Learning with the brain in mind

- My name's Sandra, I'm still 17, worse luck, and I think social studies is more fun than natural science.

Term has just started at Huddinge High and social studies teacher Ann-Britt Hellmark has asked the class to introduce themselves one by one. This is the first time that she has met the class of 26 pupils aged 17 to 18, and she needs to learn all their names quickly.

Sandra immediately gets support from a deep voice at the back of the classroom: "We all do!"

Social studies may be a popular choice, but some of the pupils look slightly bored. Others positively radiate upbeat expectation, and the general feeling is one of show us what you got, miss - come on, teach us something new!

And this - teaching something new successfully - is what divides opinion: some believe that Swedish schools get it wrong all too often, that for some reason knowledge goes in one ear and out the other. In a bid to find the key to learning, more and more are turning to brain research, and there is talk of a brand new field of research emerging, a science of learning that combines brain research, psychology and education.

Savants with enormous memory capacity

Professor Lars Olson's office at Karolinska Institutet´s Department of Neuroscience is home to a mountain of books on nerve cells and the brain. One of the thickest, entitled "Hjärnan" [The Brain], was written by Olsson himself in conjunction with Swedish colleagues.

Like the teachers at Huddinge High, Olson is interested in understanding how to get things to stick. This is a part of all learning, whether we are learning facts or skills, new information must be retained if we are to use it later.

Olson talks of savants, people who from birth have memories with the capacity to store enormous amounts of information. One man, for example, can quickly scan a book - his left eye reads one page while the right eye reads the other - and then rattle off everything in it... along with the contents of 9,000 other books. Another - the human camera - can fly over a city in a hot-air balloon and then paint a gigantic picture showing every last detail.

- These are highly unusual abilities, and there are only ever five or so people in the world who can do this at any given time, says Olson. But they prove that the brain has an enormous capacity. It never gets full, but instead seems to accommodate anything and everything.

Research using genetic engineering

This year his research group made an interesting breakthrough when, with the help of genetic engineering, they managed to produce a mouse with an extra copy of a specific gene in the brain´s nerve cells. This extra gene meant that the mouse could not form lasting memories. However, if the researchers switched off the gene with a special drug in its drinking water, the mouse regained normal memory ability and could, like other mice, learn where in a small basin to find a hidden platform to stand on.

Olson explains that the moment we experience something, it leads to changes in the connections between nerve cells somewhere in the brain. Most changes last only a short while, just as most of what we learn is quickly forgotten. But trials with living brain cells have shown that if a signal is sent repeatedly, the change is permanent. The connection pattern between the nerve fibres changes, and it is these changes that are thought to be behind all forms of learning and memory.

However, it will probably be some time before knowledge about the memory's cellular mechanisms has any bearing on pupils' learning in Swedish schools. This research is likely to be used more quickly in the treatment of problems with failing memory, such as dementia.

But who knows, perhaps we will be able to use this knowledge to treat different types of learning difficulties, says Olson.

Memory unwilling to cooperate

With all due respect to savants, it is far more normal to have a memory that is extremely unwilling to cooperate. Having subjected his own memory to a series of tough tests, the 19th century German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus was able to present what is known as the forgetting curve, which describes in detail the brain´s habit of immediately forgetting the bulk of what it has learnt. Knowledge disappears most quickly half an hour after it has been learnt, and then continues to drift away at a slower rate until just 20% remains after a few days.

However, recent research has shown that there is a way of lifting the curse of forgetfulness, namely to repeat the knowledge at several strategically timed points.

We retain the most if we repeat something several times shortly after learning it and then continue at less and less frequent intervals.

In his book Den lärande hjärnan (The Learning Brain), Torkel Klingberg, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, argues that this effect is one of several unexploited gold nuggets in research into learning and the brain.

- This effect could easily be used to plan lessons and create a more effective type of school, says Klingberg.

Working memory very limited

Klingberg believes that the results from brain research have vast potential when it comes to education. However, this research is in its infancy and he is calling for more coordination between researchers in cognitive neuroscience and those in education, which he feels belong to two separate scientific traditions.

