Below is an audio player with a sound effect. Please click on the play button before continuing to read below.
What did you feel when you heard that tone? If you're a modern iPhone user, you probably felt anxious and wanted to glance at your phone to see what new information was coming through. The urge may have even been irresistible and you actually checked your phone. Honestly, did you check your phone when you heard it? This is the power of "Novelty." Imagine if you could make students that hungry to devour World History, Geometry, Chemistry, or The Great Gatsby. Your phone and many advertising campaigns have been specifically designed to trigger this human desperation for novelty.
Our brain is a novelty-seeking machine. Seeking out novel experiences is how cavemen moved out into the plains, it's how toddlers learn about the world, and why you cannot check the time on your phone without seeing what's new on Twitter, who texted you, if that auction finally ended on eBay, and what happened on The Bachelor last night. Novelty is one major key to opening students' brains to learning.
But, you might ask, "How do I make the Pythagorean Theorem novel?" I contend that you can make the Pythagorean Theorem novel but it is not necessarily a requirement as you will see. First, let me summarize some research. Scientists asked people to rank how curiosity-inducing a list of trivia questions were. They then put subjects in brain scanning machines (fMRI) and asked them these same trivia questions and then showed them pictures of faces. Later, they showed them those same faces mixed in with random faces and asked them which ones they recognized. They statistically significantly recognized faces more often if they followed a high curiosity trivia question than a low curiosity trivia question. The faces had nothing to do with the trivia questions.
Further research showed that the recognition of these faces lasted longer, even days longer because curiosity was induced first and that this brain-priming effect lasts for 5-15 minutes after the curiosity event. Of course, there's far more research behind this, and this was a cursory look at it. But bear in mind that the research has shown that when curiosity is sparked, learning is enhanced, even when the learning has nothing to do with the curiosity event.
What this means for the classroom, is that all you need to do is spark curiosity and students' brains will be primed for learning whatever you are about to teach. For example, you may lead into a very difficult calculus lesson by replacing chairs with bean bags. You might begin the class with a short curiosity-inducing video clip, trivia question, or partner activity. Students might walk in and there are virtual reality goggles on their desks with instructions on how to do a virtual field trip. Maybe there are clues taped to the walls around the classroom and a box with a combination lock on their desks. None of these things have anything to do with the Pythagorean Theorem, but all will induce curiosity through novel stimuli and prime the brain to learn more math.
For years, teachers have been taught that students need structure. They need to walk into a familiar classroom every day with familiar procedures and a familiar lesson plan. If you hope to create passive students who sit in rows and absorb some of the information that they're exposed to, then structure and predictability are key. But, if you want to create curious, exploratory, interested, deep, lifelong learners, then mix things up because novelty is the major key to curiosity. You can still have procedures for turning in homework or requesting to go to the restroom. But sprinkle novelty into your lessons and the research demonstrates that student learning will improve. Now, you've waited long enough, go see what new deal popped up on the coupon app on your phone.
In the comments below, share how you've introduced novelty into your classroom or into a lesson.
No comments:
Post a Comment