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If you haven't uttered this phrase at least a few times, you might not be a seasoned teacher yet. It's a thought that has crossed my mind on numerous occasions. To be fair, there isn't just one reason students struggle with critical thinking – there's a multitude of factors at play, such as age, maturity, prior experiences, learning history, interests, and even the influence of social media. While all these variables are crucial, this blog will specifically delve into one aspect: age, or more precisely, the brain’s age of our students.
After all, we are in the business of brains.
Brain Background
Before delving into one effective strategy to help students improve their problem-solving skills, let's first gain a basic understanding of the brain. I'll provide an oversimplified overview focused on aspects relevant to student thinking. While the brain is a complex organ with many intricate functions, this discussion will highlight three key components illustrated in the image below, each crucial to understanding student behavior and cognition.
The Brainstem: This region, developing even before birth, is responsible for vital functions that keep us alive, such as breathing, sleeping, and blinking. It regulates arousal, sleep-wakefulness, hunger-fullness, and maintains the delicate chemical balance necessary for survival. Additionally, the brainstem plays a crucial role in processing emotions, memory, and decision-making.
The Limbic System: Developing by around six years old, this is often referred to as the emotions center. It manages emotions, social relationships, and motivation. The limbic system is particularly significant in the formation of long-term memory, as memories are often categorized based on the associated emotions. More emotionally intense memories tend to last longer and are more readily recalled.
The Prefrontal Cortex: This region, developing last and reaching maturity around 25 years of age, is known as the thinking center. While it starts early in life, the prefrontal cortex undergoes substantial reconstruction during adolescence. Functions include regulating thoughts, actions, and emotions. Metacognition, confidence, and discipline-impulsivity play pivotal roles within this area.
Now that we have some background, a quick disclaimer is necessary: the brain operates as an integrated system, and all its centers work and communicate with each other. To illustrate, consider a 7-year-old girl who learns before school that her pet dog has passed away. Throughout the school day, she struggles to focus on learning, spending the day crying and expressing grief over her loss. The brain's components are intricately intertwined in this scenario. The brainstem exhibits heightened activity, evident in a racing heartbeat and increased blinking triggered by the tears, as it automatically adjusts to the prevailing emotion. The limbic system, responsible for emotions, appropriately displays mature sadness, reflected in the girl's crying behavior. However, the prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational thought and control, exhibits impulsivity and a lack of focus, as seen in her emotional outbursts and difficulty concentrating at school.
Helping Students
Now that we have a basic understanding of the brain, you might be wondering, “How do I encourage my students to think with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex?” If you're asking, you're in the right place. It's essential to note that the prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped, not undeveloped. Think of it like setting jell-o – every experience we, as educators or parents, provide for our students contributes to the maturation of this crucial thinking center. However, with standards, lesson plans, and assessments to consider, we can't afford to wait for the brain “jell-o” to fully set.
Now, let's not overlook the limbic system, also known as the emotions center, which matures by kindergarten. Focusing on problems that evoke emotions and long-term memory, accompanied by modeling visualizations for students, gives their mature emotive brain permission to engage and connect with the developing portion of the thinking brain.
Modeling to the Prefrontal Cortex
Consider this word problem: Mason spent $48 on a jacket and $53 each on two pairs of blue jeans. How much money did Mason spend shopping for clothes?
When communicating with the underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, educators or parents often use statements like:
- Think about the problem.
- Visualize the problem.
- Imagine what is happening in the problem.
While these are good prompts, they may not be fully understood by some students, as they are speaking directly to the prefrontal cortex.
Scaffolding questions that also directly align with the prefrontal cortex might include:
What is this problem about?
What does Mason buy?
What else does Mason buy?
What is the question asking you to do?
While these are effective scaffolding questions that some students can navigate with and without support, what about those students who are completely stuck? This is where educators often find themselves challenged in figuring out how to assist them.
Modeling to the Limbic System
Let's delve into how we can help students who are feeling stuck by guiding them to tap into their emotions center for problem-solving using these replacement scaffolding questions:
Who is Mason? What does he look like? Where is Mason shopping?
What does Mason buy? Describe the jacket. How much does it cost?
What else does Mason buy? Describe the blue jeans. What do we know about their cost?
What is the problem asking you to do? Model on paper what Mason is purchasing. What strategy or algorithm will you use to answer the question?
This approach opens up the thinking center guided by the emotions center. Students are more likely to invest in problem-solving when they truly visualize and think about the problem. Below is a model for a general problem-solving structure for teachers to use with students.
You might be concerned about the time this problem-solving strategy will take in class. Yes, it does take more time. However, it offers students the necessary permission to transform a two-dimensional word problem into something personal. This optimizes effective problem-solving for the struggling student.
Evaluation
I have used this strategy with many students. Here are a few highlights observed when implementing this approach with struggling students:
Enjoyment for both students and educators.
Sparking creativity and authenticity, creating a memorable experience.
Providing choices.
Modeling visualization and thinking through an age and developmentally-appropriate process, making students more inclined to show their thought processes.
Opening communication about visualization, thinking, and strategies.
Modeling a pathway that students can adopt to independently tackle challenging problems.
Granting permission to have fun with a seemingly mundane word problem, making problem-solving more approachable.
Let me know what you think!
Would you like to hear more? Contact Anne Venable at anne.venable@able-math.com for additional resources and services provided for you and your staff.
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