What Does Brain Research Say About Making Connections To Learn

Abstract

The past few years take been marked past a large number of discoveries about the learning brain. Those insights have the potential to support teachers in designing fifty-fifty improve classroom environments to help you learn better. While agreement the brain can be helpful for teachers, this knowledge tin too be beneficial for you lot as a student. For instance, information technology can encourage you to believe in your capacity to improve your own skills. Such beliefs brand it more than likely for you to make an effort and to brand improve apply of supportive learning strategies [1]. In this article, we briefly present some core principles of the learning encephalon and suggest learning strategies inspired by neuroscience for you to endeavor at school or at home.

What Happens in My Brain When I Am Learning?

Your brain is primarily equanimous of most 85 billion neurons, which is more than the number of stars you tin see with the naked eye in the night heaven. A neuron is a prison cell which acts as a messenger, sending information in the class of nervus impulses (similar electrical signals) to other neurons (come across Figure 1). For example, when you are writing, some neurons in your encephalon ship the "move fingers" message to other neurons and this message and then travels through the nerves (like cables) all the style to your fingers. The electrical signals that are communicated from one neuron to another are therefore what allows you lot to do everything y'all do: write, recall, see, spring, talk, compute, and and then on. Each neuron can be connected with upwardly to 10,000 other neurons, leading to a large number of connections in your encephalon [ii], which looks like a very dense spider web (run into Figure 2).

Figure 1 - Figure illustrating two neurons that are connected. — Figure 1 - Figure illustrating ii neurons that are connected.

Figure 2 - Figure illustrating the very large number of connections between neurons. — Figure 2 - Effigy illustrating the very big number of connections between neurons.

When you are learning, important changes have identify in your encephalon, including the creation of new connections betwixt your neurons. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity . The more y'all practice, the stronger these connections go. As your connections strengthen, the letters (nerve impulses) are transmitted increasingly faster, making them more efficient [3]. That is how you become better at anything you learn whether it is playing football, reading, drawing, etc. We tin can compare the connections between your neurons to trails in a forest (encounter Figure 3). Walking through a forest without a trail is difficult, because you accept to meaty and push button the vegetation and branches out of the way to carve your style through. Only the more you utilize the same trail, the easier and more practicable information technology becomes. Conversely, when you stop using the trail, the vegetation grows back, and the trail slowly disappears. This is very like to what happens in your encephalon—when you finish practicing something, the connections betwixt your neurons weaken and can ultimately be dismantled or pruned. That is why it may seem so difficult to start reading again when school starts if you accept not read all summer. However, it is possible for some neural networks to become and then strong that the trails or connections never completely disappear.

Figure 3 - Figure illustrating the analogy of the trail in the forest. — Effigy 3 - Figure illustrating the illustration of the trail in the forest.

The fact that learning rewires your neurons shows how dynamic (plastic) your encephalon is—that the brain changes and does not remain stock-still. Practicing or rehearsing repeatedly activates your neurons and makes you larn. These changes happen as early on as when a baby is in their mother'due south womb and continues throughout a person'south life. So, the question is, how can yous assistance your neurons to create and strengthen their connections? Hither, nosotros nowadays ii strategies that appear to exist more uniform with how your brain works and could assist you learn better.

Which Learning Strategies Are More Compatible With Your Brain?

Strategy one: Repeatedly Activating Your Neurons

Because the connections between your neurons need to be activated multiple times to get stronger and more efficient, a first and crucial strategy is to repeatedly activate them. This ways that to larn arithmetics tables for case, yous have to exercise it repeatedly, to establish the "trail" betwixt your neurons. As a babe, you lot were not able to speak and walk within i day: you skillful a lot. Notwithstanding, information technology is important to note that but reading or glancing at your arithmetic tables will not be that helpful in connecting your neurons. You lot might likewise find information technology quite disengaging and dull. To create the connections between your neurons, you need to think the arithmetic tables from your memory. In other words, you have to try recall the answer yourself to activate your connections. We are not saying that this is easy to do! However, scientists retrieve that this "struggle" improves learning because the challenge is an indication that you are building new connections. Recall, learning something new is similar hiking in a bush with no designated trail, you volition probably walk slowly at first, merely if you keep hiking, trails will start forming and somewhen you will be walking on well-beaten tracks. Besides, when you do try to remember what y'all have learned and make a fault, it tin can help you lot identify gaps in your learning and requite you an indication of which trail still needs to be worked on.

Scientists have also noted that performing tests or exams tin help yous recall information amend than studying alone [4]. For example, if you study your arithmetic tables interspersed with test periods, you lot will probably perform amend on your final test than if you lot had only studied. Why? The tests require that you recall the information from the neurons in which the information is stored, thus activating your connections and contributing to their strengthening. The point is thus to practice retrieval in an engaging way. There are different strategies that you could try at home, for example answering practice questions or using flashcards. These should meliorate learning more than re-reading or listening to lectures (equally long as yous exercise not flip the flashcard over before recalling the answer!). Other strategies include preparing questions to enquire to a classmate or a parent as well equally redoing tests or exercises. Use your imagination! What you lot demand to remember is that first, for your neurons to strengthen their connections, yous need to remember the information and avoid just reading or listening to the answer. Second, you lot should programme a way to get feedback to know whether you lot got something correct or incorrect. Do not be discouraged if you face up challenges, this is a natural stride of the learning procedure taking place in your encephalon!

