How Children Learn

1. How Children Learn Carey Dimmitt, Ph.D. Center for School Counseling Outcome Research University of Massachusetts, Amherst

2. Session Content • Brief overview of brain structures and function • Research about • Memory • Attention • Learning environments • Assessment of learning • Emotions, stress, and trauma

3. Session Content • How can we use this information to improve school counseling practice? • Classroom guidance • Teacher consultation • Systemic interventions • What does this mean for how we support student learning?

4. Diagnostic Assessment • What do you know already? • Prevents redundancy, allows for focused learning • Allows information to be targeted at what is not known, builds on existing knowledge

5. Brain Structure

6. Brain Structure • Extend both arms palms open and facing down and lock your thumbs • Curl your fingers to make 2 fists • Turn your fists inward until knuckles touch • Pull connected fists to your chest to look down on your knuckles • This is the approximate size of your brain! Sousa, D. (2006). How the Brain Learns, Corwin Press

7. Brain Structure • Your thumbs are in front and crossed to remind us that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa • The corpus collosum connects the two halves (250 million nerve fibers)

8. Brain Structure • The knuckles and outside part of the hands represent the CEREBRUM • Cerebrum is the thinking part of the brain, 80% of brain weight • Frontal lobes (pinkies and ring fingers): planning and thinking, problem solving, regulating complex social emotions such as love and empathy, moral thinking, working memory. Continue to mature into adulthood.

9. Brain Structure: Cerebrum • Motor cortex and Somatosensory cortex (middle finger): body movement, learning of motor skills, and touch signals. • Parietal lobes (pointer finger): spatial orientation • Occipital lobe (thumbs): visual processing • Temporal lobes (back of hand) deal with sound, object recognition, long-term memory, speech (left side)

10. Brain Structure • Tips of your fingers are the LIMBIC system • Buried deep in brain, symmetrical • Hypothalamus controls homeostasis of the body (hormones, appetite, thirst, sleep, etc.) • Amygdala regulates emotions, especially fear, encodes emotional content of memories • Thalamus monitors incoming sensory information • Hippocampus moves information from working memory to long-term storage (mostly during sleep)

11. Brain Structure • Base of thumbs are the CEREBELLUM • Coordinates movement • Automated movement memories (how to ride a bike) • Coordinates thoughts, emotions, senses and memory • 11% of brain weight • More neurons than the rest of the brain

12. Brain Structure • Wrists are the BRAINSTEM • Oldest part of brain = “reptile brain” • Monitors basic body functions (digestion, respiration, heartbeat, etc.) • 11 of the 12 body nerves that go to the brain end in the brainstem (olfactory goes to limbic) • Contains the reticular activating system (RAS), which screens sensory information and maintains brain alertness

13. Brain Structure

14. Neurons

15. Brain Structure • There are approximately 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) in an adult brain. • Each neuron can have up to 10,000 dendrite branches (where it receives and transmits electrical impulses from other neurons). • Thus, it is possible to have up to 1,000,000,000,000,000 synaptic connections in one brain. • We now know that brain neurons can regenerate under certain circumstances.

16. Neurons

17. Brain Structure: Behavioral Links • Brain is twice as active during first 10 years of life as it is during adulthood • Brain cells need oxygen and glucose for fuel • Vigorous exercise builds capillaries that support neuron growth • The brain is active during sleep; sleep is crucial to learning • Meditation can improve attention and memory • Certain foods are essential for neuron growth

18. Brain Structure: Implications for Practice #1 • To improve test-taking, prior to test, have students: • Do 2 minutes of exercise to increase oxygen in the blood and blood flow to the brain • Eat 2 oz. of fruit (not juice) for glucose • Can increase long term memory recall by 35% and working memory recall by 20% • Drink 6-8 oz. of water to facilitate neuron activity

19. Information Processing Model

20. Information Processing Model • Sensory Information • Sensory Register • Short-Term Memory, Limited Storage • Immediate memory • Working memory • Long-Term Storage • Our cognitive belief system shapes what we pay attention to, what we retain, what we remember • World concept • Self-concept

21. 1. Sensory Information • The brain constantly takes in sensory information about the environment from the 5 senses • For learning our sight, hearing and touch are most important senses • What sensory information are you taking in right now? What information are you automatically filtering?

