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4 The Brain’s Emotional Processing Systems

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Describe the autonomic nervous system and its functions.

• Understand the role of the amygdala in getting information to the prefrontal cortex.

• Identify potential stressors in the context of learning and the effects stress can have on learning outcomes.

• Define fixed mindset and explain how it interferes with learning.

• Discuss the importance of a creating a positive emotional climate in learning environments and methods for fostering that kind of climate.

• Understand the components of a video game that make it intrinsically motivating.

• Explain the concept of scaffolding and the difference between the zone of actual development and the zone of proximal development.

• Appraise strategies for integrating the video game model into educational contexts.

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Section 4.1 Rewind—Fast Forward

A public high school, where dropping out and low attendance were problematic, instituted a guitar instruction class during the last period of the day. The class was open to students who attended all the day’s classes. The result, for those students who attended the class, was a significant increase in school attendance and graduation rates. When the school dropped the class, there was a significant dip in these students’ school attendance and graduation rates. This decline was attributed, at least in part, to disengagement by the students who had maintained attendance and passing grades in their other classes to enjoy the pleasure of the guitar class.

What is particularly distressing is that the reduction in the subjects, activities, and clubs that students find most appealing is taking place at a time when the dropout rate in the United States hovers near 40% in large cities. When surveyed about reasons for dropping out, the most frequent reason given is that school is “boring.” When asked for further detail about what makes school boring, students indicated that the information they were taught was not interesting or relevant to their lives (Yazzie Mintz, 2010, p. 7).

As you will discover in this chapter, positive, personally relevant learning experiences increase engagement and serve as powerful motivators for sustained effort and persevering through challenges. Even when various stressors and negativity are reducing students’ engagement and success in school, their motivation can be resuscitated when they are presented with gratifying learning experiences that can correlate with achievement of personal goals.

This chapter explores the neuroscience of emotions and of school-related stressors, including boredom and frustration, followed by strategies that promote the positive emotional state needed for successful learning. These strategies help students build personal connections to topics of study so they value the acquisition of the knowledge.

4.1 Rewind—Fast Forward As you read in the preceding chapters, emotion influences how information is accepted into the brain and processed into learning. Chapter 2 revealed that the RAS, the attention intake filter, gives priority to changes perceived in the expected pattern of the environment. Highest priority goes to perceived threat and that sensory intake is directed into the lower, reactive brain. Chapter 3 further revealed the sensitivity of the neural processing of information to the neurotransmitter dopamine. We saw that with increased levels of dopamine, there is greater intrinsic motivation, attention, perseverance, and responsiveness to learning.

In this chapter we will once again see the influence of emotion on the brain and how the brain learns. Emotion can impact learning in both positive and negative ways. It affects the amygdala, which is the part of the brain to which incoming information will be directed. If sensory information successfully passes through the initial attention filter, it must go through the amygdala, which serves as another type of filter.

The amygdala is like a switching station that responds to the emotional state of mammals, including humans. It determines if information will continue up to the higher brain for cogni- tive processing, or if it will be routed to the lower, reactive brain. In the neutral or positive emotional state, the amygdala passes information into and out of the prefrontal cortex, the

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Section 4.2 The Reactive Nervous System

highest cognitive and reflective region of the brain. However, when the amygdala is faced with environmental stressors, it will be more likely to send information to the lower, more reactive brain. Here more instinctive and animalistic behaviors will be produced in response to the information. The amygdala in positive or neutral emotional states, therefore, is conducive to better engagement and learning. We will begin the chapter with a look at different parts of the nervous system, so that you can understand how emotional information affects the body and is transmitted throughout the nervous system and brain.

4.2 The Reactive Nervous System The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a branch of the nervous system that is primarily concerned with completing automatic functions (hence, the name autonomic). It is a control network that communicates between the brain and the body, especially related to uncon- scious processing and emotional reactivity. The ANS is important for emotional processing in that as the brain processes information on emotion, it sends feedback to the body and influ- ences the functioning of the ANS. These influences further change how the brain interprets emotion.

For example, according to the James-Lange theory of emotion, feelings of emotion are pro- duced by feedback from behaviors and responses that are elicited from situations. You might think of a time when someone insulted you. You then felt your blood pressure rise, your temperature increase, and your muscles clench. As you experi- ence these changes in your body, you experience feelings of anger (Carlson, 2004). Other theories of emotion discuss the occurrence of brain activation and ANS activation in different order (for a com- plete review, see Klein & Thorne, 2000); however, the important piece here is that feedback from the body (i.e., changes in blood pressure, heart rate, temperature) influence how we interpret the way we are feeling.

It is also important to note that changes in facial expressions can change the way the ANS functions and can change the way we feel. Ekman and col- leagues (Ekman, Levenson, & Friesen, 1983; Leven- son, Ekman, & Friesen, 1990) asked participants to move their facial muscles in ways that would pro- duce facial expressions of fear, happiness, anger, surprise, disgust, and sadness. The experiments illustrated that stimulating different facial expres- sions altered the activity of the ANS and that differ- ent facial expressions produced different patterns of activity. For example, increased heart rate and skin temperature were found with expressions of anger.

Cordelia Molloy/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Which four of the six emotional expres- sions identified by Ekman and col- leagues is this man showing?

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Section 4.2 The Reactive Nervous System

Also of relevance here is that when we see a facial expression, we tend to imitate it. This imita- tion is perhaps something that helps us experience the same emotion that others are feeling (Carlson, 2004). As we change our facial expressions, we experience changes in ANS activity that produce different emotions. In the classroom or workplace, this is important because our students and co-workers and their ANS will be attuned to the emotions that we convey while teaching or working. In the next section, we will continue to see how emotions are processed by examining the amygdala and its connection to the ANS.

The Amygdala: Emotional Switching Station

Some of the cues that the ANS receives from the brain are based on sensory information that is passed through the RAS attention filter (see Chapter 2). We know sen- sory intake that is immediately interpreted as threat is sent to the lower reactive brain and impacts the ANS reactions. However, even sensory input that makes it through the RAS into the next highest level of the brain may still be diverted to the reactive processing systems.

Input that reaches the next highest level of brain neural processing now faces the hurdle of the amygdala with regard to which cerebral architecture it is next granted access to. The amygdala is part of the brain’s emotional core, a connection of neural centers deep in the brain near the temporal lobes. The amygdala is part of the limbic system, which includes the medial temporal lobe, thalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and part of the frontal lobes. The limbic system is a processing center of emotional intake and response, including stress. All components of the limbic system are duplicated on both sides of the brain.

The metabolic state of the amygdala influences the destination to which incoming informa- tion will be directed. In the neutral or positive emotional state, the metabolic state of the amygdala is not unusually high. In this neutral state, without high fear, high stress, or the per- ception of imminent threat, the amygdala allows information to flow up into the prefrontal cortex and also down from the prefrontal cortex to the lower brain. When a person experi- ences high stress, however, the metabolic demands on the amygdala are such that it won’t allow information clear passage to the prefrontal cortex for higher-level processing. Learning, therefore, is impeded.

Humans are the only creatures that have the higher brain capacity to analyze our thoughts and reflect on our emotions and then act in accordance with interpretation of these experi- ences to achieve goals. This includes our unique ability to experience an emotionally stressful event and choose to ignore it or resist acting out in favor of a thoughtfully considered appro- priate response. This ability is largely controlled by the prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex includes specialized neural networks that communicate with almost all the other parts of the brain. It is in the prefrontal cortex where long-term memory circuits

Ask Yourself Describe an occasion on which you found yourself influencing or being influenced by another person’s mood. What do you think was the primary reason for such a change, and how drastic was it? How much of an influence do you think the mood of an educator has on the overall emotional climate of a class?

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Section 4.2 The Reactive Nervous System

are constructed and emotions can be evaluated reflectively and consciously before being acted upon. Networks in the prefrontal cortex respond to unfamiliar situations or decisions that need to be made by activating information that is already in stored memory. It then uses this memory to make informed predictions and decisions in response to the sensory input, allowing for emotional and behavioral self-control. This flow of information between the ANS, RAS, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex is important to understand because as an educator, you want to be able to get information to the prefrontal cortex. Understanding how it gets there will help you remove any roadblocks that come in the form of negative emotion or stress.

Stress-Reactive Response

Stress related to school or work comes in many forms for students. Boredom and frustration are examples of stressors that can come about when the excessive demands of overpacked curricula are addressed by extended periods of direct instruction and repetitive drills. These experiences have little personal relevance to students and do not motivate the brain to main- tain focused attention and construct understanding, just like monotonous tasks in the work- place that do not require much creativity or engagement.

Frustration, in particular, can become a stressor when students don’t understand the lesson and feel they lack the capacity to do so. This is especially stressful when students repeatedly have difficulty with topics or subjects that classmates seem to understand. In the online envi- ronment frustration can often occur with technology issues. This is also true in the work- place. Individuals will be frustrated if they do not understand what their task is or if they feel inadequate to complete it.

For other students, class discussions add to stress when they have made previous mistakes, feel confused, or know they are falling behind. The stress increases when students are called on without volunteering, as they are in constant fear of making mistakes in front of classmates. Other stressors that can impede passage of information through the amygdala to the higher brain include test-taking anxiety, fear of oral presentations, and physical and language differences.

The stress of boredom builds when students have already mastered topics still being explained and drilled in class. As the boredom builds, individuals will begin to direct their attention else- where, which can lead to negative consequences for learning. Studies indicate that when attention is withdrawn from a particular stimulus or object, it is evaluated as more nega- tive (Eastwood, Frischen, Fenske, & Smilek, 2012; Damrad-Frye & Laird, 1989). Overall, the result is that the lack of attention associated with the boredom disrupts the flow of informa- tion through the brain, creates a negative emotional evaluation of the situation, and can lead to cognitive errors. Rather than students or workers having positive emotional experiences, they end up feeling that tasks are horrible and that they are dissatisfied with the situation (Eastwood, Frischen, Fenske, & Smilek, 2012).

Ask Yourself Was there ever a time in your educational or working life when you simply gave up due to frustration? What were the circumstances that led up to this point, and what were the outcomes? Was it something you gave up on forever, or did you eventually try again, and what conditions do you think contributed to this decision?

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Section 4.2 The Reactive Nervous System

An example of how this would play out in the classroom might be as follows. A student has mastered the concept of multiplication, yet the teacher continues to practice drills associated with multiplication. As a result, the student stops attending to the drill and begins to evaluate it negatively. She begins to feel bored and angry. These feelings lead to a lack of information processing in the classroom and lead to more challenges for the student later on. She now has a negative association with learning multiplication.

