Is The Wyche Curriculum
Brain Compatible?
6th September 2011
Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
The Triune Brain
Templates
The Synaptic Gap
Myelin and Deep Practice
Nature or Nurture
The Outliers Principle
Glutamate and Dopamine
The Role of Emotions in Learning
Brain Knowledge
95% of what we
now know about
the brain has
been found out
in the past 10
years
The Brain has three parts
• Dr P D MacLean (1990) The triune Brain
Mexican Green Lizard
• The Mexican Green Lizard has 27 different
behaviours and is believed to be one of
the most highly evolved animals
• These hinge
around the
principles
of survival
The Survival Principle
• The brain is designed for survival not for
academic study
• Where survival and study coalesce then
learning will be enhanced
• Reticular Activation System – cuts out
when we cannot see the point
• The power of “Real Life Learning” – How
do we motivate a child on a wet Friday
afternoon
Limbic Brain
The Limbic
Brain deals
with survival
in a social
context
Neo Cortex
The neo-cortex
(Lit. “New
Brain”)
or the neomammalian
brain
The Brain has three parts
• Dr P D MacLean (1990) The triune Brain
Brain Cells
1. The Reptilian Brain: 2,000,000 cells
2. The Limbic Brain:
20,000,000 cells
3. The Neo Cortex:
150 billion cells
How does the brain function?
How does the brain
pull together 150 billion
cells and allow the right
ones to make the right
decision?
Templates
The Use of Templates
• Donald Hebb was the first to explore the
brain and its use of templates
• He stated that we learn because nerve
endings fire together
• Nerve cells that fire together wire together
Templates
• Templates are wired learnt experiences
• They are laid down through experience
– Playing the guitar – Subconsciously.
– Table tennis – Getting shots back
– Tennis – Time to play shots
– Driving the car – How did I get here
Template Building
• In the neo cortex is the Dorso-Lateral Pre
Frontal cortex
• This uploads the templates from all over
the brain so the information arrives
synchronously and in harmonic resonance
allowing the brain to process the
information
The Hippocampus
The hippocampus
adds information
from the
short term
memory
The use of Templates
• The brain does not compartmentalise info
This is why didactic 2D teaching is flawed
• The capital of France is Paris
There is not a capital cities compartment
The multiple firing of the brain
“In one ear and out the other”
Thunks
•
•
•
•
Which is the happiest colour?
Which is the biggest colour?
Is black a colour?
Is White?
Thunks – Ian Gilbert
Chess Templates
• De Groot (Dutch psychologist)
challenged the notion that chess
players have photographic memories
• He set up a chess board and gave
chess players and non-chess players
5 seconds to scan the board and
replicate it. Many of the top players
scored 100%
Chess Templates
He then repeated it with
random pieces there
was no difference in the
scores between the
chess and non-chess
players.
The Chess Template
Quick Chess in Bristol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69D-IIsEBY
Templates are complex
•
•
•
•
The templates are complex
The child bitten by a dog
But not all dogs bite
What do I look for in a dog when I meet it?
– Posture
– Facial expression
– How it is moving towards me?
– Is my mum near me?
– Is she frightened?
No template, No learning
• “Everything in your brain is stored in the
form of templates” (A Curran)
• Slowly the boy looked nonchalantly across
the busy, crowded street
– All teaching must be context based so that the
templates are built correctly
– The brain is not a jigsaw puzzle that puts bits
together out of context
No template, No learning
Action could be spelt…
– Aktion
– Akshun
– Akjvtpp
The “tion” is a template
The shun is possible
There is no possibility of this
• These are templates not recognising a
series of unrelated letters
Emotional Triggers
• A smell, a picture, a dream can trigger
memories because they activate these
templates
• Emotions are a powerful trigger for
templates
• Learning must have an emotional
attachment for the child
Synaptic Gap
• Templates are fused together by the
connection of nerves which form a
synapse together
• The two synapses
don’t touch but
form the
“Synaptic gap”
The Synaptic Gap
• The synaptic gap
is the place where
two synapse meet
(without touching)
and chemicals are
fired across
The Synaptic Gap
• The synapse is at the end of the axon and
sends out signals
• The dendrite receives the signal
Myelin Sheath
• Myelin is a dielectric (electrically
insulating) material that forms a layer, the
myelin sheath, usually around only the
axon of a neuron.