22. Sensory Information and Attention • Attention is the ability to focus on sensory information that’s important and to not focus on what’s not important • The brain (cerebellum) automatically tunes out much of what’s not important • When this doesn’t happen= ADHD • If the brain isn’t filtering effectively, it can’t tell what is most relevant, and thus there is distraction from unimportant sensory information.

23. Sensory Information and Attention: Implications for Practice #2 • Use novelty, humor, emotion, multi-sensory content, and movement to generate attention • Reminders work: • “It’s time to pay attention to what we are doing” • Identify what’s most important for students to pay attention to: • “This is important” • “This will help you know what to do”

24. 2. Sensory Register • The RAS (in brainstem) and thalamus filter incoming sensory information to determine how important it is: • Does it affect survival? • Emotional content? • Previous experience impacts retention • Unimportant sensory information is let go • 8+ seconds to move to immediate memory or forgotten (most gets forgotten!)

25. Sensory Register:Implications for Practice #3 • Emotion is a powerful force in learning because new information goes through the emotional centers of the brain first (limbic system) • Prior experience and how someone feels about a piece of information determines the amount of attention that will be given to it • Students barely begin to register information if they are overly stressed, anxious, or fearful • Environments where students feel physically and emotionally safe promote learning

26. Sensory Register:Implications for Practice #3 (con.) • Emotions can both enhance and hinder learning, since hormones can signal other parts of the brain to strengthen memory or can suspend complex cerebral processes such as long-term memory • Learning how to manage emotions (controlling impulses, expressing emotions, reducing stress, delaying gratification) is a crucial part of developing into a successful learner

27. Memory Activity • If you have a pen or pencil, please take it out • Please do what it asks on your paper • Turn the paper over • Write down the words you remember • How many did the vowel count group remember? • Memory group? • Emotional ranking? • Why the differences?

28. 3. Short-Term Memory • Immediate Memory is first step in short-term memory processing • Primarily “unconscious,” not conscious decision • Data is held for 30+ seconds • Sensory data move from thalamus to sensory processing areas of the cortex (sense specific) • If previous experience determines that information is not important, it’s forgotten • Fan turning on – notice when it starts, then stop noticing • Those counting vowels didn’t need information past immediate memory, so they forgot it

29. 3. Short-Term Memory: Immediate Memory • Hierarchy of response to sensory input: • Data affecting survival • Data generating emotions • Data for new learning • Students must feel safe and emotionally secure before they can focus on learning

30. 3. Short-Term Memory:Working Memory • Information next moves from immediate memory to working memory • Conscious processing • Intend to remember, decide to do so • Content of working memory can come from recent sensory memory and/or be retrieved from long-term memory • Includes auditory and visual rehearsal • Those trying to remember words moved content into working memory, remember more

31. Capacity of Working Memory • Get pencil and paper • Look at number for 7 seconds, then write down • 6934015 • How many remembered? • Look at number for 7 seconds, then write down • 9560174283 • How many remembered? Chunked? What strategies did you use?

32. 3. Short-Term Memory:Working Memory • Working memory capacity changes with age (average of 6-8 chunks for adults) • Time limits for working memory depend on motivation, age, how content is being used, and emotional content • Intense processing can occur for 5-10 minutes for children and 10-20 minutes for adolescents and adults

33. Working Memory:Implications for Practice #4 • Breaking information down into chunks of fewer than 6 pieces of information will improve learning • Teach 5 steps to problem-solving, not 9 • First 3 steps in college application process, not whole process at once • Do a concrete application of learning activity before introducing new information

