Get Neuro-Psyched!

Connecting the science of the brain, psychology, and health with EFL

Kinky neurons!? What do I mean by this month's title? With my recent studies with Dr. Kurt Fischer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I have come to realize the tremendous importance of emotion in learning. In 2008 I was lucky to be the first person to conduct SiR (Self in Relationship) Interview studies in Japan (Murphy, 2009). Although that particular project was only my pilot study, it quickly became obvious that the subjects and concepts that students have strong feelings for (be it positive or negative feelings) make much easier discussion topics than subjects and ideas that students are indifferent about. Put in these terms, I'm sure this conclusion is hardly earth shaking. In fact, the conclusion is quite mundane, isn't it? However, when it comes to pedagogic design, I think most of us are guilty of not putting students' emotions into serious consideration. Why is this so? Whatever that answer may be, it seems to be the crux of the problem. Not such a mundane point anymore is it?

We have a hundred billion neurons in our brains. What do they do up there? They have dendrites (entry port 'branches') that collect information, a nucleus that processes the information, and then an axon (the tail of the neuron for the 'export' of information to the next neuron). Those are the basics of the neurons. These neurons are also massively connected to each other. Those hundred billion neurons make up about a quadrillion connections. Let's think about this. What kind of crunching power do each of these neurons have individually? -and more importantly, what makes them kinky?

In a nutshell, individual neurons are as dumb as the circuit breakers that are collecting dust on one of your walls at home. Well, almost as dumb.The big difference is that a circuit breaker terminates the signal when too much power comes down the circuit. This protects your living room from exploding when you turn your home theater's volume up too high, rIght? However, in the case of neurons, the opposite is true -the signal is terminated if not enough power comes down the line. In other words, neurons must get thoroughly excited to function as information relays. So, if a neuron's nucleus goes gaga over some data, it will send impulses down the axon shaft and 'ejaculate' neurotransmitters into the synaptic gap in the hopes that the next neuron's 'womb-like' structures will accept them. If that adjacent 'inseminated' neuron gets excited enough by the first neuron's commitment, it will also 'ejaculate' neurotransmitters into the next synaptic gap in the hopes of exciting a third neuron -and so on down the line. If this sounds kind of kinky to you, you are certainly on the right track. It is kind of kinky. Our neurons work very much like the birds and the bees -and the flowers too. However, just as copulation never has a 100% success rate, the exchange between neurons is also naturally fallible. But we are talking about our brain processes aren't we! What could be more important? Why on earth would our brains be based on such a kinky (and utterly clumsy) system!? Well, that's a matter we will just have to take up with mother evolution… there isn't much else we can do about it.

Or is there? If we as teachers embrace the fact that our neurons must be excited enough to pass on information, and if we realize that there are unique individual thresholds within each of us that must be surpassed, perhaps we, as teachers, can find the motivation to add more individualized pizazz into our classroom pedagogies. By that I don't mean to say that we all have to turn into first-rate entertainers for our students. Indeed, what Student A might find entertaining may be downright boring for Student B, so even the most entertaining teacher may not reach every student in the classroom.

What am I saying then? A realistic solution is to let our students have freedom to follow their own passions during the learning process. In normal circumstances, students who are allowed to follow their individual passions during class time will generally be motivated to push their learning further than students who are just being forced to do activities that are uninspiring for them. This is one of the major benefits of student centered and differentiated learning. Student centered and differentiated learning actually make neuroscientific sense. So, the next time you are in class, remember that each one of your students has their own unique 'birds and the bees' context in their heads, and as it is your job to get all of them working as actively and as efficiently as possible, you must attempt to raise every student's interest levels above each of their own individual thresholds. This sounds like a daunting task. Indeed it would be quite impossible in many cases if you adhered to only teacher centered pedagogies. However, as discussed above, student centered activities are a fantastic remedy for these situations. By putting students' emotions centerstage, we solve many classroom problems with one clean sweep!

Remember: Let your students get emotional! Give them opportunities to follow their own passions!

Neuro-myth busters: We've all heard it a million times - if you are cool and logical, you are a left-brained person -if you are imaginative and emotional then you must be right brained… or something along those lines. The neuro-myth often goes even further by saying that we can teach for the left brain, or enhance the right brain. In reality, both hemispheres in our brains are so massively convoluted that it is impossible to perform tasks with only one particular part of the brain being involved. We use huge networks of neurons that span both hemispheres of the brain for even seemingly simplistic processes -such as recognizing a friend's face or drawing stick figures. So, there is no such thing as a left-brained person. There is no such thing as teaching to the left brain. The only people on the earth who are truly left-brained or right-brained are people who have had a hemispherectomy - removal of one hemisphere of the brain, not to be confused with a lobotomy -the removal of some of the frontal parts of the brain.