• The production of
the myelin sheath
is called
myelination.
Myelination
• Myelination begins in the fourteenth week
of foetal development
• During infancy myelination occurs quickly
and continues through the adolescent
stages of life
• All learning involves the firing of nerve
cells and the laying down of templates
Myelin
“Myelin’s vital role is to wrap the nerve
fibres the same way that rubber
insulation wraps a copper wire making
the signal stronger and faster by
preventing the electrical impulses
from leaking out”
Daniel Coyle p5
In the Right Way
“When we fire our circuits in the right
way our myelin responds by wrapping
layers of insulation around that neural
circuit, each layer adding a bit more
skill and speed”
Daniel Coyle p5
“… in the right way”
• Coyle defines “Deep Practice” as the
practice of areas that create myelin in the
right way
• Practicing a poor golf
swing will develop
a strong template
for a poor golf swing
Deep Practice of…
• Poor spelling from a child is e.g. “wos” is
mylienated if allowed to continue
unchecked throughout a piece of writing
• Letter reversals
• The feedback
loop is the key
Is talent nurture or nature?
Is talent a symptom of nature
or can it be nurtured?
Anders Ercisson
• Anders Ericsson, a psychologist at
Florida State University undertook a
seminal study in outstanding
performance in 1991
• He studied violinists
at the Musical
Academy in
West Berlin
The Three Groups
• They were placed into three groups:
– Exceptional, those who would be world
soloists
– Very Good, those who would play in the
world’s top orchestras but not as soloists
– Good, those who would become music
teachers
• Anders then looked for the key ingredient
that made the difference
Deep Practice
Their profiles were virtually identical except
in the area of … Practice
By the age of 20
The Exceptional had spent 10,000 hours
The Very Good had spent 8,000 hours
The Good had spent 4,000 hours
Deep Practice
David Beckham/Johnny Wilkinson – Both
known for the additional practice they put in
after each training session
“The more I practice the luckier I get”
(Gary Player, Golfer)
Chess Prodigies
• Laszlo Polgar was a Hungarian
psychologist who believed talent could
be created
• He advertised for a wife to conduct an
experiment on creating talent
• They had a daughter Susan and
decided to make her a grand master
Chess Prodigies
• They gave up their jobs ands home schooled
the children teaching them mainly chess
• They had a library of 10,000 chess books
• At the age of 21 Susan became the first
woman to be named a grand master
• Her sister Judit became a grand master at the
age of 15, the youngest of either sex, and
remains the world’s number 1 at present
There have of course been others…
The William’s sisters –
Venus being named after
the Wimbledon trophy
Tiger Woods
Matthew
Syed
• Matthew Syed
was three times
commonwealth
champion
• His parents
dispute his whole
thesis which rests on
talent being nurture
not nature
Hall of Fame
In his road lived:
• Karen Witt – Commonwealth champion
• Andy Wellman – Top UK doubles player
Around the corner lived
• Jimmy Stokes – English Junior Champion
• Paul Savins – Junior international
• Alison Gordon – English Senior Champion
• Sue Collier – English Schools Champion
etc. etc. etc.
Bounce
“For a period on the 1980’s, this one street,
and the surrounding vicinity produced more
outstanding table tennis
players than the rest of
the nation combined”
Bounce p7
He outlines the key factors
Intelligence Fixed or Growth
• This counteracts the perceived wisdom
that intelligence is innate and fixed
• Binet’s IQ test based on this principle
• Modern research points to the error of this
and looks at …
Brain Plasticity
• Brain plasticity is the brain’s
ability to create templates
at will and to develop deep
and rigorous myelination of
the myelin sheath.
