Good news for good teachers: It turns out, the old drill-and-kill method is not only boring, but — neurologically speaking — pretty useless. Relevant, meaningful activities that both engage students emotionally and connect with what they already know are what help build neural connections and long-term memory storage (not to mention compelling classrooms).

“Long lists of vocabulary words that don’t have personal relevance or don’t resonate with a topic about which the student has been engaged are likely to be blocked by the brain’s affective (or emotional) filters,” writes neurologist and former classroom teacher Judy Willis.

https://www.edutopia.org/neuroscience-brain-based-learning-relevance-improves-engagement

Personal Relevance in Practice

Here are a few tips for making learning engaging and personally relevant, according to Willis, Faeth, and Immordino-Yang:

• Use suspense and keep it fresh. Drop hints about a new learning unit before you reveal what it might be, leave gaping pauses in your speech, change seating arrangements, and put up new and relevant posters or displays; all this can activate emotional signals and keep student interest piqued.
• Make it student directed. Give students a choice of assignments on a particular topic, or ask them to design one of their own. “When students are involved in designing the lesson,” write Immordino-Yang and Faeth, “they better understand the goal of the lesson and become more emotionally invested in and attached to the learning outcomes.”
• Connect it to their lives and what they already know. Taking the time to brainstorm about what students already know and would like to learn about a topic helps them to create goals — and helps teachers see the best points of departure for new ideas. Making cross-curricular connections also helps solidify those neural loops.

Resources:

• https://www.pearson.com.au/insights-and-news/the-future-of-education/judy-willis-science-of-learning/
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/4141/the-neuroscience-joyful-education-judy-willis-md.pdf
• https://meteoreducation.com/neuroscience-in-classroom-practice/
• https://cps.northeastern.edu/blog/story/5-ways-neuroscience-impacting-classroom
• https://www.edutopia.org/blog/neuroscience-higher-ed-judy-willis
• https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1171&context=research_conference