Similar situations can and do exist in the workplace. Stress in the workplace can occur from a variety of factors, including changing technological environments, isolation, work hours, role ambiguity, interpersonal relationships, or job security issues. Colligan and Higgins (2005) report that workplace stress is associated with physical disorders like heart disease or chronic pain. They also note that stress in the workplace can lead to hostility in the work environment, decreased productivity, and increases in employee absenteeism. The damaging effects of stress suggest that managers and employers should work to reduce stressors in the workplace.

As in the classroom, boredom also provides another source of stress for workers. Boredom in the workplace has often been associated with monotonous tasks (Fisher, 1993); however, Matthews et al. (2000) found that employees reporting high work strain and severe stress at the end of the day reported more boredom at home and at work, indicating that boredom does not just occur when tasks are monotonous, but also when tasks are too difficult. Perhaps, then, there is an optimal level of challenge that will decrease boredom and stress in work- ers. This idea would follow with the Yerkes-Dodson law. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, individuals perform best when they have an optimal level of stress or arousal. Too little or too much stress or arousal leads to decreased performance. Consider a competition or test tak- ing. Being a little nervous helps you prepare and perform well; however, being overly anxious interferes with your ability to perform.

When the stressors associated with boredom and frustration put the amygdala in that hyper- metabolic state, incoming information is diverted to the lower, involuntary, reactive brain (see Figure 4.1). Without access to the prefrontal cortex, there is failure to form long-term memories, and behavioral reactions are now involuntary and not mediated by judgment. This routing to the lower reactive brain makes sense for survival in mammals living in unpredict- able environments where real threats exist and survival requires quick shifts of information processing and reactions to the autonomic nervous system. However, today’s students and workers do not live in that type of precarious environment and do not benefit from having a highly reactive system that shifts control to the lower brain when stress increases. Neverthe- less, the human brain has not evolved much beyond that of other mammals regarding the stress response.

Figure 4.1: The effect of stress on information flow

An individual’s level of stress when processing information will determine where it goes next.

REACTIVE lower brain

automatic fight, flight, or freeze responseInformation enters

the amygdala

REFLECTIVE “thinking brain” (prefrontal cortex)

conscious thought, decision making, judgment

Amygdala

Prefrontal cortex

stress

no stress

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Section 4.2 The Reactive Nervous System

Figure 4.1: The effect of stress on information flow

An individual’s level of stress when processing information will determine where it goes next.

REACTIVE lower brain

automatic fight, flight, or freeze responseInformation enters

the amygdala

REFLECTIVE “thinking brain” (prefrontal cortex)

conscious thought, decision making, judgment

Amygdala

Prefrontal cortex

stress

no stress

Learning requires students to take risks as they are stretched beyond the comfort zone of things they already know. The brain needs to expend effort to manage attention and develop understanding of new information. In contrast to the example of boredom and attention above, when individuals successfully manage attention, fluent information processing can occur. This might refer to a state called “flow.” When flow occurs, an individual is absorbed in the activity and experiences positive affect and intrinsic reward (Nakamura & Csikszentmi- haly, 2002). When students or workers don’t have opportunities to build positive connections to new learning, they are more susceptible to shifting into the stress-reactive state. As you’ll read in the following sections, their brains will then often seek ways to escape from the stress of frustration or search for other sources of stimulation.

Stressors and the Fixed Mindset

One of the ways the brain seeks to escape from stress is to shut down. The brain conserves its resources. The expenditure of its voluntary effort is linked to the expectation of positive out- comes such as the pleasure reward of the dopamine response. Its response to repeated effort without positive outcomes prompts subsequent withholding of effort for similar endeavors in the future.

REACTIVE lower brain

automatic fight, flight, or freeze responseInformation enters

the amygdala

REFLECTIVE “thinking brain” (prefrontal cortex)

conscious thought, decision making, judgment

Amygdala

Prefrontal cortex

stress

no stress

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Section 4.2 The Reactive Nervous System

The human brain has a similar survival mandate as that of the fox we met in Chapter 2. In survival terms, effort is withheld when past experiences predict failure. This is a beneficial response for survival of our fox that lives in a region where prey is limited. Recall that his den is surrounded by two hills to which prey escape. One of those hills is particularly steep and covered by dense underbrush in which the prey hides such that the fox’s pursuits of prey up that hill generally fail. It would not be to his survival benefit for the fox to repeatedly chase prey up that hill. To do so is to exert effort, in this case energy, without likelihood of achieving the goal of an energy-restoring meal. It is in the interest of his survival that his brain ulti- mately develops a mindset that deters him from chasing prey up that hill.

Some students have economic, familial, psychological, or physical hardships and come to school already burdened by these stressors. This further reduces their resilience in response to overcoming school stressors. For other students, past experiences of embarrassment or mistakes due to difficulties with language, speech, or learning that have inhibited their suc- cess present school stressors that heighten their susceptibility to the stress reaction.

Student negativity grows progressively year after year with repeated failures or frequent or sustained boredom or frustration. Their stress reactions become more frequent, and their effort, as well as their knowledge acquisition, diminishes. Through the work of Carol Dweck and her colleagues (Dweck, 2007), this problem is identified as a fixed mindset of beliefs that students acquire when their efforts toward goal success repeatedly fail. As expectations of failure increase, students develop the belief that their intelligence and skills are predeter- mined, limited, and unchangeable; they come to believe effort is fruitless. Their brains become less likely to extend the effort necessary to persevere, and they fall behind in knowledge acquisition. Without the needed foundation of knowledge to understand subsequent instruc- tion, the gap widens further and they become even more susceptible to the onset of the stress- related blockade.

The fixed mindset is similar to learned helplessness that was investigated by Overmier and Seligman (1967). In their experiment dogs were subjected to repeated shocks without the opportunity to escape. Later the dogs were put in a similar situation; however, this time the dogs had the opportunity to successfully escape. Rather than escape, though, the dogs gave up and accepted the shock, suggesting that the exposure to the inescapable event taught the dogs to give up; they learned to stop trying. Your students or workers may go through a simi- lar experience if they experience repeated failures.

A later experiment by Seligman, Maier, and Greer (1968), though, found that learned helplessness in dogs can be alleviated by physically manipulating dogs. In

this experiment the dogs were first exposed to the inescapable shock. Later, when they were exposed to the condition where they could escape the shocks and did not, the experimenters pulled the dogs out of the shock area and into a safe area. Once the dogs discovered that they could escape the shocks, they began escaping on their own. This experiment would seem to suggest that learned helplessness and fixed mindsets are changeable. By showing individuals

Ask Yourself Most people have a fixed mindset about something; some people believe they are horrible at math, or that they can’t dance or play sports, and so they simply stop trying to get better at those things. What have you developed a fixed mindset about? What were the circumstances that led to this mindset? What circumstances would need to change in order for you to feel that you could succeed?

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Section 4.2 The Reactive Nervous System

that they have the power to improve and providing opportunities for them to succeed you can reduce the feelings of helplessness they may have.

Fixed mindsets or learned helplessness can exist for individuals across the lifespan and are not classroom specific. They generally begin to develop when people are exposed to events that are unpredictable, inescapable, or uncontrollable (as evidenced in the study on dogs and shock). This is because these types of events leave an individual feeling like they have no con- trol over outcomes. As a result, fixed mindsets may develop in students at any point during the school years, or they may develop at any point during an individual’s career. Recognizing this type of mindset in learners or employees is important. When you recognize a fixed mind- set, you can provide experiences that are predictable and controllable and begin to change an individual’s mindset.

Meeting the Needs of Individual Learners: Emotional Issues

In the best of circumstances, children and adolescents would be surrounded by love, nurturance, good friends, intact families, stellar genetics, and, well, good luck. Too often, however, this is not the case. Children and adolescents are faced with many internal and external stressors while they are developing, such as divorce, moving, or death or illness in the family, just to name a few. When these stressors are coupled with genetic predispositions to mental illness, various medical disorders, and poor coping styles, managing life can become difficult. Even with all the positive experiences a child might have, situations may become overwhelming such that depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide, addiction, eating disorders, and mental illness can set in.

It is estimated that approximately 3–5% of children and adolescents are affected by depression, and recent evidence has found clinical depression in children as young as 3 years old (Bhatia & Bhatia, 2007; Luby, 2009). According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), approximately 8% of teens 13–18 years old have an anxiety disorder with symptoms evident around the age of 6. Additionally, eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts and tendencies are generally more common in individuals with anxiety and depressive disorders.

Academic performance and cognitive functioning are impacted in children who are depressed and anxious. Children with depressive symptomatology often display decreased attention span, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and poor memory. Additionally, children displaying anxious, depressed, and withdrawn symptoms can demonstrate a decrease in general intellectual functioning for both verbal and nonverbal abilities, language, visual construction skills, attention and processing speed, executive functioning, verbal learning and memory, and psychomotor speed (Lundy, 2010). Generally speaking, children who demonstrate symptoms of depression and anxiety may have difficulty learning new information and require additional attention, care, and consideration in the classroom.

Educators and professionals working with individuals who may have mental health issues should understand the warning signs and presenting symptoms. Depression often presents as a change in appetite, mood, and sleep as well as fatigue, guilt, lack of interest, and feelings of worthlessness. In adolescents, depression might present with additional symptoms such as increased anger, agitation, and acting out behaviors (substance use, running away, or stealing). Oftentimes, children who are acting out and experiencing significant issues are

(continued)

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Section 4.3 Emotional Climate

“crying out for help.” Try to get to know these children and develop a relationship with them. These children are often looking for someone to care about them and talk to them. Children or adolescents with anxiety may show excessive worry or fear, significant distress over school or social situations, and somatic complaints such as stomachaches or headaches.

Professionals must understand their needs and symptoms and make appropriate referrals and recommendations. This may include referrals to the school psychologist, clinical psychologist, social worker, or other mental health providers in the community. Be flexible. Given the research above, sometimes these children or adolescents may need extra time to finish an assignment or take a test. Without compromising your standards, allow for modifications. Provide these students with education about their symptoms. They might not know what they are experiencing. Discuss healthy lifestyle choices and offer some positive coping and problem-solving strategies. Work on setting goals with these students and find what motivates them. Positively reinforce any action these individuals are taking toward improvement. These children and adolescents need to know that they have support to get through their difficult times—that support can start with you.

Joanna Savarese, Ph.D.

Meeting the Needs of Individual Learners (continued)

4.3 Emotional Climate A positive emotional state is essential to sustain successful learning and performance. Fred- rickson (1998) proposed that positive emotions broaden an individual’s thoughts and actions, and help build personal resources for individuals. In a review on how positive emotion can influence cognition, Ashby, Isen, and Turken (1999) report that positive emotion has the abil- ity to increase cognitive flexibility. Thus, increasing positive emotion in your classroom or workplace can help individuals think about problems they face in different ways. Ashby et al. (1999) also report that in many studies examining positive emotion and cognition, positive emotion is induced in ways that individuals can experience every day—for example, through humor, receiving an unexpected gift, or having success on a small task. The following sec- tions will focus on interventions and strategies that can promote a positive climate and build internal emotional resources to prevent or reduce the stress blockade that interferes with learning and behavior.

