Keep your "nose to the grindstone" is the advice we often give as an essential ingredient of learning difficult tasks. An old joke captures the problem with the old bromide for success, "Keep your eye on the ball, your ear to the ground, your nose to the grindstone, your shoulder to the wheel: Now try to work in that position."

Over the years of teaching, I have seen many highly conscientious students work like demons in their study yet don't seem to learn as much as they should for all the effort they put in. Typically, it is because they don't study smart. And sometimes the problem is created by the teachers' method of instruction.

In an earlier post, I described a learning strategy wherein a student should spend repeated short (say 10-15 minutes) of intense study followed immediately by a comparable rest period of "brain-dead" activity where they don't engage with a new learning task. The idea is that memory of the just-learned material is more likely to be consolidated into long-term memory because there are no mental distractions to erase the temporary working memory while it is in the process of consolidation.

Now, new research now suggests that too much nose-to-the-grindstone can impair learning.

Margaret Schlichting, a graduate student researcher, and Alison Preston, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Texas tested the effect of mental rest with a learning task of remembering two sets of a series of associated photo pairs.  Between the two task sets, the participants rested and were allowed to think about whatever they wanted. Not surprisingly, those who used the rest time to reflect on what they had learned earlier were able to remember more upon re-test. Obviously, in this case, the brain is not really resting, as it is processing (that is, rehearsing) the new learning. But the brain is resting in the sense that no new mental challenges are encountered.

The university press release quotes the authors as saying, "We've shown for the first time that how the brain processes information during rest can improve future learning. We think replaying memories during rest makes those earlier memories stronger, not just impacting the original content, but impacting the memories to come." Despite the fact that this concept has been anointed as a new discovery in a prestigious science journal, the principle has been well-known for decades. I have explained this phenomenon in my memory books as the well-established term of "interference theory of memory,"

What has not been well understood among teachers is the need to alter teaching practices to accommodate this principle. A typical class period involves teachers presenting a back-to-back succession of highly diverse learning objects and concepts. Each new topic interferes with memory formation of the prior topics. An additional interference occurs when a class period is disrupted by blaring announcements from the principal's office, designed to be loud to command attention (which has the effect of diverting attention away from the learning material). The typical classroom has a plethora of other distractions, such as windows for looking outside and multiple objects like animals, pictures, posters, banners, and ceiling mobiles designed to decorate and enliven the room. The room itself is a major distraction.

Then, to compound the problem, the class bell rings, and students rush out into the hall for their next class, socializing furiously in the limited time they have to get to the next class (on a different subject, by a different teacher, in a differently decorated classroom). You can be sure, little reflection occurs on the academic material they had just encountered.

The format of a typical school day is so well-entrenched that I doubt it can be changed. But there is no excuse for blaring loudspeaker announcements during the middle of a class period. Classrooms do not have to be decorated. A given class period does not have to be an information dump on overwhelmed students. Short periods of instruction need to be followed by short, low-key, periods of questioning, discussion, reflection, and application of what has just been taught. Content that doesn't get "covered" in class can be assigned as homework—or even exempted from being a learning requirement. It is better to learn a few things well than many things poorly. Indeed, this is the refreshing philosophy behind the new national science standards known as "Next Generation Science Standards."

Give our kids a rest: the right kind of mental rest.

Sources:


Schlichting, M. L., and Preston, A. R. (2014). Memory reactivation during rest supports upcoming learning of related content Proc. Nat. Acad. Science. Published ahead of print October 20, 2014.

http://scicasts.com/neuroscience/2065-cognitive-science/8539-study-suggests-mental-rest-and-reflection-boost-learning/

http://www.nextgenscience.org/

Dr. Klemm's latest book, available at most retail outlets, is "Mental Biology. The New Science of How the Brain and Mind Relate" (Prometheus). 

What do you think is the major determinant of whether our children excel in school? IQ? Good teachers? Good schools? Good standards and curricula? No, I say it is the students' motivation, or just plain grit. Other teachers think so too.

