Paul Wallis, Acting Assistant Headteacher, Holybrook Primary School
Evidence-based practice is huge – monumental – for education, as we all know. However, what is the actual impact on learners’ brains? This was the question that drove me to engage with the
BrainCanDo initiative: bringing neuroscience and teaching together (at last?). I am currently participating in a Neuroscience for Teachers course being run by BrainCanDo, which brings together over 30 delegates from a diverse mix of 23 schools (spanning a range of phases, sectors and contexts). As we have progressed past the half-way stage of the programme, I find myself constantly pleasantly surprised at just what our brains are capable of.
The course started us off with work on the functions of different parts of the brain. This knowledge and understanding has underpinned all of the work we have consequently done.
With these foundations set, we are approaching different areas of learning and doing something we do not do enough of in schools: exploring! So far, we have worked on motivation/engagement, learning and technology as well as memory. The course has a real ‘start-up’ energy; we learn about the neuroscience behind some of the strategies we already use – such as retrieval practice – and the ones we really should be doing more of. Throughout the course so far, we have been given access to a wide range of strategies and tools we can use to elicit desired responses in our pupils’ brains. We have then had the freedom to go out and test what works, reporting back in between workshops. There is a real focus on bringing our expertise as teachers and leaders, marrying this with the neuroscience and having creative collaboration with colleagues.
Here are some key ideas I’ve found useful so far.
Reference values: the theory…
In our brains, too much focus on external motivators (the ought) creates a reaction that can be summarised as a being satisfied at the lack of a negative outcome. It is that feeling of, “I’m just glad I didn’t mess it up…” Instead of this, we want learners to work towards their own developed set of values and standards.
In one episode of the sitcom The Office: An American Workplace, the character Jim Halpert is tasked by his boss with creating a ‘rundown’ of his clients. Jim desperately seeks some guidance on what a rundown is, what it looks like and how to do one. He spends the day focused on second-guessing what it should look like in order to please his boss. In later seasons of the show, he starts his own business and gains the professional success he did not have in the prior role. Jim no longer has to seek the approval of the authority figure, he knows what he wants and has developed his own high standards for working. His focus is on the ‘self’ rather than the ‘ought’.
This example shows “reference values” at work: the conflict we all have between the ought and self – what we believe we should do, versus what we want to do. We see this all the time in the classroom: “Is this okay?” or “Have I finished now?”
Reference values in the classroom…
The aim of this strategy is to re-tune pupils’ focus from what they think we want them to do to what they themselves feel they want to achieve in the lesson. My school uses success steps to help structure learning, but I explored what would happen if I took these away strategically and asked my pupils what they felt success would look like in the lesson. I still gave them the learning intention focus but wanted to see what would happen if I handed them the compass and map for what success would look like.
Initially pupils responded with general comments such as: “Work hard” but once they knew I was not playing a cruel trick on them and that I didn’t have the “real” success steps hidden behind a curtain, the pupils began thinking for themselves and considering what they wanted to achieve. A great example I observed was in a lesson about algebra. One pupil explained that they knew algebra involved different operations so one area they wanted to focus on was recalling their written methods of calculation. If I did have a secret success step list somewhere, that would have been on it!
What next? Gamification and beyond…
Part of what many of our pupils find rewarding about playing video games are the rewards they gain from them. This could be an achievement unlocked on their Xbox or getting to the end of the level on Super Mario. Dopamine release is part of our brain’s reward system and is something video games are great at doing.
With the recent focus on remote learning and the rapid intertwining of education and technology, more and more work is being put into exploring the benefits of utilising these strategies. More and more schools are using online quiz tools such as Learning by Questions, Google or Microsoft Forms to present activities electronically, giving pupils instant feedback – just as a video game would. I also looked into the culture of games and how reward is presented. This involved creating short trailers to motivate pupils for online lessons, presenting challenges as ‘levels’. It will be interesting going forwards to consider how we can encourage a balance of dopamine-promoting rewards through these strategies.
The course concludes in June, with remaining sessions focusing on the neuroscience of decision making, mental health and wellbeing, and working with others/emotional responses. Watch this space for more updates from course participants.
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