Community

A supportive class community is one with trust between the educator and the students and among the students. Students in a supportive class community do not harbor the fear that their instructor or classmates could harm their emotions, property, or bodies. Students in these classrooms are more self-confident, participate even when mistakes are possible, and collaborate successfully. In a study examining the relationship between classroom environ- ment and student outcomes in geography and math classes, higher student achievement was associated with greater classroom cohesiveness. Additionally, the research illustrated that

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Section 4.3 Emotional Climate

teacher support, task orientation, and equity in the classroom was associated with more posi- tive attitudes and self-esteem (Chionh & Fraser, 2009). Enhanced student learning and the ability to translate knowledge into practice are associated with the development of learning communities in higher education (Cross, 1998; Shapiro, 1998). In positive classroom climates students are able to exchange ideas, are motivated by interest and relevance to acquire the available knowledge, and actively participate in learning.

The findings that positive environments are associated with better learning and performance are not limited to the traditional classroom. Research in online learn- ing suggests that a consistent course structure, a valued and dynamic discussion in the course, and an instructor who frequently interacts with students in a construc- tive way can all increase course success (Swan, 2001). Additionally, as previously noted, research has illus- trated that stress in the workplace is associated with decreased performance (Fairbrother & Wern, 2003). However, Bono, Foldes, Vinson, and Muros (2007) found that transformational leadership in the workplace produced more optimism, happi- ness, and enthusiasm in employees. Transformational leadership is a leadership style that encourages creativity, offers support, and provides motivation. It would appear, then, that positive interactions with supervisors can promote positive emotions and perhaps influence overall work climate and customer satisfaction (Bono et al., 2007). Similarly, these same types of positive interactions with educators could also promote more success in the classroom. Strategies for building classroom community include beginning-of-the-year peer interviews, interest and expert charts, and the development of student mindfulness. With some adapta- tion, these strategies can also be applied in the workplace.

Peer Interviews Peer interviews, usually held at the beginning of the year, are appropriate for all grade lev- els and subjects. They provide a unique opportunity for students in the class to get to know each other. In general, the peer interview occurs between students who did not previously know each other, or did not know each other well. Pairs interview each other and spend time together discovering one another’s interests, talents, and travel experiences, as well as favor- ite things, from foods to films. Allowing students to meet in pairs helps reduce some of the fears that they might have interacting with a larger group of individuals. It also promotes community by teaching students to take the time to get to know each other.

For younger students, peer interview presentations would be done as short introductions of partners to the class. Older students would also “introduce” partners to the class and use subject-related tools or topics of study in their introductions. In math class, introductions could include pie graphs to illustrate the amount of time partners spend in a typical day on each activity (sleeping, eating, listening to music, doing homework, playing sports, check- ing Facebook, and practicing a musical instrument). In history class, interests and cultural background or customs could be represented as if illustrations for the coat of arms that rep- resented families during medieval times.

Ask Yourself What was the best class you’ve ever had? Describe the emotional climate. Conversely, think of the worst class you’ve ever had, and its emotional climate. How big of a role do you think this played in your fondness or dislike for these particular classes?

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Section 4.3 Emotional Climate

Online class discussion boards can be used to complete the peer interview process. Students can be placed into groups of two or more and can be instructed to interview each other. After the initial interview is conducted, students could “introduce” their partner or partners to the entire class in a larger group discussion. The peer interview process can also be made more in-depth by completing class interest charts.

Class Interest and Expert Charts Class interest charts are similar to the interview in terms of building individual student com- fort and starting off the year promoting student bonding. The goals of forming these class interest charts include creating the opportunity for students to be recognized for expertise and to find classmates with whom they share common interests, and providing a springboard for follow-up conversations and friendships.

Depending on the grade of students, either the instructor or groups of students working together would indicate lists or collages of photographs/drawings of students who share commonalities, such as We love computer games, Our Class Musicians, Check out our class- mates who have special collections, Our Class Cartoonists (webpage designers, skit writers, bloggers, etc.).

Part of the reason for the emphasis on student experts is to help individual students experi- ence their own self-worth through the eyes of classmates. Particularly for students who may be challenged by traditional academics, when seen as an expert in art, computer technology, or dramatic flair for participating in skits, these students feel more appreciated and valued by their group mates when they are assigned to collaborative group activities.

While interviews and interest charts are not necessarily appropriate for the workplace, other similar activities might be. For example, peer mentorship is a process by which two indi- viduals exchange knowledge and skills in a nurturing and respective atmosphere (Bryson, 2005). Establishing this type of relationship between new and old employees could be a way to reduce stress and negative emotion that might exist when starting a new position. New employees could be paired with older employees, who could provide support and advice for dealing with common workplace issues. In this way, new employees would get introduced to the workplace by older employees. Bryson (2002) suggests that the encouragement and sup- port that are provided during peer mentoring enhance self-esteem and self-confidence.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness refers to narrowing one’s focus to the experiences or sensory input occurring in the present, such as recognizing and evaluating one’s own emotional state. Mindfulness also refers to the building of one’s emotional self-awareness and self-control with skill sets that can be used to reduce stress and promote reflecting before reacting. Mindfulness can be an effective tool to help students manage the stress associated with being a student and to help students develop better focus and attention in the classroom (Mapel, 2012). Schonert- Reichl and Lawlor (2010) found that a mindfulness intervention in pre- and early adolescents

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Section 4.3 Emotional Climate

improved teacher-rated attention and concentration and social emotional competence in students. Additionally, the students in the program had an increase in optimism. Mindful- ness has also been found to decrease anxiety in students diagnosed with learning disabilities (Beauchemin, Hutchins, & Patterson, 2008).

Two critical aspects to building mindfulness involve building focus on the moment to help students recognize that they can identify their emotional states and having them evaluate when their emotions are increasing in intensity. Recall from the literature on the ANS and emotions that feelings of emotion are generally interpreted when we get feedback from changes in bodily systems, such as heart rate and blood pressure. As such, being aware of how the changes in our bodies are influencing us can be an important tool for controlling emo- tions. Recall from Chapter 3 that being aware of your thoughts is referred to as metacognition. Metacognition is also important in emotional regulation because we need to be aware of our feelings to control and understand them. The amount of time and frequency of the mindful activities would vary depending on students’ age and grade in school.

An example would be a fifth-grade class for which this first part of the awareness training could take place over 2 weeks. During the first week, a timer would indicate on the hour that it is time for students to check in on their current emotional state. To help with this you can have a wall chart showing various emoticons of faces with a single word describing the emotional state. For younger children, there will be fewer choices and with older grades more choices. The choices of the fifth-grade class could include the emotions of anger, frustration, sadness, happiness, and boredom. For older individuals, the more complex range of emotions shown in Figure 4.2 may be appropriate. With the prompt of the timer, students would simply look at the wall chart and either copy the face or write down the word representing their emotional state. There would not need to be any discussion, and routine activities would continue.

After doing this for approximately 1 week, the next step would be for students to build their awareness of the level of their emotional state. Particular attention is given to whether a neg- ative emotion is increasing in intensity. The timer would still go off every hour, and students would identify their emotional state using the wall chart. The difference would be that now if they were experiencing the same emotion as the previous hour, they would make an arrow to indicate whether the intensity of that emotion increased, decreased, or remained the same.

During these 2 weeks, there would also be discussions in which students would increase their awareness of their abilities to recognize their own emotional states, something that many students do not actually recognize as an ability they possess. The other discussion would be about recognizing when they have negative emotional states, especially if these are increasing in intensity, so that they could employ strategies they learn to stop that negative trend.

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Section 4.3 Emotional Climate

Other strategies can be employed as well, such as mindful breathing and calming visualiza- tions, which can also help students improve their emotional self-control. It’s important to practice these strategies when students are in neutral states so that students can employ them when situations call for them. The choice of which strategy to utilize would be up to the students.

Figure 4.2: Plutchik’s wheel of human emotions

Psychologist and professor Robert Plutchik originally devised a “wheel of human emotions” in 1980. Students or individuals can reference a similar wheel to stay mindful of their feelings both in and out of class.

Adapted from Plutchik, R. (2001, July–August). Wheel of human emotions. American Scientist, 89(4), p. 349.

grief

terror

admiration

ecstasy

joy

trust

fear

vigilance

rage

loathing amazement

surprise

sadness

disgust

anger

anticipation

acceptance

apprehension

distraction

pensiveness

boredom

annoyance

interest

serenity

lo ve

subm issio

awe

disapproval

con tem

re m

or se

aggressiveness

optim ism

grief

terror

admiration

ecstasy

joy

trust

fear

vigilance

rage

loathing amazement

surprise

sadness

disgust

anger

anticipation

acceptance

apprehension

distraction

pensiveness

boredom

annoyance

interest

serenity

lo ve

subm issio

awe

disapproval

con tem

re m

or se

aggressiveness

optim ism

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Section 4.3 Emotional Climate

Even without a formal program of mindfulness, strategies are available that may suit stu- dents’ needs for situations that are discovered to be stressors that limit their cognition and behavioral self-control. For example, if students seem to act out or zone out when listening to classmates during shared reading or when students give reports, consider ways to engage those students in listening to the content for the benefit of their learning and also, more importantly, to reduce the downward spiral of their stress reactions. Such an instance could be an opportunity for them to sketch or make diagrams that reflect their interpretation of the content of what their classmate is reading or reporting. Not only can this increase engage- ment, memory, and behavioral self-control, but it can also reduce other consequences that take place when the lower reactive brain is in control and unproductive behavior ensues, such as writing on desks and books or frequently getting up out of their seats, or worse.

In the online world incorporating mindfulness into your classroom would be more difficult because you are unable to observe students while they are working; however, it is possible. In fact, some mindfulness programs are even taught online. First, students will need to be edu- cated about mindfulness. This could be done through the use of embedded video clips, lec- ture material, or readings. After students understand how mindfulness can be important, you can provide opportunities for it in your course design. For example, at the beginning of your lecture material, you might include some instructions for students to engage in meditation for 5–10 minutes before beginning the lecture—or the instructions to engage in meditation could come in the middle or at the end of the lecture, or they could precede tests or exams. Another option might be to conduct a weekly Skype™ session with students. You could check in with them about course concepts and understanding and provide a quick 5- to 10-minute mindfulness session.

