and they're engaged in some kind of
Speaker:classroom discussion and they're engaged in the learning, the
Speaker:quality of learning is going to be so much higher. So
Speaker:I'm going to give you three principles that neuroscience has
Speaker:shown very clearly switch on the brain and
Speaker:can supercharge learning. The first principle is
Speaker:emotional receptivity. Now we know that
Speaker:if our brain is in fight, flight, freeze
Speaker:or faint, some people call it fawn, then
Speaker:their learning is basically at
Speaker:the lowest possible power because if the
Speaker:brain feels like they are in danger in
Speaker:any way shape or form and that can be from obviously an obvious
Speaker:threat like somebody's actually trying
Speaker:to hurt them or in this day and age a lot of our threats are
Speaker:psychological maybe bullying or maybe they're
Speaker:not feeling like they're being supported by you know their teacher
Speaker:or their peers what can happen if they're
Speaker:in fight, flight or freeze, their actual learning power,
Speaker:which is in our prefrontal cortex at the front of our brain, it
Speaker:can't be activated. It's like all powers are at
Speaker:survival. So what can we do to make sure Well,
Speaker:first of all, the brain can be activated for higher order thinking and
Speaker:be in the prefrontal cortex is making sure children
Speaker:feel safe and connected. So number one,
Speaker:and they've shown it in many studies, the connection to the
Speaker:teacher is of a higher influence than
Speaker:many other things in the classroom. If
Speaker:you are spending time connecting to the students before they
Speaker:come into the classroom, that is fantastic. A lot
Speaker:of teachers I see these days, they have five different ways to
Speaker:connect before they even enter the classroom. A high five, an elbow pump,
Speaker:maybe a dance, something fun, but it's
Speaker:just a simple way to connect to the students before they come
Speaker:into the classroom. Also, what
Speaker:kind of an environment is the classroom, I
Speaker:guess, feeling in terms of are they feeling supportive by their
Speaker:classmates? Is it a comfortable environment or
Speaker:is it an environment with lots of competition or bullying? So
Speaker:what can we do to create that kind of environment where they're feeling
Speaker:comfortable? Obviously having things
Speaker:like group discussions, group projects, working
Speaker:in pairs, talking about different things, this helps children
Speaker:feel a sense of connection. So not only does it make them feel safer,
Speaker:that allows the thinking and all of the powers to go up
Speaker:to the prefrontal cortex, but also educational
Speaker:research has shown us that children can remember
Speaker:about 5% of what they hear, but 50% of
Speaker:what they've learned through classroom discussions and group discussions. So
Speaker:not only is it an effective way to help switch on the brain
Speaker:for prefrontal cortex for the higher order thinking, it's
Speaker:also a fantastic way for them to actually be
Speaker:learning the content. The second component of
Speaker:how to switch on the brain to supercharged learning is engaging
Speaker:children's interest. Sometimes we might say something
Speaker:like, all right today we're learning about photosynthesis. If
Speaker:you are just stating what you're learning and
Speaker:the children often will react with
Speaker:receptivity that dwindles because you're just telling this is
Speaker:what we're doing today, here's our content, da da da da da. It's
Speaker:very different if we even try to elicit a little bit of
Speaker:interest from the children. You could start with a question, an open-ended
Speaker:question. So why is the grass green? Why are the
Speaker:leaves on the trees green? And why do the leaves on
Speaker:the tree change colour as we go through the seasons? just
Speaker:starting with a slightly different question can start to
Speaker:elicit interest. Also, if we're following
Speaker:children's interests or allowing children more choice
Speaker:in their interests, maybe if we're studying different countries, what
Speaker:kind of aspects of understanding another country or
Speaker:culture can benefit them in their classroom? And
Speaker:what kind of choice can you give them to see what aspect are
Speaker:they interested in? What country are they interested in
Speaker:learning? these little little inputs where
Speaker:we give children more and more power to follow their interests increases
Speaker:the level of serotonin. Now when we increase the level
Speaker:of serotonin our happy hormone in our brain What
Speaker:happens to the learning? The learning is supercharged. I
Speaker:like the analogy of a little paper boat going
Speaker:down a stream because we have our neurons that
Speaker:are basically firing together to wire together.