Next article I will have an interview with a professor that actually studies people who have had a hemispherectomy. They function remarkably well!! We are just getting our feet wet with this topic. Be sure to come back next month for some astonishing findings about the brain!! See you then!

As always, please send in comments and/or questions to m@murphyschool.com, or add to the discussion below!

This month we have our first interview! Let me introduce Zachary Stein. I first met Zak a couple of years ago on the Harvard campus at their Mind, Brain and Education Institute. He is a philosopher and a fantastic academic. He is heavily involved in the new field of Mind, Brain and Education at Harvard. One of his strongest focuses is on testing -and he is dyslexic.

This month I had the pleasure of interviewing Zak on his current research which is highly relevant to all classroom teachers and school administrators. Part 1 of this interview is about testing. Part 2 is a discussion regarding reading and dyslexia. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to send them to me! I'll make sure they get to Zak.

Murphy (M): Thanks for joining us today, Zak! Can you first tell us a bit about your academic background?

Zak Stein (ZS): I went to Hampshire College, a place with no tests and no grades. And then I snuck into the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I'm now a doctoral candidate.

Broadly speaking, my work is on the philosophy of education. But I also focus on cognitive development, psychometrics, and I am actively engaged with the emerging field of Mind, Brain, and Education. 

Part 1 Testing - a necessary evil?

M: What do you think is 'wrong' with typical testing?

ZS: It's important to understand that testing (or assessment) is a necessary part of any educational situation. Anytime anyone is teaching something to someone, the teacher needs to figure out what the learner knows and could most benefit from learning next. That entails some kind of assessment, some kind of test, to check in on where the learner is at.

The problem is when tests are used for some other purpose, such as distributing educational opportunities or holding schools or teachers accountable. Now, you can claim that these help students learn in a round about way. But the farther the test is from serving as a diagnostic in the learning process itself the greater the risk that the test is doing more harm than good.   

M: What can you say about the so-called standardized tests?

ZS: We (at DTS) build standardized, embedded, formative assessments, which provide richly educative feedback to learners and teachers. So just because a test is standardized doesn't mean its got to serve some abstract bureaucratic function. Although, at least in the USA, this is what people think of when they think of standardized tests: sorting kids; accountability; high stakes. 

See: http://devtestservice.org/PDF/Stein_Dawson_Fischer_Re-designing_Testing_FINAL.pdf

M: What vision and goals do you have regarding testing?

ZS: Our long term goal is to change the nature of the standardized testing infrastructure at multiple levels in the social system--from K-12 to college entrance, human resource management, and professional development.

We think that assessments should be based on research about human development and learning, and that they should not just be used to sort individuals or dole out rewards and punishments.

Our vision is of a society that values radically educative institutional arrangements, wherein assessments play one role in fostering the full development of individual's potentials. 

M: What is DTS? What do you do at DTS?

ZS: The Developmental Testing Service, Inc. (DTS) is a non-profit research and development organization focusing on issues at the interface of developmental psychology, psychometrics, and test design.

I started DTS with my mentor, colleague, and friend, Theo Dawson. She's the director, I'm the deputy director. The organization has three branches. One focuses on adult development, doing research and building assessments for use in a variety of contexts, such as business, government, and higher education. The second branch focuses on K-12 standardized testing reform--we call this the DiscoTest initiative (disco is latin for I learn; and the etymology goes to discovery, discourse, etc). Here we are building assessments for use in the classroom. The third branch is basically like a think tank that focuses on analyzing the copious amounts of data generated by our assessments, and on big picture questions about learning, education, and society.

(Information is available at: www.devtestservice.com) 

Part II Dyslexia and reading...

M: You continuously amaze me with your contributions to the field of academics even though you have been diagnosed with dyslexia. How do you cope with all the academic reading and writing?

ZS: I am dyslexic, but I read a ton! I think with any learning disabled student motivation is the key. I got obsessed with philosophical issues in my early 20's, and the only way to get into them was to read. So I read and read and read, until it became second nature.  

It is also worth noting that dyslexia is a catchall term for poor readers, so not all dyslexics have the same problems. I don't think the form I have is a language disability--it's more like I have an a-typical visual field. For example, all my proof-reading problems went away when I got a larger computer monitor and enlarged the text on my display 200%. 

M: There are many teachers of children reading this column. Dyslexia may not be apparent in children using Japanese, but it may surface in English class. Is there a 'wrong' approach to teaching children with reading problems? What advice can you provide for teaching children with dyslexia, and other reading problems?