The benefits of mindfulness have also been evaluated in the workplace. Dane and Brummel (2013) found that mindfulness in restaurant service workers was positively associated with job performance. Mindfulness and meditation trainings have also been found to increase work engagement (Leroy, Anseel, Dimitrova, & Sels, 2013). These findings suggest that mind- fulness would be an important skill to increase in workers. However, in a review of research on mindfulness in the workplace, Dane (2010) argues that mindfulness produces a state of consciousness that can either inhibit or foster task performance, depending on the situation. For example, mindfulness leads to increased breadth of attention. Although this might seem helpful, individuals attending to so many details may miss critical elements while focusing on more trivial pieces of information. Additionally, individuals lacking expertise may attend to their own intuitions that are incorrect or biased, which would again lead to decreased perfor- mance. Experts, though, would be influenced in the opposite direction. By paying attention to their intuitions that are based on experience, their performance would be more effective.

In contrast, there could be situations where being aware of a wide variety of stimuli is helpful. Dane argues that situations that are dynamic or changing could be improved by an increased breadth of attention. To support this idea, Dane provides the examples of a professor engag- ing in and moderating a discussion. This provides a dynamic situation, where attention to multiple sources of information is necessary. As a result, it may be important to consider the type of job individuals are performing and their level of expertise to determine if mindfulness is an appropriate intervention. To implement mindfulness in the workplace, training could be offered before or after the workday or during the lunch hour. A variety of mindfulness pro- grams exist, including those designed to reduce stress.

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Section 4.3 Emotional Climate

Brain Breaks

The use of a brain break is quite valuable to keep stress from getting too high. Especially after more directed-type lectures, drills, or tests, a 3- to 5-minute brain break provides an opportu- nity for neurotransmitters to be restored in the part of the brain that was particularly active in processing the information of the preceding 15 to 20 minutes. The brain break also allows the amygdala to decrease its metabolic activity. It is not necessary for the brain break to be a termination of learning, but only an opportunity to process information in a different way. For example, if students were listening to a lecture, the brain break synapse after 15 or 20 minutes could be for them to mentally manipulate the learning with a peer-share discussion or with a representation of the learning through a diagram, a sketch, or physical movement.

Dopamine boosters also provide excellent brain-break tools. You can tell an anecdote, ask students about their experiences that relate to the subject area, or connect the topic to areas of general student interest. A 2- to 3-minute mental vacation to enable students to self-calm can be simply a quiet time of listening to the birds or the wind blowing outside; listening to you read a few pages of a book they enjoy; an opportunity to use guided visualization to think about the information they just learned; or standing up, stretching, and having a drink of water.

Another use of the brain break is the opportunity to mentally process information by taking notes. If students are required to take notes on a lecture, their focus is on catching the infor- mation and getting it down in writing. Note taking that students try to perform while simul- taneously listening to directed lecture tends to be a passive process whereby data just passes from the instructors’ words to students’ pens without being mentally processed.

As a general rule, use the brain break to keep students’ brains alert in elementary school after 5 to 10 minutes of concentrated learning from directed lecture or drills. In middle school or high school, that could be increased to longer intervals, depending on the complexity of the topic. No more than 20 minutes maximum should elapse before a brain break is provided.

Brain breaks can also be used in the online teaching environment and in the workplace. In the online world, questions could be inserted at different points of lecture materials to give stu- dents a break from readings. Students could also be instructed to access different interactive websites that allow them to see how the concept you are discussing works. Neuroscience for Kids (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html)* is a great website for students of all ages that provides information, curiosities, and interactive games to build understand- ing about the brain and how knowledge relates to a child’s own life. For example, in a biologi- cal psychology class that is discussing the blind spot on the retina, students could be instructed to visit the following website to find their blind spot: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ chvision.html.* At work employees could be given brief breaks to assess where they are at and how they should move forward. For example, after working for an hour, employees could be instructed to take note of what they have accomplished and what they need to do next.

Links used by permission of Professor Eric Chudler.

The Brain at Work

The restorative effects of a brain break are crucial in many lines of work, such as manufacturing and assembly. For factory workers, focusing on a complex task of connecting small pieces onto a circuit board repeatedly activates the same neural networks that hold that procedural memory, as well as networks of motor control that direct their muscles to perform the correct actions. Even in a low-stress situation where the factory workers are experienced, the repetitive activation of the same neural networks will eventually reduce the amount of neurotransmitters in those areas, such as dopamine, and the tedium can become an amygdala-blocking stressor after the sustained repetition of the task. After an appropriate physical and mental brain break, the assembly line workers will return to their tasks with their amygdalas at lower stress levels and with restoration of their neurotransmitter levels so that efficiency is regained.

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http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chvision.html

Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Brain Breaks

Links used by permission of Professor Eric Chudler.

The Brain at Work

4.4 The Video Game Model What can be done to improve the mindset of students who had experienced negativity, fail- ure, and the eroding away of their confidence? To answer this question, consider what activi- ties young people do participate in where despite repeated failure, setbacks, and increasingly challenging work, they persevere—yes, video games. The elements of the video game model are such that they can be deconstructed from the video game and reconstructed for class- room instruction.

What are the components that make the video game so intrinsically motivating? The most popular video games, in which players persevere despite setbacks and increasing challenge, have three major elements: goal buy-in, achievable challenge, and frequent feedback en route to the final goal. Essentially, when playing a video game, the player is usually at her achiev- able challenge level; that is, the level is both achievable and challenging. While playing at that level to acquire mastery, there are frequent opportunities for players to use trial and error and have immediate feedback as to whether their choices were successful or not. They can then use that feedback to immediately make adjustments and alter their actions and find out if the new choices are successful. When their choice or prediction is wrong, they know they will always have a chance to immediately make another choice. Through experience, they have found that despite frequent errors they do eventually improve and make incremen- tal progress to their goals.

One of the primary reasons that individuals report engaging in video games is to enhance positive and learning-productive emotional states (Granic, Lobel, & Engels, 2014). Increased relaxation and decreased anxiety have been noted after playing games that are highly acces- sible and that have short-term commitments (Russoniello et al., 2009). As a result, you can increase positive emotion in your classroom by applying some of the principles of video games

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http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chvision.html

Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

in your teaching. As previously described in this chapter, positive emotion can be important in helping decrease the brain’s stress response and helpful in getting information to the pre- frontal cortex.

Consider an example of a video game player. The player engages in a game with levels 1 to 10 and is clear on what the goal is with respect to what happens when each level is mastered. The player also knows the ultimate goal of the game—for example, saving the earth from a devastating asteroid collision. Goal buy-in is clear and it is motivating even though it is merely fantasy.

The next aspect of their perseverance is the achievable challenge. Recall that achieving a challenge results in a big boost from the dopamine-reward system. Gameplay starts for all at level 1, but if the players already have mastery of the task required at level 1, they will, within a few moves, be automatically advanced to level 2. There is no waiting for other game players in their room or across the country to master level 1; it is simply the player’s individual mas- tery that results in the immediate progression to level 2. The player then attempts mastery of level 2, and then level 3. Each level will escalate in difficulty, and the player will likely fail an increasing number of times before attaining mastery. But perseverance is high because the goals of each level are clearly defined, and the player has been taught from previous game- play that the initial difficulty can be overcome with continued effort. The player knows, in short, that each new task is achievable with practice.

With goal clarity and the recognition that the mastery they need to achieve is within the realm of possibility, players begin to make predictions in the form of choices. They will move in one direction and have immediate feedback that it was not a successful prediction. They may lose points or they may not progress. However, rather than interpreting that error as inability to achieve mastery, they actually use the feedback to adapt their next move. If their aim was too far to the left, they may alter their predictions and move more to the right. Seasoned players continue to persevere even when the predictions or choices that they’re making as they build mastery are incorrect up to 80% of the time!

The dopamine reward has now occurred through two aspects of their play. They’ve made predictions as they were building mastery. Although many predictions were incorrect, when

they did make a correct prediction, they immediately saw that it was correct because they advanced. You’ll recall that another big booster of dopamine is making a prediction and finding out that it is correct. Thus they have the frequent mini boosts of dopamine with cor- rect predictions and at least 10 times during a 10-level game as they receive feedback that they have achieved a challenge and are now at a new level of play.

Further evidence of their desire for challenge can be seen in what happens if players are promoted to a new level when their brains do not recognize challenge. If

when the player begins a new level, despite the differences in some of the avatars and back- ground, the actual task that needs to be mastered is recognized even unconsciously as a task that has already been mastered, the motivation to keep playing drops. Their brains respond to

Ask Yourself Have you ever become addicted to a video game? If so, what game was it, and why do you think that is? If you’ve never become addicted to a video game, what are some aspects that you found off-putting or disengaging?

Michael H/Photodisc/Getty Images

Video games give players immediate positive feed- back upon achievement, such as a banner saying, “Congratulations, you won the race!” How will you translate this dopamine-boosting reward into your learning environment?

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

The dopamine reward has now occurred through two aspects of their play. They’ve made predictions as they were building mastery. Although many predictions were incorrect, when

Further evidence of their desire for challenge can be seen in what happens if players are promoted to a new level when their brains do not recognize challenge. If

Michael H/Photodisc/Getty Images

this absence in novelty and challenge with what many young people express frequently: boredom. Recall from ear- lier in the chapter that boredom is associated with negative emotional states and a lack of attention. Addition- ally, the lack of attention can lead the individual to evaluate the stimulus in a negative way. So, individuals begin to evaluate the game in a negative way when they become bored. The player will stop wanting to play the game as the brain becomes aware that there will be no possible dopamine reward because there will be no challenge to overcome.

What the brain and therefore the player is looking for at each new level is harder work and greater challenge so that there is the renewed opportu- nity to achieve that goal and get the big

dopamine boost of intrinsic satisfaction for having done so. Additionally, the positive emo- tions created by the dopamine boost and the feelings of satisfaction in playing the game will help information reach the prefrontal cortex. Recall that when the amygdala is highly active, it is likely to activate the lower, more reactive brain. However, when positive emotions are being processed, information is more likely to be passed to the prefrontal cortex. This chain of information processing allows the individual to solve problems more effectively because the prefrontal cortex has access to memory and can guide the decision-making processes.

The Video Game Model in Learning Context

When is the video game model most useful as classroom instruction? Stepwise progression and individualized development of mastery with frequent feedback are particularly impor- tant when classroom instruction is primarily foundational for the ultimate construction of conceptual understanding and memory.