Klingberg himself conducts research into how learning and the brain's development interact with the working memory, in other words our ability to retain information in our heads while using it. Unlike the long-term memory, which has almost infinite resources, the working memory is very limited in everyone, and researchers are now agreed that most of us can manage to hold only around seven things in our working memory at any given time - there just isn't room for more.

A functioning working memory is vital if we are to concentrate on a task without being distracted, which is important when learning new things.

Link between ADHD and a compromised working memory

A study in which Klingberg monitored young people aged 6 to 20 in Nynäshamn showed that there is an enormous increase in the capacity of the working memory throughout childhood. There was also a clear link between working memory and pupils' performance in mathematics and reading comprehension - up to 40% of differences in mathematical ability could be explained by differences in working memory capacity.

There is also a link between ADHD and compromised working memory.

- It's important for educationalists to recognise that there are major variations in working memory capacity between different children and adolescents, says Klingberg. This plays a major role in the method of learning that suits individual pupils best.

Working memory capacity is largely hereditary, though this is far from set in stone. Klingberg's research has shown that working memory can be improved through training, and that this, in turn, can impact positively on mathematical ability.

He also believes that schools should know about the effects of working memory training on learning ability, and that it is possible to predict which children will develop learning difficulties. A step in this direction has already been taken in that a method for training the working memory developed by Klingberg and colleagues is already in use in around 10% of Swedish schools.

The brain uses images

Research has also shown that the brain likes to use images and spatial dimensions to store abstract information, a fact that could prove useful in the teaching of maths, for example. If the teacher says, Think of the numbers 1 to 10, most pupils will think of a series of numbers which float around in space or sit along a mental ruler. A natural way for the brain to solve the sum of 8 minus 2 is to mentally go back two steps from 8 and see where it ends up.

Many savants explain how they use very refined variants of this kind of visual thinking: for example, by giving different numbers a unique colour and shape they can easily build up and remember mathematical objects that would be well beyond most of us.

- If you know that this is how the brain works, you can perhaps use it to create mental tricks and strategies for learning or teaching, says Klingberg.

Sensitive to stress

Another lesson for anyone wanting to know how the brain learns is that the working memory and our ability to solve problems have proved to be highly sensitive to stress - they improve with just the right amount of stress but deteriorate significantly with too much, which can trigger a complete block on the ability to retrieve information from the long-term memory.

Unfortunately this leads to a self-fulfilling prophesy: if you think that you won't do well in a test, you will get stressed and will subsequently fail to perform.

Klingberg believes that this is one explanation for the statistical variation in school performance between the sexes and social groups. For example, several studies have shown that gender differences arise (usually to the detriment of girls) where it is announced that a test will be measuring gender differences in mathematical ability.

These differences narrow considerably or disappear completely if the test is presented in a more neutral way.

Those who oppose the use of grades at school claim that they create rankings and reduce the self-esteem of those pupils with the lowest grades, thus risking a negative impact on learning. On the other hand, research has shown that it is important to test yourself and get feedback on your performance.

- There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to being judged, says Klingberg. Brain research doesn't have the answers to how best to deal with this balancing act - that's something for society to discuss.

Scientific testing of teaching methods

Klingberg does not believe that good teaching can be defined on the basis of what goes on in the brain alone, rather that good teaching must take account of what we know about the brain.

I think that the teaching methods used in schools should be tested scientifically, though this is rarely the case at present.

Klingberg believes that while research is slow to filter through, some unscientific ideas about the brain have had an even greater impact on schools around the world.

A case in point is the view that education should start as early as possible as it is then that the brain develops most and is most receptive to learning. According to Klingberg, there is no reason for this kind of learning frenzy during the early years. Research has instead shown that the brain continues to develop for longer than previously realised, up to the age of 25, and that young people's excellent capacity for learning remains intact throughout this period.

Klingberg's research into the forgetful mouse was carried out in conjunction with Anna Josephson, a professor of neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, and docent in medical education at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics. She also believes that education should be evidence-based, in other words proven to be effective.