• It dovetails perfectly into
Carol Dweck’s work
The Outliers Principle
• Not especially
related to brain
neurology but…
• The principle of
Outliers – The
story of Success
Ice Hockey Dates
• In the mid 1980’s Roger Barnsley, a
Canadian psychologist spotted an
interesting “coincidence” at an Ice Hockey
game
• He observed a disproportionate amount of
the players were born in the first few
months of the year
• Coincidence or…
Ice Hockey Dates
• The cut off date for all age based hockey
in January
• Children born in
January are a
year older than
their peers in
Junior hockey
Baseball Dates
• In baseball the cut off date is 31st July
• In the major league in the US there are
505 players
born in
August
but only
313 born
in July
Football Dates
• In the Premier league in England where
the cut off date is September
• At one point in the 1990’s there were:
– 288 players born
between September
and November
– 136 born between
June and August
Tim
• Played for the county at school
• Looked at by all the premiership team
scouts in the West Midlands
• Plays at semi-professional level
• Trains at Cannington (Man United’s
training ground) plays for university team
• Trained last year with Ryan Giggs and
Gary Neville
Date of Birth… ???
Cut off dates and school
• Relevance to school?
• We have a cut off period of September
• Our registers reflect intelligence – to a
certain extent
• Orange class a few years ago
• Just need to be mindful of this impact and
our expectation of younger children
States for Learning
• The brain’s resting state is 18Hz (18
cycles per second)
• The Gamma Rate is the rate needed to
fire the nerve cells. This is anywhere
between 20-500Hz and of course they
must fire in harmony
Glutamate
• A chemical called glutamate fires the cells
• It travels across the synaptic gap and
connects to the receptor on the striatal
nerve cell
• It simply excites the brain through a
process of De-Polarisation
• Without constraint it would kill you!
Dopamine
• Dopamine controls glutamate output
• It is the chemical which ceases to be
available in those suffering from
Parkinson’s Disease
as the substatia
nigra compacta
atrophies
Dopamine
• Dopamine is a synapto-genic chemical
(synapto–synapse/genic–make or create)
• So dopamine is the
chemical that releases
glutamate into the
brain But… it also
controls the levels of
it within the brain
Dopamine
firing path
through the
brain
Firing Times
The usual firing time
for a striatal nerve
cell is a couple of
milli-seconds,
but dopamine
allows the cell to
keep firing over a
period of time
Dopamine
Dopamine
1. Leaks out from synapse and binds to the
striatal nerve cell binding to the cortical side of
the synapse thereby preventing further
glutamate release
2. It binds dopamine receptors onto the striatal
nerve cell which in turn provides a regulator for
glutamate, triggering activation of the proteins
in the cell and sustaining the brain activity
process
Emotional Learning
“All this is predominantly under the
control of the emotional limbic
brain. Your emotional self is
centrally involved the vast majority
of the things you learn.”
Andrew Curran p66
Dopamine Release
“Dopamine release is predominantly under
the control of your emotional/limbic brain.
You must have dopamine release in your
brain to learn anything. Learning is therefore
largely directed and controlled by your
emotional/limbic brain…
Andrew Curran p61
Emotional Learning
… This is of central importance to
understanding learning in any situation if you
have made good emotional connection with
the person who is trying to learn from you
(or from whom you are trying to learn) you
have dramatically increased the chance of
them learning that thing from you”
Andrew Curran p61
Emotional Learning
“It also means that events that
have a large emotional content
may be learned more effectively i.e.
the synaptic strength of such
connections may be high”
Andrew Curran p62
Yesterday’s Quote
“All learning is
emotionally driven”
Di Pardoe 5th September 2011
Engaging the Brain
• Engagement in learning is the key and
triggers whole brain activity
• The Offside Rule –
Helen said she could
feel her brain switching
off (Reticular
activating system)
Limbic Monitoring
• Engagement especially emotional – “I am
excited by this” engenders whole brain
learning
• The glutamte fires in the corpus striatum
but to grow a template you need dopamine
• The limbic brain monitors the process
through the emotional engagement and
releases the correct amount of dopamine
at the right time
Limbic Monitoring
It is easy to produce
glutamate but the
production of
dopamine at the right
time and in the right
places is complex
and emotionally
controlled
Dopamine Release
• A key component of dopamine release is
stress
• However stress comes in a flood rather
than being targeted
• Of course overtime
stress can close down
production completely
Dopamine Release
• Stress also produces adrenaline and nor
adrenaline which burns deep into the brain
with too much stress
• Post traumatic stress disorder
• Steroids used to control this but does do
damage to the hippocampus
Stress and Learning
• Stress is a part of learning
• Not stress that pushes us over the edge
releasing adrenaline and nor adrenaline
but that element that
challenges and
pushes children
to the edge
Talking Partners
• The use of talking partners switches the
culture of the classroom from teacher
driven to child
• But… also raises the stress levels in
children
• Responding to stress: Bernice and I at the
Teaching and Learning Conference –
Boy’s Underachievement
Correct Dopamine Production
• The brain is a survival tool (Reptilian) and
an emotional survival tool (Limbic)
• The two key triggers for correct dopamine
production are
– Reward
– Anticipation of Reward
• An emotional response to learning
The Concept of Reward
The concept of
reward is a key
feature of the brain
and relates back to
its use as a survival
tool
Rewards
• What do we say after football training –
We have earned this beer
• What do we do after dieting? –
We have a piece of chocolate as a reward
• The brain functions on rewards and we
play mind games with ourselves in this
area
Deferred Rewards
• The marshmallow experiment was
conducted in 1972 by psychologist Walter
Mischel of Stanford University.
