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Welcome to Neuroeducation, where we're exploring the

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neuroscience of how to switch on the brain to supercharge learning.

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I'll be sharing with you innovative teaching techniques, effective parenting

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strategies, and educational advocacy. I'm your host, Angie

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Dee. Together, let's revolutionize children's learning.

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Hi everybody and welcome back to Neuroeducation. Thank

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you for being here. We are going to touch on something

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super exciting today. How to switch on

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the brain to supercharge learning. Unfortunately,

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what's happened in schools is that we have

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continued a very outdated method of education.

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If we look back to where schools were created, we

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know that post-war we needed to get a lot of

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children into schools and basically it

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was the easiest thing to get them into a box, behind

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a table, on a chair, writing out

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something on a sheet, textbook learning. And today we've

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added a thousand tests to that. So often,

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not only are they teaching to the test, we're

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still teaching in a very outdated method of education. What

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does neuroscience say about how we teach right

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now in this day and age? A lot of people say to me, yes, but

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we're innovating, Ang. Look what we've got. We've got laptops

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in all of the classrooms. Well, while laptops obviously

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is an innovation in some form, when you're getting

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them to type, and in a

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form where they're having to respond to a question that's

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still requiring very lower order kind

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of lower order thinking, it's still that

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very same outdated method of education just

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on a laptop. So what can we do to

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really switch on the brain to supercharge learning? There's

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quite a few things that we have learned through neuroscience. I

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mean, we can literally put little monitors on the brain. We

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have incredible research that show what kind of

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hormones charge the brain so that

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it is ready for learning and more receptive and

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remembers more of what it's learned. And

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we know that when children are interested and children are engaged,

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the hormones of serotonin and dopamine are

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flooding the brain at different times. Are they connected?

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Are they interested? If they're connected to their teacher and to

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their classmates and they're engaged in some kind of

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classroom discussion and they're engaged in the learning, the

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quality of learning is going to be so much higher. So

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I'm going to give you three principles that neuroscience has

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shown very clearly switch on the brain and

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can supercharge learning. The first principle is

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emotional receptivity. Now we know that

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if our brain is in fight, flight, freeze

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or faint, some people call it fawn, then

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their learning is basically at

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the lowest possible power because if the

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brain feels like they are in danger in

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any way shape or form and that can be from obviously an obvious

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threat like somebody's actually trying

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to hurt them or in this day and age a lot of our threats are

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psychological maybe bullying or maybe they're

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not feeling like they're being supported by you know their teacher

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or their peers what can happen if they're

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in fight, flight or freeze, their actual learning power,

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which is in our prefrontal cortex at the front of our brain, it

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can't be activated. It's like all powers are at

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survival. So what can we do to make sure Well,

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first of all, the brain can be activated for higher order thinking and

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be in the prefrontal cortex is making sure children

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feel safe and connected. So number one,

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and they've shown it in many studies, the connection to the

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teacher is of a higher influence than

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many other things in the classroom. If

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you are spending time connecting to the students before they

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come into the classroom, that is fantastic. A lot

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of teachers I see these days, they have five different ways to

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connect before they even enter the classroom. A high five, an elbow pump,

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maybe a dance, something fun, but it's

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just a simple way to connect to the students before they come

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into the classroom. Also, what

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kind of an environment is the classroom, I

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guess, feeling in terms of are they feeling supportive by their

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classmates? Is it a comfortable environment or

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is it an environment with lots of competition or bullying? So

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what can we do to create that kind of environment where they're feeling

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comfortable? Obviously having things

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like group discussions, group projects, working

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in pairs, talking about different things, this helps children

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feel a sense of connection. So not only does it make them feel safer,

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that allows the thinking and all of the powers to go up

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to the prefrontal cortex, but also educational

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research has shown us that children can remember

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about 5% of what they hear, but 50% of

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what they've learned through classroom discussions and group discussions. So

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not only is it an effective way to help switch on the brain

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for prefrontal cortex for the higher order thinking, it's

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also a fantastic way for them to actually be

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learning the content. The second component of

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how to switch on the brain to supercharged learning is engaging

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children's interest. Sometimes we might say something

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like, all right today we're learning about photosynthesis. If

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you are just stating what you're learning and

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the children often will react with

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receptivity that dwindles because you're just telling this is

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what we're doing today, here's our content, da da da da da. It's

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very different if we even try to elicit a little bit of

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interest from the children. You could start with a question, an open-ended