Promoting long-term learning

One way of making learning more effective is to design examinations so that they promote long-term learning, known as deep learning, preferably with a future profession in mind.

The end of the fourth semester sees trainee doctors at Karolinska Institutet facing one of the toughest challenges of their university careers: the preclinical exam, which tests them on the knowledge they have gained over the previous two years. This crucial exam is guaranteed to generate both mountains of stress and plenty of revision among students. Testing our knowledge is often shown to be good for learning, but how are students affected by a mammoth test like this?

In a bid to find out, Anna Josephson rooted out students who had come to the end of their training three years later, bribed them with cinema tickets and asked them to do the exam again. She also threw in an extra oral exam: explain what happens in the body when you get tired cycling on an exercise bike.

The results were totally unexpected. Strangely enough, the students who did best first time round fared worst this time. Some students did put in a good performance in the second test, but they were not the ones to give the best answers about tiredness.

- They were, on the whole, an extremely poor set of results, says Josephson. Many of these students clearly had a very superficial knowledge when they were originally tested, and it disappeared once the exam was over.

Josephson thinks that this is because the students devoted all their energy to remembering the facts needed to pass the test. They had not, however, been motivated to learn to use these facts to understand and explain everyday medical phenomena like tiredness.

Learning is not about putting knowledge in different boxes in our heads, says Josephson. Only when we integrate new knowledge with what we already know can we really use what we've learnt. Research shows that superficial knowledge is quickly forgotten, while deep learning is retained for longer.

Training in independent thought

A closely-related problem is that of transfer, in other words taking our knowledge out of one context and using it in another. When the time comes for trainee surgeons to start doing operations, they must, for example, use their theoretical knowledge of the body gained from their courses in anatomy.

- However, this has proved particularly difficult for many of them, says Josephson, who believes that there needs to be greater integration between different subject areas in different study programmes. She also believes that students must be trained in independent thought.

- Students like to know exactly what they need to learn to pass a test or, in the long run, a professional examination. But I really believe in starting at the other end: give students a problem and then let them find the knowledge they need to solve it.

There is a surprising amount of agreement among researchers, pupils and teachers that repetition is a necessary part of learning. The problem is, however, obvious - it's deadly boring! As luck would have it, research has also clearly demonstrated that there are good reasons to use every available means to make teaching fun, or at least more bearable.

- The brain learns things that touch us emotionally, says Olson. For example, everyone can remember what happened on 11 September 2001.

Olson himself does his best to make his lectures as entertaining as possible, though how he goes about this is difficult, if not impossible, for him to explain. As a brain researcher he can, however, state that the hardest thing a brain can do is to understand other people. While savants may be able to handle vast amounts of information, this is often an area they find more difficult.

The brain clearly likes to learn from other people. Even babies can imitate other people, but are less interested in what robots do, for example. There may well be plenty of results from brain research, psychology and education to draw on here, but you should also share your own experiences of being human, it can do wonders for others' learning.

Perhaps it is not a matter of teaching, but instead of motivating others to learn. It has been said that the brain is a bit like an overgrown garden and that teachers are gardeners who can plant seeds and nourish ideas, while doing their best to combat misconceptions. But the power to grow can come only from the person doing the learning.

Back to Huddinge

It is afternoon at Huddinge High and the class is approaching the end of a one-and-a-half-hour chemistry lesson. The blackboard is covered in chemical symbols and the wastepaper basket is bursting with shredded newspaper in the wake of an experiment on the atomic structure of cellulose fibres.

Teacher Anna Skoglund talks enthusiastically about the periodic table, but the lack of oxygen in the packed classroom and the growing murmur from the less-attentive element mean that even my ability to concentrate is beginning to wane.

However, the lesson has a high point in the form of something akin to concentrated learning. It comes when the pupils are asked to draw an atom, and discover that they don't really know how to go about it.

- How about this for an idea? says Skoglund, and draws her own version on the board.

The pupils look on attentively, think about it, compare notes and adjust their own drawings. For a moment it is so quiet in the classroom that I can hear the sound of 26 gardens growing like mad.