34. Working Memory:Implications for Practice #4 (con) • In an elementary classroom, changing the learning activities every 5-10 minutes, or creating learning stations so that children can change what they are doing on a regular basis, will maintain involvement in learning • Changing the learning activities (lecture, role play, discussion groups, writing, and so on) in a high school class every 15-20 minutes will maintain student interest and promote learning

35. Working Memory: Reading • Information taken in while reading fades as text changes to new subject • Information is displaced if amount added exceeds limit of working memory • To learn something that was read requires concentration and active effort • Concentration is the rehearsal and practice that allows information to become neural networks

36. Reading: Implications for Practice #5 • Consultation tip: • Short reading times, interspersed with questions about text, group conversations about meaning of text, or individualized note taking on text, will improve reading retention

37. 4. Long-Term Storage • Content moves from working memory to long-term storage when new information: • Makes sense based on prior experience • Does this fit, given what I know about how the world works? • Has meaning based on prior experience • Is this relevant to my life? • Of the two, meaning is more significant • TV makes sense, but often has no meaning- not remembered • Those ranking words for meaning remembered more

38. Long-term Storage

39. Long-term Storage • The hippocampus sends information from working memory to long-term storage areas • Occurs during sleep • More than one storage area • Testing for knowledge after 24 hours can determine if information made it into long-term storage

40. Long-term Storage:Implications for Practice #6 • Much of classroom learning content makes sense but lacks meaning • More of a challenge to move this content to long-term storage! • Teachers need to help students find the personalized meaning of the content as much as to understand it, for it to be remembered • Connect new content to students’ prior knowledge and experience-- creates meaning • Testing for knowledge after 24 hours is more accurate

41. Implications for Practice #6 • Counselors can help teachers think about what is meaningful for their students • Assessment of learning immediately after teaching it measures working memory only • Ongoing informal (not graded) learning assessments help students identify what is important, create opportunities for rehearsal, and generate information about what is being retained

42. 5. Cognitive Belief System (CBS) • All of the information in our long-term memory combined forms our cognitive belief system, which determines how we understand the world and ourselves • Our CBS determines what we pay attention to, what we remember, what we learn • Every person’s CBS is unique Sousa (2006) How the brain learns. Corwin Press

43. Cognitive Belief Systems: Implications for Practice #7 • Students who have a CBS of “I can’t learn” or “I’m not good at this” will not be receptive to new information (the sensory register is closed!) • The most effective intervention for these kinds of beliefs (which may not be conscious), is to connect with what the student finds meaningful, so the sensory register will open • Student must believe (CBS) that the learning experience will lead to experience of success rather than failure in order to be open to learning

44. Memory Rehearsal • Brain structure review

45. Learning • Learning = repeating a thought or action strengthens specific connections between nerve cells • Moves content from working memory into long-term storage • Takes long chains of neural pathways and lots of rehearsal and repetition • There are monitoring and controlling circuits of nerve cells which determine what’s important to learn

46. Learning is Connection • Connections between dendrites and axons • Connections between prior knowledge and understandings and new information • Connections between existing neural pathways and new pathways • New learning= new pathways=more dendrites

47. Learning and Meaning Activity • Think of something that you’ve done that you enjoy and find relatively meaningful. • When I do this I feel…. • While I am doing this I believe that… • My behavior/actions can be described as…. Caine, Caine, McClintic, & Klimek (2005)

48. Learning and Meaning Activity • Now think of something that you’ve done that has little meaning, something that you do because you “should.” • When I do this I feel…. • While I am doing this I believe that… • My behaviors/actions can be described as… Caine, Caine, McClintic, & Klimek (2005)

49. What were the differences? • Under what conditions did you feel most competent? Motivated? • How did your feelings influence your performance or behavior? • What could happen with learning if more of the curriculum could be connected to students’ prior experience and to what they value and want to know?

50. Classroom Environments that Promote Learning • Environments free from threats or possibility for failure promote learning • Build community in the classroom by developing positive group rules and consequences for problematic behavior • Provide students with ongoing informal learning assessments so they can see what they are and are not understanding • Build toward competence rather than focusing on errors or deficits