ZS: Emotion is critical to consider. Many of the most significant problems learning disabled students have often have nothing to do with their specific disability. Their biggest problems come from years of emotional negativity surrounding schooling. Often, learning disabled students are required to spend extra time on the things they are worst at, and they are reminded again and again of their deficiencies. That's just unfair. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and everyone should have a chance to work on both.  

M: Thanks Zak!

Murphy's comments:

I am always inspired when I think about Zak. He is a deep thinker and a very caring person. One can only imagine how much extra work he had to put in to combat his dyslexia and become a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It is mind-boggling, isn't it?

Let's think about what he had to say in this interview. I found a lot to think about in Part 1 regarding testing. How much of our own testing here in Japan is not guilty of having some "bureaucratic function"? What should we do about this? What can we do about this? Part 2 of the interview introduces the importance of emotion. My own research tells me that emotion should be centerstage in pedagogic design (more on this in future columns!). What really hit me was Zak's comment about students being "required to spend extra time on things that they are worst at." As teachers we often assume that practice makes perfect -drilling a student over and over will help them master it. But what of the student's emotions? If the drilling is traumatic, how much learning will occur? Is it actually worth the mental scarring? Some teachers may just shrug their shoulders and say shikataganai (It can't be helped). What do you think? I'd like you hear your comments!

Next month (Aug 15th): Why "emotion should be centerstage in the classroom" and more neuro-myth busting!　

Leave a comment below, or send me an email directly at m@murphyschool.com !

A great opening…
I am happy to say that I received many emails full of great questions and notes of anticipation for a resolution of the cliffhanger that I tagged on at the end last month. Besides answering questions, I also have wonderful interviews lined up for this column. Those interviews will be something to look forward to. Today, to finally resolve that cliffhanger, we will be focusing on some of the major networks of the brain and how teachers and students can maximize learning by actively activating those vast systems that we all have upstairs.

Are you networked?
The brain is massively convoluted. Some people say it is the most complex system in the universe. While I am a bit hesitant to make that claim, the human brain is certainly one of the most complex systems that we currently know of. Because it is so complex, there are many different ways we can chop it up into subgroups and subsystems. Today I would like to focus on the practical tri-system grouping format that I studied at Harvard earlier this year, comprising of the Recognition Network, Strategic Network, and the Affective Network.

How many neurons are there in your entire brain? The number varies from person to person, but on average we have about 100 billion neurons up there. How many connections do these neurons make? Depending upon how you calculate the connections, we can have between a hundred trillion to one quadrillion connections per brain. Did I say the brain was convoluted earlier? Well, I was wrong. Convoluted is an understatement. I don’t think we have a proper word for that level of complexity in English. If you can think of a good word to describe the nuance of one quadrillion connections being dynamically created within something about the size of your two fists, please send me an email. I’d love to add it to my own lexicon!

Now, you may think I digressed too much in that last paragraph and may have also wondered when I would be getting back to the main question. Well, that last paragraph was actually a demonstration of engaging our major networks. Please stop what you are doing. Go back to the above paragraph (the one beginning with, How many neurons…), and read it carefully and come back HERE.

Ok. Welcome back! That paragraph probably had you attempt to imagine what one quadrillion neural connections might look like. Some of you may have even put your two fists together to see if it really was about the size of your brain. I even asked you for a better word than ‘convoluted’ to describe the tremendous complexity, so you may have sat back and tried to come up with a fantastic sounding word for me. Thank you! By the way, all of your major networks were activated in that process.

ONE
Let’s take a closer look at each of those networks. First, let’s consider the Recognition Network. What is this network? Well, this one is fairly easy to explain. Your brain gathers information from the five senses and then the information goes through the lowest and deepest areas of the brain. These are the parts of the brain that have not evolved much since we were reptiles (well, maybe ‘you’ were never a reptile, but you know what I mean). This network lets all semi- to fully intelligent creatures tell the difference from friend and foe, food and poison. Instantly. At the higher end, it helps us to recognize patterns and give meaning to those patterns. This is what keeps us alive when we are faced with danger. By Darwinian logic, it is only those of us who had strong Recognition Networks that survived long enough to pass on our DNA strands to the next generation. When you read things and recognize what you are reading, you are engaging the Recognition Network. Sometimes you even get a nice ‘Aha!’ from the engagement.

TWO
Next, let’s consider the Strategic Network. What is this one all about? It sounds kind of militaristic doesn’t it? Imagine men in uniforms behind closed doors… playing with missiles and tanks on a large map laid out on a huge table in a dimly lit room with flashing red lights and radar screens circling with green blips. Got that picture in your head? Good -that was my strategy.