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question. So why is the grass green? Why are the

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leaves on the trees green? And why do the leaves on

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the tree change colour as we go through the seasons? just

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starting with a slightly different question can start to

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elicit interest. Also, if we're following

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children's interests or allowing children more choice

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in their interests, maybe if we're studying different countries, what

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kind of aspects of understanding another country or

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culture can benefit them in their classroom? And

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what kind of choice can you give them to see what aspect are

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they interested in? What country are they interested in

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learning? these little little inputs where

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we give children more and more power to follow their interests increases

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the level of serotonin. Now when we increase the level

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of serotonin our happy hormone in our brain What

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happens to the learning? The learning is supercharged. I

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like the analogy of a little paper boat going

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down a stream because we have our neurons that

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are basically firing together to wire together.

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But the more happy hormones we have, the more happy and interested the

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children are in the learning. If you imagine the paper boat, the

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message of whatever the learning content is going

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down a stream. If the children aren't engaged and they're not interested, that

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paper boat is probably going down a little rocky, bumpy stream

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that has barely any water. As soon as we increase the

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engagement and we increase the interest, that

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paper boat is going to go down a stream that has water rushing

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down it. And that is the same for us as adults. If

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you can think of something that you've learned as an adult, something that you've been

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interested in, maybe listening to a podcast, maybe reading a

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book, doing your own research, how much of you have

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retained of that information? I would say a

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lot more information. And neuroscience backs that when

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we're interested, we're engaged and where we have some choice

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in that learning, we're going to remember it for a long time. And

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that's about lifelong learning. The third element I

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wanted to share with you today is about choice.

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Now, when we add choice There have been

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some studies to show that it improves learning up to

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30%. There are lots of elements that we can add choice, just like I mentioned before.

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What country did they want to study? Or maybe how did they want to present

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the information? If you are having to

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present the information on, let's say, a country. Can

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you share something in a poem? Can you share

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it as a diorama? Can you share it in a song? Are

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there points that they need to cover in whatever form

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it is? Can they be given more creative freedom in how

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to share that information and that choice of

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that learning? The next element is

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hands-on learning. And this is basically

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something that improves all of those three

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elements. The emotional receptivity, the interest

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that the children have and the choice. When we bring

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hands-on learning to all of those elements, learning

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improves dramatically. they

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have shown that the hands are literally a pipeline

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to the brain. And if you have hands-on

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learning versus a sterile worksheet where

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children are writing down answers, the learning

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difference and the retention is dramatic. Neuroscience

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is clear about this subject. When

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you engage a hands-on learning experience to any area

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of learning, the learning improves exponentially. So

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what we have shown in a diagram represents

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how much learning the senses take up in the brain. Once

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again, our eyes, what we see

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and what we hear, Really, we retain such a

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small amount. The learning pyramid reflects some of

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the research. It shows we might retain five to 10% of

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what we see and what we hear. And the classroom discussions

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take it up to 50%. However, our hands-on learning

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takes some of that learning retention up to 75%. So

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not only as a teacher or a parent would you be

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improving your learning sevenfold by

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increasing some hands-on learning, but you're

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making it more enjoyable for yourself and for the

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students. When we add one other special area

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to this It's the top of the

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pyramid and it's not what a lot of people think. Peer teaching

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tops the learning pyramid out of any method

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that we can teach, whether it's audio, visual, classroom

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discussions, even hands-on learning. Peer teaching

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tops the learning pyramid at 90% retention. Why

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is this? We're social animals, we're social beings,

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so when we're able to teach something to somebody else, not only

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are we enjoying that component of social, of

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being able to be social, also we're having to think

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about everything we've learned and then share it. So

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engaging peer teaching in classrooms is a

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really effective method of education that lots

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of schools are using because it's wonderful to show children that

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maybe somebody excels in spelling but somebody else

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is excelling in maths, maybe someone's

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brilliant at the arts and in each subject you

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can allow some of those children that might shine and

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do a little bit better in those subjects to help some of the other children and show that

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we can all help each other because we all have different strengths and

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this comes back to also showing our children that

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they all have different strengths and talents in all different areas of

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education. Thank you again, I hope you really enjoyed that episode

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and I hope to see you again for our next episode of

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Neuroeducation. To help our podcast, what you

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can do is give us a big review on Apple Podcasts, also

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on Spotify and subscribe to our YouTube channel. All

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the links will be down below. Thank you so much for joining us