The strategies of the video game model for the development of foundational facts and proce- dures are especially valuable for students with negativity and fixed mindsets that have devel- oped because of repeated failures or frequent stressors of boredom or frustration. It is in these students that the achievement of challenges and recognition of incremental goal prog- ress can build resilience and growth mindsets. A growth mindset is the opposite of a fixed mindset. Rather than feeling helpless about their abilities, students with a growth mindset feel confident in their ability to learn and change their brains. The next three sections detail how the components of the video game model can be reconstructed in the classroom by way of buy-in, achievable challenge, and frequent feedback.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Buy-In

Goal buy-in is the first step. What we need to make clear at the beginning of a new unit in the classroom is what the goals are and what it will take to achieve them. This principle can also be applied in any type of organization. Individuals at work or who join a weight loss program or a mindfulness program should be aware of what the goals are and what they need to do to achieve these goals. Students and individuals will be more likely to participate when they have clear instructions about goal achievement and if they understand how these goals relate to them. Goal buy-in is important for all learning in order to motivate the brain to extend its limited resources of energy. The brain has the self-preservation programming such that its resources are most likely to be applied when there is recognition that the effort will result in a desired goal. Desired goals in the video game model offer the intrinsic satisfaction of dopamine-reward pleasure. Let’s consider how you can modify the presentation of topics that are unlikely to be recognized by students as having the potential to yield pleasure.

Fostering Personal Connections Buy-in can often be achieved by relating the material to students’ personal interest. By making information more interesting, you decrease the likelihood that indi- viduals will become bored with the material and evalu- ate it negatively. You also increase the likelihood that students will be able to experience flow in the class- room and that information being presented will be able to pass through the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex. For example, if you know that a student is particularly interested in all things about boats, if the topic of study is buoyancy or the navigators to the New World, you can make it clear at the beginning that part of the unit

will include boats or navigation. Using the students’ interests, you can let them know how some of the ways that they will be practicing or building upon their understanding of the information will be through their interests. If they have interest in navigation and the topic is the Civil War, you could let the students know that part of the learning will include looking at original source material—sketches and newspaper articles—about the naval battles that were pivotal in the war.

Of course, to relate learning to students’ individual interests means knowing what your students find interesting. Some of the more formalized ways of acquiring this information include the peer interviews described earlier and the use of interest inventories whereby students report their interests, hobbies, types of books they like to read, collections, club memberships, occupational interests, and what other educators have done that made learn- ing interesting in the past. The data can also simply come from observations of students gen- erally, such as comments students make about their weekends, past experiences that relate to current learning, etc. In the online environment you can use information that students pres- ent in discussions to help you determine their interests.

An example of using the data you collect on students would be using the information to create sample problems in a math lesson. It will be of high interest to the class when they hear you enrich the problem with things you’ve learned about their classmates, including the names

Ask Yourself In what aspects of your life beyond education has buy-in been important for your involvement? Examples could be deciding to go along with friends to do something on a weeknight, or taking a job that you were at first hesitant about. Describe the circumstances that led up to your decision, as well as what ultimately prompted you to “buy in.”

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

of siblings, sports they play, and organizations they’re members of. Here’s an example: When Sofia left for soccer practice with her team, the Falcons, she was disappointed she had to bring her younger brother, Manny, along with her. It made taking Manny just a little bit less annoy- ing when her parents said that he could sit on the sidelines with Sofia’s dog, Bingo. They also told her that she would not have to watch her brother for the whole game, but just enough time for them to drive 10 miles each way to visit a friend and drop off a birthday present. If they drive an average speed of 40 miles per hour and spend 10 minutes visiting their friend, how long will Sofia need to keep an eye on Manny during soccer practice?

Other ways to help students recognize that some of the upcoming topics of study will relate course material to their lives or the world around them include:

• watching a video clip on a website such as the Futures Channel that relates math and science to interesting phenomena.

• discussing a topic of general interest to the students and then connecting that with the coming unit.

• reading a few paragraphs from the chapter students will be reading in any subject area. Select a paragraph that is particularly engaging or curious and stop after read- ing the one paragraph. Be prepared with the second paragraph to be equally curious and engaging so that when students ask you to read one more you’ll be ready to fol- low up with another one they find enjoyable.

• posting photographs of the students in previous years’ classes engaged in some activ- ity that will be part of the learning that takes place in the upcoming unit. They will also be excited to recognize students in the photos, who are a year ahead of them, engaged in the activity they will do. This is the positive peer influence of the “older kids” doing something that they’ll be doing. Before posting photographs, though, you should check with your district. Some school districts may require appropriate paper- work to be completed before photos of students can be posted.

Previewing Fun and Engaging Activity Everyone is more engaged in an activity when they have something to look forward to. Know- ing that there will be a related and enjoyable activity as part of a unit of study will increase students’ receptiveness to the lessons. Letting students know that they will create a video as part of building understanding or they will be watching the animated version of Romeo and Juliet after reading the book will increase buy-in.

Employees, too, will benefit from knowing that something enjoyable will come from their efforts. For example, appreciation parties could be held when workers reach a certain goal. Employees could work toward an extra sick day, time off, or any number of rewards that are appropriate for a particular job or occupation.

Clearly Defined, Authentic Goals Goals themselves need to be clear and relevant to students for them to have the goal buy-in that motivates avid video game players. It is especially valuable to be clear from the start what the goals of the learning will be and to communicate these goals early, including your expectations. Incorporate the goals you develop for student relevance into the goals you are

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

required to achieve based on the curriculum. Merge these as much as possible so they want to know what you have to teach, with goals they feel are worthy of their effort and achievable.

If possible, invite students to consider their personal goals related to the topic and how they would like to see the instruction incorporate their goals. When students create goals to include their interests and desires, they will approach learning experiences with more perseverance.

One way to start out a unit so that students are able to consider sharing their personal goals for learning is with a KWL chart. For a review of this strategy, see “KWL and Need to Know Boards” in Section 3.5. As learning progresses, the mobility of items on this student-created chart shows students their progress and how their requests as to learning topics are being addressed.

Goals that are authentic in terms of real-world problems also increase motivation. For exam- ple, while studying ecosystems, it is important for students to know they will be working on a project that actually can reduce local ecosystem damage such as pollution or overdevelop- ment. It boosts goal buy-in further for them to know there will be an authentic audience to receive the information they compile, such as a local commissioner or the editor of the local newspaper.

Make Students the Instructor Having students teach the lesson to students in a lower grade can also be a motivating source of buy-in, as long as students feel that the task is achievable. There can be variations in the level of difficulty in planning based on the grade level of the students to which your students will teach the lesson. There could also be an increase in their comfort zones when they plan and teach the lessons with a buddy or small group. This project gives students the options of different ways of teaching the information to the younger students with opportunities to engage through their strengths.

Students can also be assigned to teach lessons to students in their class. In an examination of peer teaching in an anatomy lab, 100% of students reported that teaching the topics increased their understanding. Additionally, 92% of students also felt the experience increased their communication skills (Krych et al., 2005), illustrating that peer teaching can have benefits that might apply to other areas of life as well. Gregory, Walker, McLaughlin, and Peets (2011) examined the effects of preparing to teach and teaching peers in medical students. Their results illustrated that both preparing to teach and teaching were related to increased reten- tion of material in comparison to students in a nonteaching group. Moreover, this retention persisted in a delayed post-test that was administered 60 days after the teaching occurred.

Peer teaching can also occur in the online environment. Many course management systems offer opportunities for students to prepare and present information on a course topic. Each student could be assigned to teach a concept from the course by creating a presentation. These presentations could be done synchronously, if possible for your class, or asynchro- nously using video or voice recording. Other students could be assigned to watch and critique the presentations as part of their grade.

Jetta Productions/Photodisc/Thinkstock

Encouraging students to present to the class will help both their memory and their communication skills.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

required to achieve based on the curriculum. Merge these as much as possible so they want to know what you have to teach, with goals they feel are worthy of their effort and achievable.

Jetta Productions/Photodisc/Thinkstock

Encouraging students to present to the class will help both their memory and their communication skills.

Peer teaching can also be an optimal method for adult learners. As a result, it would be a great method to imple- ment in higher education with non- traditional students, in training, or in the workplace. Adult learners bring an array of life lessons, experiences, and learning to the classroom (Donnelly- Smith, 2011). Peer teaching provides an opportunity for adult learners to show their expertise in the classroom, which can benefit all students. Similarly in the workplace, more experienced employees could train new employees on difficult concepts. These training sessions can be beneficial in terms of learning new knowledge, brushing up on skills, and enhancing social interac- tions between employees.

Achievable Challenge

Achieving challenges is a powerful motivator when students perceive the task is achiev- able and yet the challenge is difficult enough that students must exert enough effort to be rewarded via the dopamine-reward system. In describing how learning occurs in children, Vygotsky (1978) discusses a zone of actual development and a zone of proximal development (Figure 4.3). Vygotsky defines the zone of actual development as the level of development that the child’s mental functions are currently at. This level is determined by activities that the child can complete on his own. In contrast, the zone of proximal development is the distance between the child’s actual development and the child’s potential to develop under the supervision of an adult or capable peer. Vygotsky (1978) writes that the zone of proximal development illustrates the functions of the child that have not yet matured. Rather, they are in the process of maturing. Understanding someone’s actual development or development that has already occurred and understanding the zone of proximal development or the skills that are in the process of developing can help us select tasks that will be both achievable and challenging to the individual.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

In the most popular video games, the level of challenge is individualized and appropriate for the player, based on the preceding performance of tasks that demonstrate the skill mastery. As players improve and challenges are achieved, players move on to the next challenge level. At each of these level progressions, players are able to recognize the task mastery goal they need to achieve and know that with effort and practice they are capable of winning the chal- lenge. In the classroom, students need learning challenges to be appropriate to their abilities and background knowledge if they are to remain motivated to persevere.

When one of these two elements—either the achievability or the difficulty—is inappropriate, student motivation is diminished. Differentiation allows students to work at their achievable challenge level. The students who understand the new topic, if required to keep reviewing with the group, may become bored and therefore stressed. If it is too challenging, students will become frustrated. By participating in learning opportunities within their range of achievable challenge, students engage through expectation of positive experiences.

Consider the following examples in which there is either inadequate challenge or the chal- lenge is perceived as unachievable.

• You are dropped off at the top of a ski resort’s steepest run when you’ve only had experience on the beginner slopes.

• You have to spend your day on the bunny hill when you’re an expert skier.

Figure 4.3: Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development

Recognizing which tasks may be outside a student’s reach will help you implement appropriate and achievable challenges.

Source: Based on Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. In M. Gauvain & M. Cole (Eds.), Readings on the development of children (pp. 29–36). New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. (Reprinted from L. Vygotsky, Mind and society [pp. 79–91]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.)

What the student can

achieve alone

What the student can

achieve with help

What the student cannot

yet achieve

Zone of Actual Development

Zone of Proximal Development

What the student can

achieve alone

What the student can

achieve with help

What the student cannot

yet achieve

Zone of Actual Development

Zone of Proximal Development

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

• You play a game of darts with the target 2 feet away. • You play a game of darts with the target 200 feet away. • You are a sophomore in high school doing fourth-year undergraduate work. • You are an adult doing a crossword puzzle designed for children.

