Do you know why it is one of the key factors that predicts learning? What relationship exists between emotions and intellectual development? How can neuroeducation be applied in the classroom?
Currently, there are many different challenges that teaching presents.
In order to face them successfully, it is not enough to have an academic preparation and extensive knowledge about the subject that is taught, it is also essential to know in depth what makes learning possible in each child and how to enhance it for better job performance.
Neuroeducation and neurodidactics provide new knowledge and strategies that help improve the learning processes of students and the teaching processes of teachers.
Neuroeducation refers to the knowledge of how the brain works and neurodidacticsbased on the latest advances in neuroscience, is responsible for the application of this knowledge in the classroom.
In this article we explain the processes that improve learning, what are the main benefits of these disciplines and some keys to start applying them in the classroom.
The education of children – Enric Más Cerca
In this connection Enric Corbera talks to us about the importance of achieving an emotional balance in ourselves in order to offer a quality one to our children, thus favoring their learning in all areas of life.
What is neuroeducation?
“The brain needs to be excited to learn”
As stated by the child neuropsychologist and Director of the Master’s in Neurodidactics at the Rey Juan Carlos University, José Ramón Gamo, “The brain needs to be excited to learn”.
The neuroeducation is based on the scientific research and its relationship with learning processes.
proposes “a change in teaching methodology to replace lectures with visual supports such as concept maps or videos with different informative supports such as graphics” but, above all, commitment to collaborative work.
Do you understand your emotions? – Enric Corbera
Emotions are an essential part of the learning process. Before we can teach how to regulate emotions, we must learn emotional self-regulation. In this video, Enric Corbera exposes what they are, where they come from and what is the function of our emotions.
The key to Neuroeducation is that it respects the process that brain activity follows during learning: motivation, attention, and memory.
Always keeping in mind neural plasticity and the experience that learning entails.
neuroplasticity It is the quality that our brain has to change the synaptic connections, and in doing so they store new information.
Just like in school, we continue to learn throughout life.
What is the role of people and personal change?
When we make changes in our life, if they are not attending to a deep emotion it is difficult for them to be maintained over time.
For this reason we always say that a real never starts from an intellectual comprehension but from an emotional “revelation”.
Our brain is very sensitive to emotions, since they have an enormous force capable of modifying the mental and physiological states of our entire being.
What does not excite us does not exist in our memory Not even in our mental world.
We are emotional beings, we live our experiences and store them in our conscious or unconscious, thanks to the emotion that accompanies any significant experience.
Emotional skills: learning what we want to teach
We can say that emotion is at the origin of all memory, belief and behavior that we have learned.
If we want to enhance our learning and increase our ability to change in life, we have to take charge of how we perceive and manage our emotional states.
Assuming this responsibility is an essential prerequisite for being able to teach the fundamental emotional skills that will drive the development of our students, both personal and academic.
These skills, which are the tools that will help them be happier and more successful adults, include emotional self-regulation, emotional autonomy, social competencies, and others. skills to direct one’s life and take responsibility for one’s own well-being.
Neurodidactics in the classroom
The center of any teaching process should be the student, not the teacher
School learning, as we know it, is based on the accumulation of knowledge and the ability we have to retain it and, in the short/medium term, be able to reproduce it in an exam.
This methodology has its origin in the Greek agora where the sages transmitted their knowledge to their students.
they question whether it is really effective and seek new formulas for teaching.
Eric Mazur is a professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University and in the beginning he gave classes as he had received them: transmitting knowledge orally.
The level of satisfaction of his students was high and they obtained very good academic results.
Still, Mazzur the degree of effectiveness of his classes was questioned and began to investigate the learning process by changing the approach to problems and bringing them closer to more real situations. “His conclusion was that the expository method was insufficient because it turned him into a mere transmitter of information that compromised the real learning of his students”.
In 2010, a team of researchers from MIT in Boston placed an electrodermal sensor on a student for an entire week to measure his brain activity.
It turned out that brain activity was practically zero whether you were in a master class or watching TV. This experience reinforced Mazur’s hypothesis about the poor passive receiver effectiveness.
Change the way of teaching and learning through neurodidactics
How to improve teaching thanks to neuroscience
Neuroscience applied to education gives us access to a new vision of teaching that gives us educational strategies focused on the knowledge of how the brain works.
This knowledge invites us to transform how we teachincluding students in an active way in their own learning, reinforcing skills such as emotional management, motivation, attention, executive functions and mental operations.
1) Replace traditional master classes with more attractive and dynamic supports
First of all, thanks to neuroscience we understand that there are parts of the brain that are configured in different ways. This means that there are different ways to learn.
Therefore, we must implement varied strategies, since each student has an optimal way of learning.
With this objective, we must replace the traditional master classes with more attractive and dynamic supports such as videos, images, interactive maps, etc., which require the participation of the student.
As well as generating interactive and collaborative environments that focus on the involvement of students in their learning.
2) Entertainment, fun and participation to increase motivation
On the other hand, we must bear in mind those motivational factors of each student. This will help us to ensure that the knowledge acquired is properly consolidated.
Neuroscience has shown that motivation causes a good strengthening in the neural connections that are developing.
Fostering a more proactive, social and collaborative educational environment will allow us to transform the learning process into something entertaining and fun that really drives the acquisition of new skills and knowledge.
“The brain is a social organ that learns by doing things with other people.”
Jose Ramon Gamo.
3) Train emotional skills
In the traditional educational model, cognitive skills are prioritized over emotional ones, however today, thanks to the latest advances in neuroscience, we know that Emotion and cognition are processes that go hand in hand. and it is not possible to unlink them.
For this reason, neurodidactics optimizes the teaching process using emotions so that learning is effective.
Therefore, another essential factor to enhance the development of students is to train their emotional skills. It is not about focusing on them only experiencing positive emotions, but about offer them tools that help them recognize, manage and use their emotions to go through their life experiences autonomously and effectively.
The main key to achieve this is become reference models that allow them to model effective strategies for emotional management and coping with stress, and to do so through difficult situations that arise in the classroom.
What are the benefits of neuroeducation?
Knowing how the brain works helps us boost our own learning, an essential requirement to enhance that of our students.
Knowing how the brain learns and how emotions influence this process helps us boost our own development and enhance the qualities of studentshelping them to become happy and emotionally healthy adults.
The application of neuroscience in the classroom provides multiple advantages. Here we highlight the most important:
- helps us establish .
- encourages consolidation of knowledge since, as we have seen, the emotion it is at the origin of all memory, belief and behavior.
- Allows us change our way of teachingprioritizing the creation of different stimuli so that knowledge can be consolidated, increasing the levels of attention, motivation and curiosity.
- Knowing how the brain works also helps us to detect learning problemsbeing able to adapt and correct intervention guidelines, in order to prevent school failure.
- It provides keys to strengthen the emotional skillswhich will benefit the development of cognitive habilyties of the student body
Neuroeducation for parents: beyond the classroom
If we want to collaborate from home so that our children learn better, we must start with ourselves
We do not teach through words, but through who we are. Neuroscience shows us that The main way of learning of the human being is the so-called “vicarious” or by imitation.
Our children model their identity, habits and behaviors based on the examples we show them, through our way of behaving, managing our emotions, dealing with conflicts and approaching new experiences.
Many times we put all our attention in giving them guidelines and good advice, we try to teach them and positively influence them with our words.
However, they They do not learn from what we know or say, but from what we are.
Thus, our own coherence, self-love and what we can offer them.
And, in the context of their academic education, to convey the excitement, the…