Teachers As Brain-Changers: Neuroscience and Learning

I'm an armchair neuroscientist, or at least I love learning about the brain, how it functions, and what recent findings mean for my practice as a teacher.

Bridging research findings to the realities of the classroom, however, is far easier said than done. In addition to navigating the daily challenges of our work, we must distinguish trendy "research-based" claims about the brain from those grounded in legitimate neuroscientific findings. And then we have to figure out how to apply what we've learned. Sifting through these claims to understand their origins is precisely the goal of my current research.

Remember when conventional science wisdom claimed that the average person could learn and retain about seven chunks of information at a time? (Hence, our seven-digit phone number protocol.) Well, recent neuroscientific findings have determined that our cognitive capacity is actually just three to four items.

This can be good: It forces us as teachers to narrow and hone our objectives, and to determine what is most important as we make decisions throughout the day. But it can also be overwhelming—like, how can we possibly help students master an extensive body of content when they can only learn it in such small chunks?

In keeping with this particular finding, here are three critical takeaways that I keep coming across as I explore the literature on neuroscience and teaching.

#1. Teachers are, in essence, brain changers.

We are the only professionals whose job it is to physically alter a child's brain daily. I like how Judy Willis, accomplished neuroscientist-turned-teacher, refers to a teacher's work as a form of "bloodless brain surgery."

Here's how it happens at a basic level:

• If a child takes in information through her sensory pathways and her brain makes the decision to keep that knowledge, the integrative process takes over and makes sense out of that learning as she sleeps.

• This consolidation occurs when neurons transmit messages to one another. The messages must cross microscopic chasms between the neurons—laboriously at first, and then more quickly with each subsequent moment of access.

• Eventually the learning is connected to several points within a denser and denser web of neurons, easing the information retrieval process for the conscious learner.

As teachers, we must understand that a neural pathway is like a new path in the woods. The more ...

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Wendi Pillars is a National Board-certified Teacher in English-language learning, and a member of the Teacher Leaders Network. She has 15 years of teaching experience, both overseas and stateside. She has previously written about neurotoxins and their impact on the learning brain.