Speaker:But the more happy hormones we have, the more happy and interested the
Speaker:children are in the learning. If you imagine the paper boat, the
Speaker:message of whatever the learning content is going
Speaker:down a stream. If the children aren't engaged and they're not interested, that
Speaker:paper boat is probably going down a little rocky, bumpy stream
Speaker:that has barely any water. As soon as we increase the
Speaker:engagement and we increase the interest, that
Speaker:paper boat is going to go down a stream that has water rushing
Speaker:down it. And that is the same for us as adults. If
Speaker:you can think of something that you've learned as an adult, something that you've been
Speaker:interested in, maybe listening to a podcast, maybe reading a
Speaker:book, doing your own research, how much of you have
Speaker:retained of that information? I would say a
Speaker:lot more information. And neuroscience backs that when
Speaker:we're interested, we're engaged and where we have some choice
Speaker:in that learning, we're going to remember it for a long time. And
Speaker:that's about lifelong learning. The third element I
Speaker:wanted to share with you today is about choice.
Speaker:Now, when we add choice There have been
Speaker:some studies to show that it improves learning up to
Speaker:30%. There are lots of elements that we can add choice, just like I mentioned before.
Speaker:What country did they want to study? Or maybe how did they want to present
Speaker:the information? If you are having to
Speaker:present the information on, let's say, a country. Can
Speaker:you share something in a poem? Can you share
Speaker:it as a diorama? Can you share it in a song? Are
Speaker:there points that they need to cover in whatever form
Speaker:it is? Can they be given more creative freedom in how
Speaker:to share that information and that choice of
Speaker:that learning? The next element is
Speaker:hands-on learning. And this is basically
Speaker:something that improves all of those three
Speaker:elements. The emotional receptivity, the interest
Speaker:that the children have and the choice. When we bring
Speaker:hands-on learning to all of those elements, learning
Speaker:improves dramatically. they
Speaker:have shown that the hands are literally a pipeline
Speaker:to the brain. And if you have hands-on
Speaker:learning versus a sterile worksheet where
Speaker:children are writing down answers, the learning
Speaker:difference and the retention is dramatic. Neuroscience
Speaker:is clear about this subject. When
Speaker:you engage a hands-on learning experience to any area
Speaker:of learning, the learning improves exponentially. So
Speaker:what we have shown in a diagram represents
Speaker:how much learning the senses take up in the brain. Once
Speaker:again, our eyes, what we see
Speaker:and what we hear, Really, we retain such a
Speaker:small amount. The learning pyramid reflects some of
Speaker:the research. It shows we might retain five to 10% of
Speaker:what we see and what we hear. And the classroom discussions
Speaker:take it up to 50%. However, our hands-on learning
Speaker:takes some of that learning retention up to 75%. So
Speaker:not only as a teacher or a parent would you be
Speaker:improving your learning sevenfold by
Speaker:increasing some hands-on learning, but you're
Speaker:making it more enjoyable for yourself and for the
Speaker:students. When we add one other special area
Speaker:to this It's the top of the
Speaker:pyramid and it's not what a lot of people think. Peer teaching
Speaker:tops the learning pyramid out of any method
Speaker:that we can teach, whether it's audio, visual, classroom
Speaker:discussions, even hands-on learning. Peer teaching
Speaker:tops the learning pyramid at 90% retention. Why
Speaker:is this? We're social animals, we're social beings,
Speaker:so when we're able to teach something to somebody else, not only
Speaker:are we enjoying that component of social, of
Speaker:being able to be social, also we're having to think
Speaker:about everything we've learned and then share it. So
Speaker:engaging peer teaching in classrooms is a
Speaker:really effective method of education that lots
Speaker:of schools are using because it's wonderful to show children that
Speaker:maybe somebody excels in spelling but somebody else
Speaker:is excelling in maths, maybe someone's
Speaker:brilliant at the arts and in each subject you
Speaker:can allow some of those children that might shine and
Speaker:do a little bit better in those subjects to help some of the other children and show that
Speaker:we can all help each other because we all have different strengths and
Speaker:this comes back to also showing our children that
Speaker:they all have different strengths and talents in all different areas of
Speaker:education. Thank you again, I hope you really enjoyed that episode
Speaker:and I hope to see you again for our next episode of
Speaker:Neuroeducation. To help our podcast, what you
Speaker:can do is give us a big review on Apple Podcasts, also
Speaker:on Spotify and subscribe to our YouTube channel. All
Speaker:the links will be down below. Thank you so much for joining us
