Ivy berries look like pin cushions.
The Neuroscience Behind Stress and Learning
Judy Willis MD
The realities of standardized tests and increasingly structured,
if not synchronized,
curriculum continue to build classroom stress levels. Neuroimaging
research reveals
the disturbances in the brain's learning circuits and
neurotransmitters that accompany stressful learning environments. The
neuroscientific research about learning has revealed the negative impact of
stress and anxiety and the qualitative improvement of the brain circuitry
involved in memory
and executive function that accompanies positive motivation and
engagement.
The Proven Effects of Positive Motivation
Thankfully, this information has led to the development of
brain-compatible strategies
to help students through
the bleak terrain created by some of the current trends imposed
by the Common Core State Standards and similar mandates.
With brain-based teaching strategies that reduce classroom anxiety
and increase student connection to their lessons,
educators can help students learn more effectively.
In the past two decades, neuroimaging and brain-mapping research
have provided objective support to the student-centered educational model. This
brain research demonstrates that superior learning takes place when classroom
experiences are relevant to students' lives, interests, and experiences.
Lessons can be stimulating and challenging without being intimidating,
and the increasing curriculum requirements can be achieved without
stress, anxiety, boredom,
and alienation as the pervasive emotions of the school day.
During my 15 years of practicing adult and child neurology with
neuroimaging and brain mapping
as part of my diagnostic tool kit, I worked with children and
adults with brain function disorders, including learning differences. When I
then returned to university to obtain my credential
and Masters of Education degree, these familiar neuroimaging tools
had become available
to education researchers. Their widespread use in schools and
classrooms globally has yet to occur.
This brain research demonstrates that superior learning takes
place when classroom experiences
are motivating and engaging. Positive motivation impacts brain
metabolism, conduction of nerve impulses through the memory areas, and the
release of neurotransmitters that increase executive function and attention.
Relevant lessons help students feel that they are partners in their education,
and they are engaged and motivated.
We live in a stressful world and troubled times, and that is not
supposed to be the way for children to grow up. Schools can be the safe haven
where academic practices and classroom strategies provide children with
emotional comfort and pleasure as well as knowledge.
When teachers use strategies to reduce stress and build a positive
emotional environment,
students gain emotional resilience and learn more efficiently and
at higher levels of cognition.
Neuroimaging and EEG Studies
Studies of electrical activity (EEG or brain waves) and metabolic
activity (from specialized brain scans measuring glucose or oxygen use and
blood flow) show the synchronization of brain activity
as information passes from the sensory input processing areas of
the somatosensory cortex
to the reticular activating and limbic systems. For example,
bursts of brain activity
from the somatosensory cortex are followed milliseconds later by
bursts of electrical activity
in the hippocampus, amygdala, and then the other parts of the
limbic system.
This data from one of the most exciting areas of brain-based
learning research gives us a way to see which techniques and strategies
stimulate or impede communication between the parts of the brain when
information is processed and stored.
In other words, properly applied, we can identify and remove
barriers to student understanding!
The amygdala is
part of limbic system in the temporal lobe. It was first believed to function
as a brain center for responding primarily to anxiety and fear.
Indeed, when the amygdala senses threat, it becomes
over-activated.
In students, these neuroimaging findings in the amygdala are seen
with feelings of helplessness
and anxiety. When the amygdala is in this state of stress-induced
over-activation,
new sensory information cannot pass through it to access the
memory and association circuits.
This is the actual neuroimaging visualization of what has been
called the affective
filter
by Stephen
Krashen and
others. This term describes an emotional state of stress in students
during which they are not responsive to learning and storing new
information. What is now evident on brain scans during times of stress is
objective physical evidence of this affective filter.
With such evidence-based research, the affective filter theories
cannot be disparaged as
"feel-good education" or an "excuse to coddle
students" -- if students are stressed out,
the information cannot get in. This is a matter of science.
This affective state occurs when students feel alienated from
their academic experience
and anxious about their lack of understanding. Consider the
example of the decodable "books"
used in phonics-heavy reading instruction. These are not engaging
and motivating. They are usually not relevant to the students' lives because
their goal is to include words that can be decoded
based on the lesson. Decodability is often at the expense of
authentic meaning to the child.
Reading becomes tedious and, for some children, confusing and
anxiety-provoking.
In this state, there is reduced passage of information through the
neural pathways
from the amygdala to higher cognitive centers of the brain,
including the prefrontal cortex,
where information is processed, associated, and stored for later
retrieval and executive functioning.
Additional neuroimaging studies of the amygdala, hippocampus, and
the rest of the limbic system, along with measurement of dopamine and other
brain chemical transmitters during
the learning process, reveal that students' comfort level has
critical impact on
information transmission and storage in the brain. The factors
that have been found to affect
this comfort level such as self-confidence, trust and positive
feelings for teachers,
and supportive classroom and school communities are directly
related to the state of mind compatible with the most successful learning,
remembering, and higher-order thinking.
The Power of Joyful Learning
The highest-level executive thinking, making connections, and
"aha" moments of insight
and creative innovation are more likely to occur in an atmosphere
of what Alfie Kohn calls
exuberant discovery, where students of all ages retain that
kindergarten enthusiasm
of embracing each day with the joy of learning. With current
research and data in the field
of neuroscience, we see growing opportunities to coordinate the
design of curriculum, instruction, and assessment in ways that will reflect
these incredible discoveries.
Joy and enthusiasm are absolutely essential for learning to happen
-- literally, scientifically,
as a matter of fact and research.
Shouldn't it be our challenge and opportunity to design learning
that embraces these ingredients?
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/neuroscience-behind-stress-and-learning-judy-willis
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