Educational neuroscience

 

When I first went to school as a future teacher, not as a student, I was a little bit upset with one thought. How would I encourage my students to study my subject? It is said that passion is crucial but I knew it wouldn't be enough. I felt need to study more about psychology, pedagogy and, especially, the theory of teaching. A good teacher knows that his work consists not only in giving lessons but self-improvement as well.

I was lucky because I met a wonderful woman who worked as pedagogue and employment counselor. At school everybody has plenty of duties, nonetheless, she was the person who taught me stuff I will never forget. Today, I am going to write about a special handbook every teacher should know.

“NEURODYDAKTYKA – Nauczanie i uczenie się przyjazne mózgowi” written by Marzena Żylińska, a  methodology specialist, AMU doctor of didactics of foreign languages is in my opinion an obligatory book for those who want to teach languages, not only at school. Educational neuroscience explains how learning process can be a pleasant experience for students as well as for teachers. Thanks to this relatively new branch of science we found out how much depends on tutors and their attitude. Besides, we discover how learning processes go.

Firstly, teachers should take into account  the fact that before they decide how to give a lesson, they must ask themselves a question – do I know how to show my students why such a topic is worth studying? There are some rules that can help us to teach languages effectively and, what’s more, inspire curiosity:

1.       When studying a topic makes sense, we get involved more willingly

2.       The most efficient study is when we are allowed to discover the knowledge by ourselves, actively, not only by listening to a teacher

3.       The information that wakes emotions in us is remembered more easily, so it is recommended to refer to pupil’s emotions during the class

4.       We can treat our students like a bottomless sack – they can’t memorize all at once, the repetition and focusing on the main ideas is the best option in order to make them believe that firstly we brush up on the basics and then we go into details

5.       The teacher’s most important  mission is to create a friendly atmosphere during a class. This way we can convince a pupil to break the barrier and overcome shyness.

6.       A high level of  the stress hormone, cortisol, can impair cognitive functions. Stress affects negatively the hippocampus, which causes that it cannot mitigate stress’ negative effects. That’s why we have to keep in mind our students' capacities and how they deal with difficult emotions.

7.       Effective learning requires time

8.       The essence of teaching is to create an environment where students learn how to think and process ideas deeply. Here are three relevant factors (if we are talking about teaching efficiency)

a.      Motivation

b.      Time dedicated to a particular topic

c.       Depth of processing the information

At the end I would like to share some extraordinary ideas.

“In new methodology concepts the process is what comes to the foreground, not the effect.” (Żylińska 2013: 45)

According to some Finnish studies, lessons where most of the time the teacher is the active part, deprive students of the opportunity to learn by their own experience.

“A vast majority of students, in spite of spending thousands of hours at school, doesn’t really learn. (...) If the learning process is supposed to be efficient, is shouldn’t be perceived as another boring responsibility, and the pupils mustn't consider the implemented content as useless” (Żylińska 2013: 291)