Strategy 2: Spacing the Activation of Neurons

Now that y'all know that neurons need to be activated repeatedly for learning to occur (and that information technology means retrieving data), you probably wonder how ofttimes you should practice. Scientists who written report the learning brain observed that breaks and sleep betwixt learning periods enhance learning and minimize forgetting [five]. It therefore seems meliorate to retrieve oftentimes within spaced practice sessions, as opposed to a massed practice (practicing a task continuously without rest). For instance, instead of studying or doing homework for 3 h, after which you would probably feel exhausted anyway, y'all could separate this learning menses into 3 1-h periods or fifty-fifty into six half-an-hour periods. In short, when spacing your retrieval practise, you lot allow your brain to make the connections that y'all strengthened during your practice sessions more efficient. When you take a quick break from practicing, let usa say a 20 min recess, you permit for the maintenance or replacement of the receptors on the surface of the neurons. The receptors are like electrical outlets that receive the nerve impulse (electrical signals) from other neurons. Taking a break helps them piece of work amend: your neurons can thus transmit their nervus impulses more than hands to other neurons. Finally, when you get a night of sleep between practise sessions, yous really benefit from a free retrieval practice session because while you sleep, your encephalon reactivates the connections betwixt the neurons that you activated during the 24-hour interval. You could likewise become similar benefits from a nap. Next time you detect yourself sleepy in class, you could tell your instructor that you are in fact trying to practise retrieval practice! In brief, when spacing out learning, and especially retrieval practise, your brain is more activated than when yous mass acquire in ane long session.

At this point, you are probably asking yourself how to space out learning in your day-to-day life. The good news is that there are a number of ways to do it and it can be easily adapted to different skills, such as solving mathematical problems or memorizing definitions. The almost obvious change you lot can make to your study schedule is to intermission upward sessions into smaller sessions. You could also ask your teacher to set daily or weekly review quizzes and other assignments. Finally, spacing can be done past doing interleaved practice. This consists of a set of problems arranged so that consecutive problems cannot be solved by the aforementioned strategy. For case, you could mix your math problems so that geometry questions, algebra, or inequality problems are randomly sequenced. The added do good of interleaving is that you engage in unlike activities in-between 2 sessions, making skilful use of your time. In cursory, 1 matter to go on in mind is that information that was previously learned will require less endeavour to re-learn because the spacing gives your brain time to consolidate—pregnant your brain produces the building blocks required for the connections between your neurons.

Conclusion

Your brain is where learning occurs and you lot therefore need to keep your neurons active to optimize the use of course or study time. The two learning strategies proposed in this article accept the potential to help you learn better by creating optimal conditions to strengthen and consolidate the connections betwixt your neurons. You now know that you can get better by repeatedly using the "trails" in your encephalon and past spacing out your practise. This greater understanding of how your brain learns and the use of supportive learning strategies can now allow yous to help your brain learn better!

Glossary

Neuroplasticity: ↑ The ability of your encephalon to change, that is to create, strenghten, weaken or dismantle connections between your neurons.

Repeatedly Activating Your Neurons: ↑ Practicing a lot, trying to retrieve data from your retention, for example by explaining a concept to a friend or answering quiz questions.

Spacing the Activation of Neurons: ↑ Practicing more oft only for a shorter period. For example, instead of studying for 2 h in a row, studying 4 periods of 30 min over a few days allows your brain to take breaks and slumber which helps yous remember meliorate in the long run.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential disharmonize of interest.

Acknowledgments

We would similar to wholeheartedly thank those who assisted in the translation of the articles in this Collection to make them more accessible to kids outside English-speaking countries, and for the Jacobs Foundation for providing the funds necessary to translate the articles. For this article, nosotros would especially like to thank Nienke van Atteveldt and Sabine Peters for the Dutch translation.

References

[one] ↑ Blanchette Sarrasin, J., Nenciovici, L., Brault Foisy, L.-M., Allaire-Duquette, One thousand., Riopel, 1000., and Masson, S. 2018. Effects of inducing a growth mindset in students by teaching the concept of neuroplasticity on motivation, achievement, and brain activity: a meta-analysis. Trends Neurosci. Educ. 12:22–31. doi: 10.1016/j.tine.2018.07.003

[2] ↑ Rossi, S., Lanoë, C., Poirel, N., Pineau, A., Houdé, O., and Lubin, A. 2015. When i met my brain: participating in a neuroimaging study influences children's naive mind-encephalon conceptions. Trends Neurosci. Educ. 4:92–7. doi: 10.1016/j.tine.2015.07.001

[3] ↑ Kania, B. F., Wronska, D., and Zieba, D. 2017. Introduction to neural plasticity mechanism. J. Behav. Brain Sci. vii:41–8. doi: 10.4236/jbbs.2017.72005

[4] ↑ Zaromb, F. M., and Roediger, H. 50. 2010. The testing effect in free recall is associated with enhanced organizational processes. Mem. Cogn. 38:995–1008. doi: x.3758/MC.38.8.995

[five] ↑ Callan, D. E., and Schweighofer, N. 2010. Neural correlates of the spacing effect in explicit exact semantic encoding support the scarce-processing theory. Hum. Brain Mapp. 31:645–59. doi: 10.1002/hbm.20894