OVER A CUP OF TEA

Henry S. Tenedoro
The powerful brain

The human brain is an ever-fascinating masterpiece of creation. It is both a powerful instrument and a fragile organ: capable of penetrating insights, breath-taking visions and staggering versatility, but at the same time highly susceptible to injury, distraction and disorder.

Even now, after centuries of study, and despite scientific and technological advancements, the finest brain experts and researchers in the world admit that we still have a long way to go towards truly understanding its complex structures, processes and capabilities. The good news, however, is that brain research has established some facts which can help us understand as well as enhance learning.

For example, the brain is a simultaneous processor: at any one time, it controls several physiological functions and receives and processes several megabytes of information. Knowing this, we should not be surprised that some learners - specifically, those with a global learning style - prefer to be doing other things at the same time that they are processing (that is, .acquiring, elaborating, incubating and integrating) new information.

Brain research also reveals that maximum attention span ranges from 20 to 25 minutes. This means that new stimuli - whether physical, emotional or intellectual - are required in order to recapture attention. Energizers, wholesome humor, music or even a simple change in the speaker’s tone of voice are examples of such stimuli.

Emotions are now better understood as critical to the learning process at every stage, from priming all the way to integration. Different emotions trigger different chemical and neurological reactions within the body, and these, in turn, either enhance or inhibit learning.

Threats give rise to negative emotions, and there are different kinds of threats: physical, emotional (embarrassment, humiliation, shyness), intellectual (rejection or criticism of one’s ideas) and socio-cultural (discrimination, alienation, isolation).

Teachers should take special note of this: their body language, their tone of voice, and the way they dress can - alone or in combination - trigger positive or negative emotions in their students, thus helping or hindering their learning.

Teachers must also be on the lookout for other emotional triggers: the home situation, the social situation inside the classroom or in the school at large, or perhaps the very personality of the student. The point is that teachers would do well not to resort to “drastic” measures when a student is being inattentive or, on the whole, failing in a subject. A little non-threatening dialogue with the student can go a long way.

Retention is another major challenge for teachers: how to help students remember their lessons. Brain research shows that there are different retention rates for different activities. Thus: reading -10 percent; hearing - 20 percent; seeing - 30 percent; saying/doing - 70 percent. In other words, we retain or remember only 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we see, and 70 percent of what we say and/or do. This is why audiovisual presentations are more effective: because the new information is acquired through at least two modes - reading and hearing (30 percent total retention rate), or hearing and seeing (50 percent total retention rate).

Most classroom instruction is conducted in lecture mode, that is, verbal or spoken, thus requiring students to learn through hearing. This is the least effective teaching mode, because children are seldom auditory in their perceptual preference. In short, they rarely remember more than 25 percent of what they hear. Writing on the blackboard will, of course, help retention - so long as the handwriting is clear and legible. Graphics, such as drawings and pictures, especially if colored, will be a bigger help. We humans are visual animals: for many of us, to see is to remember.

Research studies ascertain that three-fifths or 60 percent of a person’s learning style is genetic: it is a matter of nature. The rest is a matter of nurture: developed through the learner’s response to various elements such as sound, light, temperature, design or seating arrangement, intake or nutrition, mobility, and time of day.