Education reporter, Libby Nelson, calls attention to the issue of grit in student learning achievement. Teachers and parents sometimes put too much emphasis on intelligence, when the more typical problem in education is that students don't try hard enough and are not sufficiently persistent in trying to achieve excellence.

Indeed, excellence is not even a goal for most students. Many students just want to do the minimum required to pass tests. A few students don't care at all. They just drop out. One student told a teacher friend of mine, "I don't need to learn this stuff. Somebody will always take care of me."

Nelson points to evidence of grit's importance with these examples:

·         West Point cadets who scored highest on a scale of grit were more likely to complete the grueling first summer of training.

·         National spelling bee contestants with more grit ranked higher than other contestants of the same age who had less grit.

·         College admissions officers know how important grit is (more important than SAT tests) but they don't know how to measure it other than grades, which of course may be inflated and inaccurate indicators of grit.

Clearly motivation is essential. I regard motivation as the cornerstone of what I call the "learning skills cycle." Learning begins with being motivated to learn, and successful completion of every step in the cycle strengthens motivation. However, every step in this cycle (organization, attentiveness, understanding/synthesis, memory, and problem solving/creativity) requires a degree of grit—the more, the better.

As applied to specific learning tasks, grit is central to all the ideas in the learning skills cycle. In the case of memory, for example, the well-known strategy of deliberate practice requires disciplined grit. Students diligently need to use established memory principles in a systematic way. This includes constructing a systematic learning strategy that includes organizing the learning materials in an effective way, intense study focus in short periods, elimination of interferences, use of mnemonic devices, and frequent rehearsals repeated in spaced intervals. Learning success depends on mental discipline and persistence.

Students differ enormously in their level of grit. It would be nice if we knew how to teach grit. Surely, parental influence is central. Parents lacking in grit are unlikely to model or teach it to their children. Some schools, especially private schools, teach grit by having high expectations and programs that help students discover the positive benefits that come from having more grit. One of those benefits is confidence, because grit promotes achievement and achievement develops confidence.

Confidence in the ability to learn is necessary for a student to try hard to learn. Here is the area where teaching skills count most: showing students they can learn difficult material and thereby building the confidence to take on greater learning challenges.

Students who have passionate goals are much more likely to invest effort and persistence in doing what is needed to achieve those goals. It is unrealistic to expect grade-school children to have well-formulated career goals. But certainly by early high-school, students should be forming specific lifetime goals. What a career goal is probably does matter as much as having one in the first place. Achieving a goal, regardless of whether it is later abandoned or not, teaches a youngster that grit is necessary for the achievement. The student learns that grit has a payoff.

Grit may not always lead to excellence in students with innate limited abilities. But grit allows such students to "become all they can be," as the Army recruitment slogan claims. Moreover, the benefits of grit perpetuate beyond success at any one learning challenge. Learning anything requires physical and chemical changes in the brain needed to store the positive attitudes that come from learning success and the learning content itself. In other words, the more you know, the more you can know.

Source:

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/9/6835197/grit-kipp-noncognitive-skills-duckworth-teaching

"Memory Medic's new book has just been released: "Improve Your Memory for a Healthy Brain." Smashwords.com

I just got back from my second trip to the Katy Jazz festival, run by a school district just West of Houston. It was time for a jazz fix. You see, I am a jazz fan, and though not compulsive, I do need to dash occasionally to New Orleans or go to a festival like the one in Katy.

How does one become a jazz fan, particularly somebody like me who doesn't know much about music and who can't stand 200-year-old church music or the new mind-numbing songs in so many "contemporary" services. For Texas students who live in enlightened districts like Katy ISD, jazz appreciation starts as early as middle school in the larger schools that spin off jazz training from their marching and concert bands.