The Strategic Network is pretty much just like it sounds. It takes the vast library of knowledge that you happen to have upstairs and puts it all to good use. When you are given a puzzle to solve, or given a goal to achieve, your body automatically fires up the Strategic Network. If I ask you what your favorite restaurant is and what your favorite dish is of that favorite restaurant, you will probably sit back and think about it for a second or two while you enjoy hedonistic flashes of sustenance from your past. You will then come up with an answer, put a smile on your face, and have a growl in your tummy. It is happening to me while I write this and it is probably happening to you as you read this too! That’s the great thing about our Strategic Network –it works automatically and very effectively.

Humans are capable of outrageous strategic planning (such as premeditated murder), but we are not the only ones. It seems like our PFC, our Pre-Frontal Cortex, or the ‘executive’ of the brain, plays a great part in this strategic planning. Other mammals that have relatively large PFCs also actually do have similar Strategic Networks, albeit not as complex as our own. Monkeys enjoy playing practical jokes on each other –such as the ever-popular ‘Hide-and-Throw-Feces-at-the-Guest’ game. In a nutshell, the bigger the PFC, the more convoluted the strategies can become –that’s why we don’t see dogs crafting slingshot mechanisms while waiting around the corner to ambush the mailmen (imagine that!) –but that six year old that lives down the block can.

THREE
Finally, let’s ponder that third network, the Affective Network. This one is perhaps a bit more difficult to fathom. Affect is another word for ‘emotion’ in this case. Therefore, the Affective Network is a network that gets a hold of incoming data in your brain and decides what perks your interest and what does not. If you are a composer and I play a song for you, you will probably listen for the chord changes and structure of the melody. If you are a linguist, you will probably focus more on the words. If I play for you that song from when Tom Cruise beds Kelly McGillis in Top Gun for the first time (in that room full of blue stuff), you might get goose-bumps, feel jealous, or not even care. The point is, everyone will react differently to very specific and very DIFFERENT parts of the information that is being provided. In the most extreme cases, the information being provided will be completely ignored!

The Affective Network connects your life to the information and filters in what it feels a natural connection with. We don’t get to see or think about information that has been deemed ‘fluff’. Sorry to sound so fatalistic at this point in the game, but that’s the truth. Did any of you take notice of the 17th person that walked by you today? Probably not, but what if that 17th person was wearing a hat that looked a lot like the hat that your best friend used to wear when you were kids? Your Affective Network would take that in as important to you and keep you focused on it. It may bring on a whole set of “old memories” and may cause you get such a warm and fuzzy feeling that you may even decide to send an email out to that best friend of yours. Obviously, this is not a premeditated strategy, nor is it a simplistic “Aha!” moment.

The fact that you went so far as to compose and send an email out to your old best friend, prompted only by a hat worn by a stranger, proves that you are human. You have feelings. You have strategy. You notice things. Moreover, your body is capable of engaging all three of those networks in concert. This concert of the three networks is what makes us uniquely human. The outcome of the concert is what sets you apart from all the other humans on this island that we call Earth.

So, now that we have covered the three bases, how do we tie it all up for our classrooms? I do not believe in passive learning in the classroom. It is boring. Using the jargon from above, passive classroom learning does not engage our Affective Networks enough. Remember, it is because of the work that our Affective Networks do that we are motivated enough to go compose that email to our best friend. Learning in the classroom works in much the same way.

Three things to remember...
Remember the three steps to effective learning (order depends upon the context) : We must recognize what is being presented to us. We must be given a goal for our strategic powers to automatically kick in. We absolutely must find at least some part of it interesting. If we take these three steps, we can engage all three networks and can then make the learning process be a much more meaningful and fruitful experience for both the learner and the teacher.

For further reading please visit this excellent website:
http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter2.cfm

To better understand the Recognition Networks, I particularly recommend this part:
http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter2_3.cfm

For a great scientific understanding of the Strategic Networks:
http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter2_5.cfm

And, for the Affective Networks, look here:
http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter2_7.cfm

The Bottom Line
Ever since the sciences have become more “scientific”, human passions have been downplayed. A typical example is Behaviorism, where scientists/psychologists believed that all human actions could be explained (and controlled) by behaviorist theory. Another culprit is math. With its cold precision, math and its underlying logic put psychology and educational theory on a trajectory away from human passions. This is partially why the Affective Network has been kept from the center of attention in pedagogic theory. What we need to do now is put passion back into the classrooms; we must allow our students to zero in on their passions. This will raise their motivation and give them the extra umph they need to succeed. We must also help them set explicit goals. This will automatically turn their Strategic Networks on. It works like magic. Why not use it? And finally, what seems plain to us, because of our own Recognition Networks, may be invisible to our students. We must keep this in mind; we must help nurture our students’ Recognition Networks.

