Instructional Blocks and the Super Brain!
Dr. Christina GitsakiInstructional Blocks and the Super Brain!
Dr. Christina Gitsaki, Higher Colleges of Technology
Are you teaching in manageable instructional blocks? Do you ever wonder what goes on in your students’ brain while you are teaching them?
Dr. Eric Mazur, a celebrated physicist and educator at Harvard University, wanted to find out how much students in his class engaged with his teaching. In the tradition of a Harvard researcher, He strapped electrodes on the heads of a group of 15 students and monitored their brain activity over a week. This is the profile of one of the students which proved to be very typical of the group (see Figure 1). The red circles show the student’s brain activity during Dr. Manzur’s lectures! Almost no brain activity at all! Even when the student was asleep his brain was more engaged!!
Figure 1. Brain activity over 1 week.
The study recommends that educators teach in “instructional blocks.” To keep students’ brains active during your lesson try using pattern recognition to break up the teaching of complex concepts and help refocus students. Brain research suggests that when students are engaged in a pattern recognition task, the brain produces dopamine and endorphin (see Figure 2). The interaction of these two hormones transforms your students’ brains into “super brains” for the next 5-7 minutes and students can absorb more information during this time.
Figure 2. Brain hormones during pattern recognition activities.
Here are a couple of pattern recognition tasks you can use with your students:
Figure 3. Can you read this sign? How many horses can you see?
Figure 4. Can you see the faces in this painting? How many faces can you find hidden around?
So next time you have a complex topic to teach and your students appear tired or disengaged, try the pattern recognition trick and watch them come alive!!!
To find out more about Brain Research and the 21st Century Learner, you can attend Dr. Christina’s talk at the Inter-Institutional Road Show to be held at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, March 20th, from 1:30pm onwards.
Dr. Christina Gitsaki
Assoc. Dean of Foundations
Higher Colleges of Technology