• It has been "regarded as one of the most
successful behavioural experiments".
• In the study, a marshmallow was offered
to each child. If the child could resist
eating the marshmallow, he was promised
two instead of one.
Deferred Rewards
• The scientists noted that of the 600
children 300 opted for two marshmallows
later.
• Those who waited were found to be “more
emotionally competent” in later life, scored
higher in SAT tests and achieved better in
adult life
• Why? “Deferred Gratification” – The
process of training the brain for rewards
Emotional not Formulaic
• This is not stickers and charts and the
practicalities
• Shirley Clarke – work for the sticker not for
the work
• There has to be emotional contact
between teacher and child
Emotional Connection
• Brian May and his father
• A sticker would not have sufficed
• Relationships are key
– Does the child like you?
– Do they value your opinion of them?
– Are you a significant other for them?
Learning is Foundationally
Emotional
• The key is what we do away from the
learning environment
• Everything we do around the child away
from the blackboard
• The car race around the classroom –
Trinity, Frome
Andrew Curran’s Summary
The pattern is…
• Understand Me
• Self Esteem
• Self Confidence
• Emotionally Engaged
Andrew Curran
The amygdala (Almond) is the area of the
brain responsible for “Emotional Intelligence”
(EQ) according to
Daniel Goleman’s
work
The Amygdala
• The amygdala is responsible for the fight
of flight response in humans
• But also has the ability to enhance
memory storage
• The amygdala is linked to both the
hippocampus and the Corpus Striatum
Memory
• The Hippocampus deals with conscious
memories
• The Corpus Striatum deals with subconscious memories
• But… The amygdala is the memory
facilitator, and is emotionally rich and is
activated with emotion
Emotional Well Being
• Tonically Active Neurons are cells deep
within the Corpus Striatum and are directly
controlled by the amygdala and the limbic
brain
• Therefore… emotional well being is a precursor to any form of effective learning
Tell us something we didn’t know
“What has fascinated me most … is that
working through the tens of millions of
dollars of research, the message it has
communicated most clearly to me is one that
any wise woman in any village could have
told you at any time in the last 10,000 years”
Andrew Curran p81
Emotional Learning
is the only learning
“Selfless love is based on understanding the
human in front of you. This will improve self
esteem and self confidence. In this
environment they will feel emotionally
engaged with you and neurochemically they
will have no option but to learn from you”
Andrew Curran p83-4
The Concept of Reward
• Rewards need to be intrinsic not extrinsic
• Research shows that extrinsic rewards
work against creativity
• Rewards focus the mind and therefore are
excellent for linear tasks
• But… for 21st Century creativity rewards
can hinder lateral thought
The issue of
“Functional
Fixedness”
Sam Glucksberg,
Psychology
Professor at
Princeton
University, used
The Candle
Problem to
measure the
power of
incentives.
The Candle Problem
He gave two groups of people the problem.
The first group was told that they would be
timed and the second group was told that if
they solved the problem the fastest, they
would be rewarded monetarily.
The Reward
When the tacks
were taken out of
the box the group
offered a reward got
to the solution
faster
The Reward
With the tacks in the
box (i.e. the solution
needs creativity) the
incentivised group
took 3½ minutes
longer
Research commissioned by the
federal reserve bank