Practical Brain Science Insights

This week I would like to offer research that is a bit tangent to our regular SoTL articles, as it supports much of our prior research. In Oakley and Rogowsky’s (2021) book, Uncommon Sense Teaching: Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn, the author’s share practical insights in brain science. Several of these topics we have discussed in prior SoTL blog posts.

1. Recognize Some Students Struggle with Working Memory (WM)

2. Help Students Transfer Lessons to Long Term Memory - from a neuroscientific perspective, information is coming in and going to WM, which can only handle two to five pieces of information. So offering active learning strategies, such as Think-Pair-Shares allows students to have time to reflect, review notes and ask questions.

3. Recognize Students Learn at Different Speeds

4. Lecture Less - being conscious of stopping every so often, and giving students time to practice, allows the hippocampus to offload [information] and transfer it into long-term memory. Technology can help keep students active and engaged during these short breaks in direct instruction. Easy to use tools such as student response systems can provide formative assessment data and support information processing. We shared several of these in earlier SoTL posts (#47 Instructional Design and Information Processing; #122 Learning Theories; #149 Powerpoint Use; #187 Teaching and Processing; and #237 Online Learning Modules.

5. Be Careful How Some Educational Advice is Implemented - theories such as each child having a unique learning style persist despite being debunked repeatedly. Ideally, we should check the research on teaching prior to implementing and remember that active learning is that play between WM, the hippocampus, and long-term memory.

References

Oakley, B. & Rogowsky, B. (2021). Uncommon Sense Teaching: Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn. Tarcher Perigee Publisher. ISBN-10: 0593329732