Every student in your classroom is having a very different set of experiences while sitting in your lessons each day. It may seem like a daunting task at first, but since we all have these three networks, why not attempt to use them to our advantage?

This is an open forum. Please send your ideas to m@murphyschool.com, or add them below. This month I am particularly interested in hearing about how you engaged your own students' three networks in the classroom!

Next month –an interview is coming up. Who will it be? Look for it here on July 15th!

Get Neuro-Psyched! -A new column on ELT News-

The raison d'être:
What is this all about? This is a new column that will discuss important discoveries in neuroscience and psychology in concert with TEFL development. Some may ask, “What good would that do?” while some may say, “That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for!” In preparation for this column, I did an online survey in February. I received a total of 93 responses from English teachers from all over Japan. I wanted to find out how important neuroscience and psychology was for EFL teachers in Japan. Of the participants, 91% had at least 5 years of teaching experience, while 30% had over 15 years teaching experience. The majority were university teachers, but the group had a pretty wide spread. Admittedly, the total participant count was not over 100 (a holy number for some researchers), but the results were still worthy of at least some reckoning. How did it turn out? Let’s take a closer look!

Thirty-nine percent of the teachers responded that they regularly read up on psychology for integration into their teaching practices (another 24% regularly read up on neuroscience, and 18% regularly read up on health/biology). These numbers were considerably higher than I had expected. I had no idea that psychology was such a popular reading subject for EFL teachers in Japan. What do you think about these numbers? (please comment! [see below])

The teachers were also asked if they saw a need for stronger integration of (a) psychology, (b) neuroscience, and (c) health/biology into TEFL. Psychology scored a whopping 69% positive. Neuroscience was a strong 47% and health/biology was a respectable 31%. The final question was, “Would you be interested in following and/or participating in interdisciplinary studies that integrate at least one of the following into TEFL? (1) psychology, (2) neuroscience, (3) health/biology.” Amazingly, 63% responded yes to this.

I must admit that I was not expecting such highly positive results. I thought I would have to fight my way into this medium. I was up for a good fight –doing my pushups and all… Well, as it turns out, the majority of the teachers in the survey said TEFL actually needs more integration of psychology while roughly half said TEFL needs more integration of neuroscience. Neuroscience, I say. What a hip, progressive group we have here in Japan. Well, what are the implications of these high numbers? Is it a jump in logic to assume that teachers in Japan are looking to psychology and neuroscience for answers that they have yet to receive from standard TEFL studies and research avenues? If 63% of you want to get neuro-psyched, well, so be it!

I propose two goals for this column:

(1) Give teachers what they want – TEFL applicable neuroscience and psychology
(2) Dismantle as many neuro-myths as possible

I would like to respond to as many authentic questions as possible. To get the ball rolling, here are some popular questions that I have received during recent neuro-psych presentations: How does memory really work? How can we get our students to learn English more quickly? Is punishment ok? What do you think about grammar-translation from a neuroscience perspective? Does sleep matter? How do neurons work? Are there bad ways of raising motivation? What do you think about (name)’s theories? I wish to base many of my column entries on real questions from you. Send questions and comments to: m@murphyschool.com, or respond below.

Neuro-myth Buster #1:
Do you remember being told that humans only use 10% of their brains? (or something along those lines?) This is one of the most diehard neuro-myths on the planet… and it is totally false! In our daily lives, we use our entire brains. The brain is very efficient; faulty neurons that we don’t use get pruned. If we really only used 10% of our brains, we’d be walking around with huge empty cavities upstairs. Think about it… we would literally be airheads! Neuro-myth BUSTED!!

Further reading:
Read up on the neuro-myth here, from the University of Washington:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html

Next column:
We will discuss how to better our learning and teaching by activating the major networks of the brain. Very practical knowledge coming soon! Look for it here June 15th.

• Kinky neurons in your brain! (or, Why should emotions be center stage in the classroom?)
• What's wrong with testing and drilling? What if you were dyslexic?
• How to engage the major neuro-networks in your classrooms!
• Neuroscience and Psychology?

• What's wrong with testing and drilling? What if you were dyslexic?
    - Alberto
    - Murphy
  
• How to engage the major neuro-networks in your classrooms!
    - Jon Otto
    - Murphy
  
• Neuroscience and Psychology?
    - Ken
    - Murphy
    - Matt
    - Nicholas Groom
    - Murphy
    - Phil