My fanhood began in the summer when I turned 19. After finishing my freshman year at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, a fraternity brother talked me into spending the summer in Hollywood, where his family had moved. He steered me around all the clubs and concert venues, and I saw in person jazz icons like Stan Kenton, Cab Calloway, Gerry Mulligan, Louie Belson, Chet Baker, Shelley Mann, and Shorty Rogers. My buddy and I would even spend a whole evening listening to Dave Brubeck and Joe Morello for the price of one beer, which we managed to take three hours to milk.

At first, I thought what I was hearing was just unstructured noise. My buddy explained what was going on, usually opening with the tune's melody line, then improvising on that melody line, and then gracefully finding the way back home to the tune's opening statement. And I didn't need to know musical details to appreciate the rhythms that flowed through my body like honey on a warm biscuit.

I am since learning a lot at the Katy festival where some 12 schools showed off their jazz bands and subsumed combos. The festival also featured sets from eight professional combos. But the really important part is that the student groups are given critiques by professional musicians, many of whom are or have been college music professors. The critiques are miked so the audience can hear. From such instruction I am learning that really big things are happening in the brain's mental biology as one listens to or plays jazz.

First the listening: the most obvious effect is stress reduction. Stress, as I have explained in early posts, is the arch-enemy of memory ability. In my case, I put my West Coast jazz experience to good use in mastering the veterinary curriculum at Auburn. While classmates were beating their brains up trying to learn all the stuff involved in veterinary medicine (more than in human medicine), I spent a lot of my time listening to jazz records. And I still beat all but four classmates in grades.

Listening is also fun, probably less so than playing jazz, but still a lot of fun. In San Antonio, Jim Cullum's band used to be called the "Happy Jazz Band." Think about where jazz came from. It is uniquely an American innovation, beginning as emotional relief for slaves who found comfort in the blues, which eventually spawned jazz in its happier forms. Wholesome fun promotes happiness. Happy brains learn better. They can also often live longer (remember my blog on the long life span of so many stand-up comedians). Think about Preservation Hall in New Orleans. There and elsewhere around the country, many jazz artists are still performing sophisticated music in their 80s.

 As for mental biology, a jazz player experiences enormous mental stimulation, Even as a listener, after a concert my untrained brain churns out a continuous stream of improvisation in my mind's ear that can include multiple instruments that I have no idea how to play. A player has to engage the brain in multiple ways that classical musicians do not. First, there are added technical requirements, such as playing blue notes, swinging eighth notes, and unusual time signatures like 12/8 and 5/4 or complex African or Latin rhythms.  Then there is the huge challenge of improvisation, which is basically composing on the fly. When improvising, there is a safety net of knowing the proper chord structure and melody, but players have to have a huge musical vocabulary and realize in milliseconds what new notes will fit. They also have to listen hard so they can interact properly with what others in the band are playing. The "call and response" paradigm in jazz is actually musical conversation. I can't think of anything more mentally demanding, especially for youngsters in early stages of learning music. Early middle school is a particularly time-sensitive period for mental development, and I suspect that middle school jazz bands can have disproportionate beneficial effects on brain development.

Learning jazz may be the ultimate in training young minds to think critically and creatively. An earlier blog post after my fist trip to the Katy festival focused on the exceptional teaching skills of jazz band directors. Many teachers protested, saying in essence that anybody can teach good students. Regular teachers get stuck with so many underachievers. Maybe we should consider the possibility that jazz-band students are such high achievers because their jazz training has trained their brains in invaluable learning capacities for hand-eye coordination, the ability to memorize, discipline, patience, critical and creative thinking, high-speed intellectual engagement with the ideas of others, and self-actualization and confidence.

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that mental challenge develops new connections in the brain and with it, new biological capabilities. In jazz, such mental enrichment enhances the ability to memorize, not only directly in terms of having to learn a large musical vocabulary and the rules of jazz, but also in terms of basic mental biology. My new book, Mental Biology, explains some of the basic ideas.