In these situations putting in the effort would not be appealing. If there were no other options, boredom or frustration would prompt the stress response and eventually a negative feeling for the activity. A way to think about individualized achievable challenge for students is as an opportunity for students to recognize their capability to be successful at an ambitious goal. If a challenge is too easy, a student will become bored, which leads to stress and ultimately disengagement from learning. If a challenge is too difficult, a student will experience frustra- tion and hopelessness, which also leads to the stress state. Especially when the goal is to over- come negativity with motivation, students need opportunities to progress at their individual levels of achievable challenge so they avoid detrimental states of stress blocking the passage of information through the amygdala. In heterogeneous classrooms, educators face difficulty in engaging all students in tasks that are achievable challenges to them. One way to solve this problem is by providing differentiation. Differentiation allows you to use different tasks for different levels of development in students. This process will be discussed later in the chapter when we discuss scaffolding.

Transform Textbook Subtitles Into Learning Steps In planning for students to recognize achievable challenge, the textbook can provide a resource. Chapters in textbooks are usually broken down into smaller subunits identified by chapter subtitles. These can be presented to students at the beginning of the unit to show that the unit goal will be one that is progressively achieved, with each new section building upon knowledge and skills learned in the preceding section. The problem is that most textbooks do not plan the subtitles to reveal a progression of achievable challenges. You, however, can rephrase the chapter subtitles and present these to students at the beginning of a unit in a way that enables them to see a stepwise progression of how they will build their understand- ing. The following example shows how subtitles in a unit on tectonic plates can be rephrased to be recognized as achievable challenges to students rather than individual incomprehen- sible or boring topics.

Original Chapter Subtitle Rephrased Chapter Subtitle

Driving forces of plate motion⟶ Ever break a dinner plate?

Floating continents and paleomagnetism⟶

Even huge barges can float.

Continental drift⟶ What happens to boats not anchored?

Formation and breakup of continents⟶

Do the continents fit together like puzzle pieces?

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Scaffolding As previously mentioned, levels of mastery are rarely the same for every student in a class at the same time. It is likely that there are students in your classes for whom the level of general instruction will at times be beyond their level of comfort, foundational knowledge, or lan- guage comprehension (referred to as their level of actual development). Just as likely, there will be students who already have reached mastery regarding the unit of study and will not be engaged by whole-class instruction. Additionally, not only are your students likely to be at different levels of actual development, but they are also likely to have different zones of proximal development. Some individuals will be able to solve problems well beyond their actual development with the help of an adult or peer, while other students will not be able to complete such tasks even with the help of an adult. Both groups of students are likely to become frustrated without the opportunity for achievable challenge, resulting in elevation of their stress levels to block effective learning and potential behavior problems. The process of development described by Vygotsky occurs throughout the lifespan. So, these principles of actual development and proximal development are important to understand in all types of classrooms, including online environments. You will always have some students who require more instruction and other students who require less instruction.

Pre-testing can be an important concept in your class to determine where your students are developmentally. Pre-testing allows you to discover what your students do and do not know about an upcoming lesson. Pre-testing can help you determine how to use your instruction time effectively as well. If all the students in your class are familiar with a topic, a pre-test can show you that you only need to briefly review the topic rather than lecture endlessly on it. Finally, using pre-testing in your lessons can help you determine how to differentiate achiev- able challenges for specific students. For example, a spelling pre-test may indicate that sev- eral students already know how to spell all of the upcoming words in the lesson. Rather than have these students participate in upcoming activities with the words, they could serve as peer tutors or help you plan some other aspect of the lesson. This idea of providing different tasks or different levels of assistance to different students based on their needs is referred to as scaffolding and was first discussed in Chapter 3.

Scaffolding is critical to support students’ perception that the challenge is achievable. Scaffold- ing can be used for building up foundational knowledge as well as for providing opportunities for more advanced work so that students with mastery can also enjoy the positive emotional state that comes from achieving challenges. Within Vygotsky’s theory of development, the zone of proximal development, or the difference between where individuals are and their potential, is considered the instructional level. This is the level where our teaching should be aimed to provide the greatest learning (Lui, 2012). Scaffolding provides the opportunity for us to target instruction to individual zones of proximal development in our classrooms.

Examples of scaffolding included in this section are informing students about frequent stu- dent mistakes, priming with previewing, and using strategies that increase reading compre- hension, flexible groupings, online learning games for building basic foundational knowledge, and flipped lessons.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Priming Some students, as a result of previous failures to achieve success or understand information about a certain topic, will have such high stress when a related topic of study is introduced in your class that they will not be responsive to your instruction, however brain-friendly it might be. You’ll often recognize these students when in their stress state they call out, “I don’t get it” even before you finish a statement or explanation.

Students who need more confidence or more activation of their prior knowledge to avoid the stress state when new information is introduced benefit from previewing or priming of the lesson in advance. In some cases the students can do this independently, but others will need help from their parents at home. The recommendation is for the student, with or with- out parental guidance, to simply read through or skim the chapter pages of the text that will be the topic of the next day’s class instruction. Explain to them that they are not expected to understand the information and that simply experiencing the single exposure of hearing it or reading it will decrease their stress when the instruction does start in class. Let them know how even that superficial familiarity will set their brains to be ready to receive new informa- tion because the previewing activates prior knowledge and introduces the unfamiliar words or terms so that they will hear them during instruction.

This strategy could be used in higher education as well. Struggling students could be assigned to complete readings early with tutors. In online learning you could post an

announcement or email students additional read- ings that have concepts explained in more simple terms. For example, if students are to read an in- depth journal article, you could email a summary of the journal article that has been published in a magazine or an article on the same topic that was published in a magazine. Completing the reading will introduce them to the topic and activate any prior knowledge they have about the topic.

Often after using the previewing strategy for sev- eral weeks, students build their confidence and no longer hit their high stress levels at the onset of instruction. They gradually withdraw the preview- ing scaffolding as they realize that they can keep up with new information in class if they stay attentive and don’t give in to frustration the very instant they feel the slightest confusion.

Reading Comprehension For students who can read independently, there are several strategies of scaffolding comprehension for all subject areas. One of these involves the use of general reading comprehension strategies in a manner that engages students to actually use these

Westend61/Superstock

When you reread information that you have already read or skimmed before, your brain activates that memory and strengthens neural connections associ- ated with the topic.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

valuable strategies—as opposed to just telling them the strategies and leaving it to them to use them.

Sticky-Note Dialogue and Think-Alouds “Talking Back to the Text” with sticky notes is about students using the general principles that increase reading comprehension: prediction, activating prior background knowledge, making personal connections with reading, prioritiz- ing importance, and evaluating pictures and diagrams. To actually get students to use these strategies for independent reading homework, have them promptly fill out sticky notes in class. Their homework is to place the sticky notes in the textbook on what they feel is the appropriate page and to complete the sentences they have already started on sticky notes with you in class. Examples of prompts that could serve as ready-made sticky notes include:

• “I think you’ll be telling me about . . .” • “I already know things about YOU, so I predict . . .” • “I see that you are similar to what I have learned before, because you remind me

of . . .” • “I would have preferred a picture of . . .” (sketch/download your own) • “I predict this will be on the test because . . .”

Students are unlikely to use the strategies of reading comprehension such as predicting and making personal connections before and during reading unless you ask them to. When the assignment is to simply complete the statements they started out on the sticky note in class, they will be more likely to do so because there are no wrong answers and the assignment requires very little writing. In short, this activity is low stress but high reward because it pro- motes the general principles of reading comprehension.

Another strategy that can be used to improve reading comprehension is the “think-aloud” strategy. In this strategy students are instructed to say out loud what they are thinking while reading, solving a problem, or answering questions. You can model this process for students while teaching. While reading text in the classroom, you might pause to illustrate to your students what you are thinking as you are reading the text. This takes the covert process of reading comprehension and makes it overt to students. Students can then use metacognition to become more aware of how to interact with text.

As students become more skilled readers, they will be able to use the strategies that you have demonstrated to increase their ability to understand the text. They will understand how to think about the text. Block and Isreal (2004) list some strategies for performing effec- tive think-alouds. They write that expert readers use strategies such as overviewing the text, looking for important information, connecting to big ideas, activating relevant knowledge, putting themselves in the book, revising prior knowledge and predicting, anticipating the use of the knowledge, and relating the book to their lives. The use of think-alouds has been asso- ciated with increased understanding, obtaining more information, and increased pleasure from reading (Block & Israel, 2004). Thus, think-alouds should be able to help get informa- tion flowing through the amygdala and onto the prefrontal cortex by engaging higher mental processes such as understanding and also by creating positive emotions in students.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Redacted Notes When students need to take notes on material to be read independently, they can be scaffolded as they build their understanding of what information should be included in notes. All this requires is some copies and corrective fluid. You’ll begin by giving them a previous year’s student’s notes to guide them in their building of note-taking skills. Take a set of notes from a student this year who takes exemplary notes and make copies of these notes.

To provide differentiated levels of scaffolding, use the corrective fluid to omit varying amounts of the scaffolding outline that you provide to students. For students needing a great deal of guidance, you would erase only a small portion of the master outline that you give them and leave spaces for them to fill in more obvious pieces of the note taking. For example, if there is a chapter about the three causes of air pollution, you could omit one cause from the notes.

The students beginning to learn how to take notes would look at the section of their books that describes three causes of air pollution and recognize that the first two have been included in the notes and there is a space for them to write the third one, which they can easily find in that section of their textbook. As students need less scaffolding, you would have copies of the exemplary outline with more lines redacted so the learners would have the opportunity to fill in more and more as they build their note-taking skills.

Flexible Groups Flexible grouping opportunities for students are sessions in which you meet with small groups to address a specific topic on which they need guidance. Flexible groups can also be used to introduce new concepts, teach new skills, or even to practice reading comprehension. This type of scaffolding is particularly useful for promoting students to be at their achievable level of challenge when they have different skill levels in a single classroom.

In designing flexible groups it should be clear to the students that they are not permanent but rather that they are temporary and that students will be moved in and out groups when they have mastery to go back into the full class. You can also vary the types of groups that you use. For example, sometimes you could have a mix of developmental levels in each group. In this case the advanced students could provide scaffolding for less advanced students. Or you could have all advanced students working together on a more advanced task.

In an examination of the effects of flexible grouping on literacy assessments, Castle, Deniz, and Tortora (2005) found that over 5 years of using flexible grouping in a high-needs school the percentage of students at mastery level increased. This success of flexible grouping was attributed to focused instruction to specific needs, increased student attention on the instruc- tional task, and increased student confidence.

