Uncommon Sense Teaching: Part 2, Building Community and Habits of Learning

This week’s materials cover motivation, stress, and character change—vitally important topics for us as teachers. We’ll learn about the importance of surprise in learning—part of what can make good teaching both surprising and rewarding! We’ll also discover why we like to say that “Curiosity is Queen” —and why being taken by surprise can be a very good thing when it comes to learning. We’ll also learn about the “Drama King"—that is, the amygdala—which can underpin some of our subconscious biases. And we’ll begin setting the stage to understand why cramming is so effective. At least, for short periods of time! Neuroscience is uncovering new insights about motivation. This brings us to a seemingly different area—unreachable, unteachable students who can tell you exactly what you want to hear, without any internal motivation for change no matter what you may do to try to motivate them. Perhaps surprisingly—bullying isn’t just a problem for students—it can actually be a problem amongst teachers themselves, with some of the best teachers bearing the brunt of the bullying behavior. But guess what—sometimes our best approach to help students sail successfully through stressful situations in life is to simply do what we teachers are born to do—teach with passion and with heart. All this, and more, in this week’s videos!

This week, we’ll learn how the brain decides whether to make some mental or physical task conscious or nonconscious—it all depends on how often we do it! We’ll also be sneaking in through both the front and back doors of the brain’s different learning systems. Of course, both declarative and procedural ways of learning can have advantages and drawbacks. But as we’ll see, having information deposited in procedural sets of links can be like having a nicely wrapped package of movements or thoughts that a student's working memory can automatically grab onto, instead of having to think through each tiny movement or thought individually. This can not only speed students’ learning—it can even make classroom management easier. Using the magic of the procedural system, your classroom can run like a well-oiled machine, seemingly without you doing anything!

This week is full of surprises as we dig deeper into the advantages and disadvantages of faster and slower types of learning. Who knew that those who struggle with their learning—our hikers—can actually be more accurate with what they learn? For them, it can be easier to flexibly accept and change their minds when the data shows they are wrong. On the other hand, our race cars, who can learn faster and remember better, can also find it difficult to accept when they’re wrong. And all this relates in a very deep way, as you’ll see, with our ability to think critically. Join us as we explore all these ideas, and more, in this week’s videos! (And don’t forget, there’s plenty of optional extra info in the readings!)