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Learning as Taught by the Brain |
I guess we could entitle this article "If We Only Knew Then, What We Know Now". You see we've learned a lot about learning in the past 10 years, but unfortunately, it is difficult to change the educational systems we've created over the past 200 years. Now it is perhaps a matter of taking what we know about how we learn, and somehow melding it into our current learning methodologies. This is done quite well in a book by John Medina entitled Brain Rules. I want to review some of John Medina's key points within this article.
First of all is this idea of exercise. Yes I know, it is something I've harped on before, but Medina has a lot to add to this topic. He tells us that we have developed our terrific brains because we, as people, moved. A lot. When the rain forest and subsequently, our food supplies began to dry up, we needed to move to more plentiful environs. So we walked, virtually around the globe to sustain ourselves. Beginning with Homo erectus, 2 million years ago, all the way up to our direct ancestors, Homo sapiens, around 100,000 years ago. Scientists estimate our little nomadic bodies pushed on about 12 miles each day. So for most of our existence, we were in pretty good shape with our brains thriving on a grand oxygen supply brought to us through exercise.
Medina explains, when we consume food, glucose and other metabolic substances are absorbed into our blood stream through the small intestine. Glucose, a sugar of course, is one of our body's most treasured sources of energy. When it reaches the various cells in our body, they go bonkers, tearing away and obliterating the glucose molecule just to absorb its energy. Not a pretty sight, resulting in a lot of rampaging renegade electrons known to us as free radicals. Yep, now you're getting it, the same free radicals that you've heard are so bad for you, because they age you.
Well these electrons, now spinning out of control, literally smash into other molecules within the cell, transforming these into a vile toxic waste and obviously wreaking havoc on the cell itself. In fact, eventually we would expire from this cellular electron overdose, but for one thing, and that thing is Oxygen. You see just behind this energy-rich glucose comes an army of clean up guys with their little oxygen sponges. Oxygen combines with these free radical electrons transforming them into carbon dioxide, which of course, via our blood stream, is delivered to the lungs and expelled into the atmosphere. Exercise increases blood flood, which transports oxygen into our tissues, especially our brain tissue. Our brains are real energy junkies, requiring about 20% of the body's overall energy usage. This of course means our brains are also in desperate need of oxygen. Think about it, we risk seriously damaging our brain if we go without oxygen for more than just 5 minutes. So how do we ensure we're getting enough oxygen? You nailed it, EXERCISE.
So if exercise is as Medina says, "cognitive candy", why are we eliminating it in our schools? No physical education, no recess, instead students sit quietly in seats and attempt to learn while falling asleep. Would we learn better if we could in some way incorporate a means of moving as we learned? Based on the science, we would!
Okay, enough about exercising, it's making me tired already. According to Medina, "Memory may not be fixed at the moment of learning, but repetition, doled out in specifically timed intervals, is the fixative." We know that we can retain about 7 to 9 pieces of information in our short term memory (working memories) for about 30 seconds. Great for remembering phone numbers as we run to dial that number. But if we wish to retain these fleeting bits for any longer than 30 seconds, we need to consistently re-expose ourselves to the information.
Medina relates a story of when he was a young boy, and saw a plane fall from the sky. Tragically 8 men were killed in the crash. The young man, fascinated, as most would be, ran to tell his friends. Medina was enthralled in his own conversation, and literally could not stop talking, thinking, and replaying the event over and again to anyone who would listen. The phenomenon he tells us is called "elaborative rehearsal", and is absolutely best for long term retention. It makes sense if you think about it. An emotionally-charged event provides the energy to revisit an occurrence from all sides with many different individuals. Now think of learning in a typical classroom, lecture hall or company meeting. The information is poured over the unsuspecting listener; relentlessly flowing, never repeated, and always with the same dismal result – minimal retention.
There are indeed two elements at play here, spaced repetition of the thing to be remembered, and the elaborate and engaging exploration of the information.
Regarding repetition, scientist Robert Wagner designed an experiment in which students were asked to memorize lists of words. One group crams for the upcoming test, while the other studies the information over moderately spaced intervals. Naturally, the second group far outpaces the former. If you want to commit information to your long term memory, it is best to deliver it with spaced repetition.
Secondly there is this idea of exploring the learning in an elaborate engaging way. This is more difficult than it sounds, because few folks are going to get as excited as John was when he, as a young boy, witnessed the tragic plane crash. But his level of excitement in a sense, riveted his attention, and resulted in his discussing, debating, questioning, comparing, visualizing, hearing, and touching every aspect of the incident; one which he will certainly never forget. Within our classrooms the task is, let's face, efficient dispersal of the data. But now that we have real insights into how we learn, shouldn't this be changing? We now understand how neurons are physically changed when learning occurs through a process called "Long Term Potentiation or LTP". When learning, if activity is recorded (fMRI) within a specific area of the brain (the left inferior pre-frontal cortex), we can reliably predict that the individual will be able to successfully recall that learning. We know that the brain's hippocampus acts to somehow capture and cortically file similar learning in the same spot in an individual's brain, and actually maintains connected to that learning for over a decade. So indeed, now that we do know now, what we didn't know then about learning, surely we must be ready to apply this knowledge in schools, colleges and businesses across the land. Well, I think there is a saying that goes, "Big ships are slow to turn". And this I think is understandable. I also think it is exciting for scientists, business managers and educators and certainly a goal worth pursuing. |
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