Course management systems also allow for the use of groups in the online environment. Stu- dents can be assigned to different groups and then assigned to work on a specific discussion, assignment, or project within their group. Later, if needed, each group can present their work to the entire class. This can also be an effective way to increase community in the online world. In online education students are not generally accustomed to working together; how- ever, by assigning them to groups, you ensure that they have someone to work with or ask questions when working on assignments.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Groups can also be used in the workplace. Employees can be assigned to groups based on skill level or expertise. Different aspects of a project can be completed by different groups.

Online Games When students are deficient in foundational knowledge that is essentially fact memorization but is still needed to progress with the big ideas of the unit, they can work independently with online learning games for acquisition and practice of the specific foundational mastery that they need.

The best online learning games are ones that first evaluate the players’ levels of understand- ing and then proceed with activities that build up from their baseline levels. Just like the best video games played for recreation, the best online learning games have the buy-in of some type of fun interaction, offer the achievable challenge by having students progress as they achieve mastery, and provide the frequent feedback of goal progress through point systems or other frequent feedback recognition as the learner jumps to a higher level of play. Many of these online learning games can be preset by educators to focus on specific areas in the curriculum and can even be matched up to standardized test foundational fact knowledge requirements.

Graphite.org is a free service from Common Sense Media. It lists many apps, games, websites, and digital curricula that can provide the foundational knowledge building in game form. Here you’ll find reviews and ratings for apps, console and PC games, and websites for school subjects including the arts as well as hobbies from pre-K to grade 12 and clearly designated as “free,” “free to try,” or “paid.”

Flipped Lessons Similar to a combination of online learning games and flexible groupings are flipped lessons. The flip is that students are assigned an instructional video to watch before the class that “teaches” the topic. In that way, students are prepared to progress in class in flexible groups based on the mastery they attain independently. All students, even those who did not fully understand the video, are more likely to benefit from the lesson because they have some prior knowledge of the topic from watching the video.

There are multiple types of flipped lessons, but an example of one type is Kahn learning, where students go online and watch instructional videos about the traditional concepts that they will be studying further in class. Kahn learning is available at http://www.kahnacademy .com. The website provides free interactive challenges, assessments, and videos for anyone to use. Thus, the website can be used across a variety of ages, including in higher educa- tion, online education, or the workplace. Because students can work at their own pace on the website, Kahn provides a great opportunity to differentiate challenges for students. More advanced students will be able to tackle more advanced concepts and problems, while less advanced students will be able to focus on learning the basics.

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http://Graphite.org

http://www.kahnacademy.com

Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Your Achievable Challenge Providing individualized levels of achievable challenge takes effort and is time consuming. It is important to realize that you will not be able to do this for all students all of the time. You’ll need to find your own level of achievable challenge with regard to how much and for which students you will provide more individualized attention by differentiating each unit of study.

Because it is important to recognize your goal achievement, start out with one or two students for whom to provide more individualized levels of achievable challenge. Consider selecting students whose behavioral response to the stress is a type of acting out that is disruptive to their classmates. Individualizing instruction and homework will help you better serve these students and will allow you to more closely monitor and measure the efficacy of your efforts.

Plan ahead about how you will evaluate the impact of the strategies you employ. Take time to look for changes in your students that you might otherwise miss, such as decreased num- bers of questions about instructional information and increased questions that are indeed on topic. Look for students participating in discussions and students volunteering to respond to questions who usually resist any risk of making mistakes.

Frequent Feedback

Students who believe their effort increases their likelihood of succeeding at goals are more likely to persevere and exert the effort necessary to achieve those goals. As discussed earlier, progress in video games includes the frequent short-term responses to each move and the distinctive feedback accompanying level advancement that acknowledges ongoing progress to the ultimate goal.

Individual Response Devices (IRDs) You can promote the positive emotional response by providing opportunities for your stu- dents to experience both the short-term instant feedback and the stepwise goal progress feed- back in classroom learning. As is described in Chapter 2, IRDs used to make predictions and followed by feedback are powerful at sustaining attention. These are also excellent resources for students to receive that frequent feedback regarding the predictions that they make in response to more specific questions about content.

In contrast to using these predictions to sustain attention throughout class, IRD assessment and immediate response feedback is also a way to evaluate mastery of sections in a unit. When you have completed instruction on a segment and students have practiced new foundational information, you can ask students several questions in sequence to ascertain who in fact does need more instruction and who is ready to move on because mastery has been acquired.

Students who make correct choices and receive that feedback saying so experience the posi- tive dopamine-reward response of pleasure. Students who receive the feedback that their predictions are incorrect are still willing to persevere because, as in the video games, they know from experience that they will receive the needed scaffolding and you will give them more chances to make predictions very soon.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Analytic Rubrics Analytic rubrics provide very specific information regarding what elements of student work will be used to determine grades for products, reports, or semester work. These rubrics also detail levels of success along a continuum for each category of assessment (Figure 4.4 offers an example). Students will see what mastery goals will be used to determine their individual component grades and how these are all parts of their overall grades for any specific project or semester.

Students who have developed a fixed mindset and have low confidence that their effort will result in any improvement in a particular topic can benefit most from rubric feedback. When using rubrics, these students may also need the additional support of regular conferencing, starting with individual explanations of how the rubrics can guide them to achieve success. Especially the first time rubrics are used, you can guide students through the multiple criteria and the range of quality levels within those criteria. For example, if the student has a low suc- cess rate and low confidence regarding writing assignments, you can point out how a writing assignment might include grammar, punctuation, topic sentences, spelling, supporting evi- dence, and concluding sentences, each with their own levels of quality. Students who possess strongly fixed mindsets may need encouragement to even select the criteria for which they are willing to extend the additional effort with the goal of stepwise improvement. If they’ve always done poorly on all aspects of writing assignments, they may need guidance as to what is most achievable for them.

The next step is for them to recognize what it will take to achieve the next level of success. If they select punctuation, you would show them how, at their current level of zero, there are more than five punctuation errors. You can also show them that level 1 requires no more than four punctuation errors. You would then encourage them with ways they can improve their punctuation. Starting with more concrete criteria, such as punctuation and spelling, will help guide students to higher levels in areas that perhaps are more subjective than the number of punctuation errors, such as concluding sentences and supporting evidence. Sample papers that demonstrate the different levels of proficiency criteria are also helpful at this stage.

When the submitted written work is returned, all students would receive rubrics without their number or letter grades. There would be circles around the boxes within each criterion that reflect students’ achievement. Now, students who were pessimistic as to any possible improvement will see, perhaps for the first time, that effort toward a goal resulted in improve- ment. Often the first progress step, such as a jump of one level in one of the components of the rubric, is not enough to change the letter grade that students will receive after they first see their rubrics. However, students who had no confidence in the possibility of any improvement will have received the feedback that improvement is possible for them. Even a change such as going from zero in punctuation to level 1 can inspire further effort.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Rubrics can also be employed in online teaching. Course management systems, such as Black- board, offer you the opportunity to create rubrics online and connect them to any assignment that you wish to use them for. This can simplify the grading process for you and also provide more specific feedback to your students. You can give students a score for a particular cate- gory and also provide them with feedback about that category. It is also a good idea to instruct students to go through the rubric themselves after they have finished an assignment to see if they have met all the criteria for the assignment.

Rubrics can also be used in the workplace. During any employee evaluation, you could pro- vide them with a list of categories that they will be evaluated in. The list could also provide different levels of achievement for the employees to attain. Providing specific criteria for each level will help employees understand how to improve their performance.

When students and employees understand exactly what you are looking for in an assignment, they are more likely to meet your goals. Additionally, providing specific criteria and feedback to students can help decrease some of the stress of completing homework. If students are confused about what to do, the amygdala is likely to activate the lower reactive brain, and students will have difficulty completing the assignment. However, when students have clarity about what to do, they can active the higher centers of the brain and produce better results.

Figure 4.4: Writing rubric

A writing rubric will spell out your expectations clearly so that your students will know exactly how to meet or exceed them.

On Time Elementary School

Essay Scoring Rubric: Sixth Grade

Student_____________________________________ Teacher_____________________________________

Criteria 4 = exceeds standard

3 = meets standard

2 = approaches standard

1 = below standard

Focuses on main topic

Main idea is clear; no extraneous, irrelevant material.

Main idea is clear; includes unrelated ideas.

Can detect the topic but lacks development.

Topic is unclear; mostly unrelated ideas.

Is interesting and clearly written

Uses captivating language; holds reader’s attention with compelling ideas.

Quite interesting; good use of language; some irrelevant and less interesting ideas.

A mixture of interesting and less interesting ideas. Some ideas are clear, others not.

Lacks cohesion and interest; many ideas are unclear.

Uses appropriate vocabulary and grammar

Advanced use of language and sentence structure; no word usage or grammatical errors.

Good use of language; correct sentence structure; few word usage or grammatical errors.

Complete sentences with some word usage and grammatical errors.

Many errors in language usage; repeated grammatical errors; incomplete sentences.

On Time Elementary School

Essay Scoring Rubric: Sixth Grade

Student_____________________________________ Teacher_____________________________________

Criteria 4 = exceeds standard

3 = meets standard

2 = approaches standard

1 = below standard

Focuses on main topic

Main idea is clear; no extraneous, irrelevant material.

Main idea is clear; includes unrelated ideas.

Can detect the topic but lacks development.

Topic is unclear; mostly unrelated ideas.

Is interesting and clearly written

Uses captivating language; holds reader’s attention with compelling ideas.

Quite interesting; good use of language; some irrelevant and less interesting ideas.

A mixture of interesting and less interesting ideas. Some ideas are clear, others not.

Lacks cohesion and interest; many ideas are unclear.

Uses appropriate vocabulary and grammar

Advanced use of language and sentence structure; no word usage or grammatical errors.

Good use of language; correct sentence structure; few word usage or grammatical errors.

Complete sentences with some word usage and grammatical errors.

Many errors in language usage; repeated grammatical errors; incomplete sentences.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

Effort-Goal Progress Graphs The most effective learners set personal learning goals and employ strategies they have found successful in similar learning experiences to achieve these goals and assess their progress along the way. You will be able to help students build self-sufficiency and self-assessment of progress by guiding them through the use of the effort-goal progress graphs such as those you can create and download from www.onlinecharttool.com (Figure 4.5). It is particularly valuable for students to see that there is a direct relationship between their effort/practice and their progress outcomes.

Both the horizontal and vertical axes start with zero. The vertical axis has number designa- tions reflecting the amount of improvement. In this way, students at different levels of start- ing proficiency in the area of fact acquisition or study skills being measured would have the same starting point. For example, if the vertical line measurements were of the number of accurate responses made on flashcards for multiplication, the progress would begin at zero for students who are ready to learn the sevens times table, as would the starting zero place represent the beginning for those who are on the twos.

