{"id":5034,"date":"2019-10-08T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=5034"},"modified":"2019-10-06T02:45:20","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T07:45:20","slug":"what-students-want-to-know-about-brains-and-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/what-students-want-to-know-about-brains-and-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"What Students Want to Know about Brains and Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent two full days last week talking with students about brain research — particularly\u00a0self-control<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How can we best use the self-control we currently have? How can we increase our levels of self-control? Happily, research has answers…<\/p>\n

For my last session on Friday, I changed up my presentation. Rather than present the research I thought they’d want to know<\/em>, I asked them what they do want to know<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Specifically, I gave them index cards, and had them write down questions about brains, learning, and research.<\/p>\n

We had a GREAT conversation.<\/p>\n

How Does Learning Work?<\/h2>\n

Unsurprisingly, most of the questions focused on learning strategies:<\/p>\n

What can I do the day before a test to improve my focus?<\/em><\/p>\n

Does taking breaks actually support learning?<\/em><\/p>\n

How can I learn more in less time?<\/em><\/p>\n

What is the optimal amount of time to study?<\/em><\/p>\n

Does studying the night before a test really do nothing?<\/em><\/p>\n

For two reasons, I think these questions are really good news.<\/p>\n

First reason<\/strong>:\u00a0we have answers<\/em>. Students want to know how to improve their focus. They want to know how best to learn. We can tell them.<\/p>\n

For instance: we know that retrieval practice<\/a> promotes long-term memory formation better than simple review.<\/p>\n

In other words: you can learn more in less time if you use this technique. (That’s how I sell it to students…)<\/p>\n

Healthy Skepticism<\/h2>\n

The second reason<\/strong> I admired these students’ questions: their readiness to question what “everyone knows.”<\/p>\n

One of them had heard an anti-cramming message: “studying the night before doesn’t help you learn!” S\/he just wasn’t buying it, and wanted to know what research supported that claim.<\/p>\n

Even more exciting: they quickly picked up on a message that adults so often miss. The answer to many of their questions was: “it depends.”<\/p>\n

After all, it just makes no sense to believe that there’s an optimal amount of time for all people to study all things.<\/p>\n

The optimal amount of study time\u00a0depends<\/em> on the person studying. And, on the topic being studied. And, on the goal of the study.<\/p>\n

Does taking breaks actually support learning?\u00a0It depends<\/em>. What did you do during the break? How long had you been studying? How long was your break?<\/p>\n

Research can answer questions like these. But: the question needs to be specific for the answers to be helpful. And: the specific answers will be\u00a0averages<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Averages offer us helpful guidance. But, we’ll always have to translate them to our own students and circumstances.<\/p>\n

It was clear these students thoroughly enjoyed this new perspective.<\/p>\n

\n

In my next post, I’ll share some more questions — and answers — from this splendid conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do students want to know about brains and learning? Good news: they’ve got insightful questions, and researchers have good answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5034"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5041,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034\/revisions\/5041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}