The horizontal axis corresponds to the amount of time that is cumulatively spent reviewing or practicing the information. The horizontal axis designates time spent in cumulative fashion so that after 1 day there might be 5 minutes of total practice. If the procedure is to spend 5 minutes each day practicing, the cumulative amount of time spent practicing would be 10 on day 2, 15 on day 3, etc. For each day the vertical axis would indicate the number of flashcards to which students responded correctly at the end of the day’s review.

Figure 4.5: Effort-goal progress graph

Visualizations like graphs help students track their progress and motivate them to improve their skills.

Cumulative time spent studying (in days)

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Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

6 6 6

3 4 4

0 0 0 0 0

10 10

9 8 8

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Cumulative time spent studying (in days)

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Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

6 6 6

3 4 4

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www.onlinecharttool.com

Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

These graphs reflect the type of incremental goal progress we see in the video game model where players get feedback that they progressed from one level of play to the next. Your stu- dents will see through bar graphs that their levels of achievement are progressively increas- ing in response to their effort. Because the starting points for all students are at zero, students with fixed mindsets and lower beginning mastery often have the opportunity to see that their rates of progress correspond to those of students they consider more academically success- ful. Because these students are all being challenged at their achievable challenge level, there is now equalization of opportunity to have visual confirmation of their effort to goal progress.

Assessment Variety In general, two types of assessments exist. They are summative assessments and formative assessments. Summative assessments generally evaluate learning at the end of a unit. They might include things like a midterm, a paper, a final project, etc. They are often overempha- sized with high point values in terms of determining final grades. In contrast, formative assessments monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback throughout learning. Examples of formative assessments might include turning in a draft of a research proposal for feedback or drawing a concept map to represent a topic. They often have lower point values, although they are more appropriate representations of student understanding and progres- sion of learning.

Using only one or two types of assessment limits opportunities to use assessment informa- tion to correct deficiencies and does not give learners enough frequent feedback of incre- mental goal progress to build a growth mindset. In addition, summative assessments at the end of the learning unit do not benefit the learners with deficiencies if, regardless of their results, the whole class moves on to the next unit without any opportunity for these students to achieve the mastery they need.

Limiting assessment to final tests fails to evaluate what learners have achieved with regard to understanding, but rather highlights the information learned that they are able to reproduce

The Brain at Work

You have probably seen motivating examples of graphic representations of progress displayed in areas such as the main lobby of a school or office building. These charts often have a dynamic symbol used to measure progress toward achieving a goal, such as a thermometer or hikers going up a mountain. A school fundraising drive for a new playground structure might show frequently updated documentation of the amount of money raised. Another type of progress graph posted to represent goal progress might show the increasing number of employees signing up to donate at blood drives. These frequent changes in the tabulation that reflect increasing funds donated or the number signed up for the blood drive give dopamine-boosting feedback of ongoing goal progress to motivate more people to participate or to encourage their colleagues to make donations.

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Section 4.4 The Video Game Model

in the manner that the test requires. If, for example, a single assessment will be an oral pre- sentation, students with fear of oral presentations due to experiences of frequent failure in previous oral presentations will be less emotionally responsive to the learning throughout the unit and the effort they put into their oral report because they expect failure regardless of their efforts.

When students participate in a variety of assessment modalities, including opportunities to demonstrate understanding through their strengths, their effort and perseverance increase. It is important for students to know from the very beginning of the unit how their particular strengths will be part of the opportunities for them to demonstrate learning.

The variety of assessments can range from informal assessments with more immediate feed- back to more formal but still fairly frequent assessments where feedback is provided in a timely fashion so that remediation or revision can take place, allowing all students to make mastery progress. Examples of informal assessments include homework started in class, exit slips, and observational notes of students’ participation in whole-class or small-group activities. More formal assessments include quizzes, in-class tests with scaffolding of notes or open books, and traditional closed-book classroom testing. Evaluation of projects or research papers when completed also constitutes formal assessment, whereas frequent evaluation and formative, corrective feedback of their progressive steps from notes to outline and first draft are more informal assessments that can guide progressive improvement.

Feedback Characteristics That Promote Growth Mindsets Characteristics of corrective feedback to which students respond successfully include provid- ing information that is specific and actionable. Students need to understand specifically what it is they need to work on and how they can do so. In addition, supportive feedback of prog- ress needs to be recognized by students as they proceed in their realms of achievable chal- lenge. This means not giving so much correction at one time that students are overwhelmed and also including guidance about specific ways students can build their proficiency in these areas. This also means focusing on the effort that the student has put forth. Students should be aware that their grade is not always the most important factor; rather, their ability to work toward a goal and reach milestones along the way is.

Certainly, to follow the video game theme, the feedback and opportunities for students to respond to that feedback need to be designed so that students will see a positive progression en route to an ultimate goal achievement. This includes providing feedback not just for areas where further work is needed but also about areas of improvement and strengths that you identify through your assessments.

The effort you put into planning and carrying out frequent formative assessments and pro- viding feedback that allows students to progressively recognize their incremental goal prog- ress and improve at achievable challenge levels can match that of the most compelling video games. When students are able to recognize progress as a result of their incremental efforts along the route toward a final goal, they will increase their resistance to amygdala-blocking stressors, such as participation and mistake fear. These students will begin to experience the response of their dopamine-reward systems. They will not only have increased pleasure, motivation, curiosity, and engagement, but they will also develop stronger confidence in their

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Summary and Resources

own abilities and develop resilience, intrinsic motivation, perseverance, and the ability to learn from mistakes.

Summary and Resources • Emotions influence where new information is processed in the brain. • The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is responsible in part for emotional influences

on learning. • For learning to become memory it must be directed through the emotional filter

(amygdala) along the route to the reflective, higher brain, e.g., the prefrontal cortex. • When students fail to find relevance in class content or have learning experiences

that are repeatedly below or above their achievable challenge level, they are likely to experience the stress state from sustained frustration or boredom.

• In the high stress state, information cannot pass successfully through the amygdala. High stress reduces information flow through the amygdala (emotional filter) to and from the cognitive/reflective brain (prefrontal cortex). During high stress, the survival instinct takes reactive control and responses are directed by the involuntary “lower” brain with output limited to fight/flight/freeze responses (act out/zone out). The mammalian brain is wired to withhold effort when experience predicts a low probability of success.

• Students may withhold effort when previous experiences have repeatedly failed to achieve success.

• The human brain can be “rewired” to exert effort rather than withhold it when instruction follows the video game model. Buy-in, achievable challenge, and frequent feedback of incremental goal progress are the three main components of the video game model.

• The power behind the video game model motivation and perseverance is the intrin- sic reinforcement of the dopamine-reward response to accurate predictions and feedback of challenges achieved.

• Employing educational strategies that replicate video game playing promotes a suc- cess cycle for students due to intrinsic gratification that induces stress reduction and creates a positive emotional state and a growth mindset.

Web Resources http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html* Neuroscience for Kids is a great website for students of all ages that provides information, curiosities, and interactive games that build understanding about the brain and how this knowledge relates to a child’s own life.

http://www.graphite.org Graphite.org is a free service from Common Sense Media. It lists many apps, games, web- sites, and digital curricula that can provide foundational knowledge building in game form. Here you’ll find reviews and ratings for apps, console and PC games, and websites for school subjects including the arts as well as hobbies for pre-K to grade 12 and clearly designated as “free,” “free to try,” or “paid.”

Link used by permission of Professor Eric Chudler

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http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html

http://www.graphite.org

Summary and Resources

http://ierg.net/lessonplans/unit_plans.php This website shows multiple examples of curriculum contents adapted to the video game model.

http://www.4teachers.org under the “RubiStar” tool link on the right side of the page RubiStar is a tool for teachers to generate their own rubrics.

www.onlinecharttool.com This site provides a tool for generating various kinds of charts and graphs.

Questions for Review and Discussion 1. How can you use your understanding of the brain’s emotional processing network to

reduce the stressors that limit access through the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex? 2. How can you create a positive environment that facilitates interaction, learning, and

productivity? 3. Select at least one strategy to build students’ resistance against going into the invol-

untary, reactive state of high stress. 4. How will you help students see value and relevance in what they are learning—so

they want to know what you have to teach? Or, how will you help your employees or clients see the value or relevance in what they are working on—so that they will want to improve their performance?

5. What buy-ins will connect your students from the beginning and what goals will sus- tain their interest in learning and understanding? Or, what buy-ins will connect your employees and help them work together to achieve goals?

6. How will you tailor instruction to address students’ differences in readiness, learn- ing strengths, and interests?

7. How will you provide incremental goal progress feedback for students or employees?

8. How will you use formative assessments to gain feedback about students’ develop- ing understanding and about areas where they need corrective feedback? How will you then provide opportunities for revision or reteaching?

9. Select a topic of instruction and write one strategy from each of the three aspects of the video game model that could promote a positive emotional state so the instruc- tion becomes learning.

10. How will you plan for your achievable challenge, and how will you look for evidence that your effort resulted in positive change?

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http://ierg.net/lessonplans/unit_plans.php

http://www.4teachers.org

www.onlinecharttool.com

Summary and Resources

Key Terms

achievable challenge A level of difficulty for goals that is challenging for the individ- ual yet still attainable.

amygdala An almond-shaped structure located in the medial temporal lobe that is implicated in the experience of emotions, memory, and processing complex socio- emotional communication. The amygdala is a structure within the limbic system.

autonomic nervous system (ANS) A division of the central nervous system that sends and receives messages through neurons and peripheral nerve connections in the brain, spinal cord, internal organs, and skin. This system regulates the heart rate and the movement of food and waste through the digestive system and influences the release of glandular secretions and the cardiac muscle, smooth muscle, and glands.

buy-in Positive climate and prevention of high stressors promote information pas- sage through the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex. Motivation and effort increase when the brain expects pleasure. Buy-in examples include personal relevance, prediction, and learning activities connecting to students’ interests and strengths.

flow A mental state whereby an individual is fully immersed in what he is doing. The individual experiences positive affect and intrinsic reward while in the flow state.

formative assessment An assessment to monitor ongoing student learning and provide feedback to the student about his learning. They are usually more frequent and worth fewer points than summative assessments.

growth mindset A mindset in which an individual feels confident in his abilities to learn and change his brain.

limbic system This core of the emotional response centers receives and directs brain input about the emotions, including stress and fear, as well as positive emotions.

prefrontal cortex A hub of neural networks with intake and output to almost all other regions of the brain. In the prefrontal cortex, long-term memories are constructed and emotions can be consciously evaluated.

summative assessment An assessment designed to evaluate learning at the end of a unit. They generally have high point values.

zone of actual development A child’s developmental level (or mental age) based on activities that the child can perform by himself.

zone of proximal development The differ- ence between a child’s actual developmental level and his potential to develop is referred to as the zone of proximal development. This zone represents abilities in the child that are in the process of maturing.

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