Neuro Gyms: An Educational Re-Design

Like neuroscientists put it, the brain is only changed by how it is used, which supports the idea that student learning should be reinforced. Our educational system has missed the mark on gist reasoning and what it implies; which is strategic attention, integrated reasoning, and elaborated reasoning. With these skills, students can learn to focus on encoding important information, assigning high order meanings, and applying knowledge in their daily lives. I propose that there are potential benefits with linking the cognitive neuroscience frameworks of higher order reasoning to developing protocols that are being evaluated in the classroom. Cognitive training is important for students that are a the prime of their development, thus pivoting higher order thinking techniques is necessary. To optimize learning potential, educators should promote appropriate levels of cognitive development, enhance knowledge that is stable overtime, and transfer content knowledge into real world applications. By engaging students in higher order thinking, their frontal lobe development may be reinforced and then achieve reasoning, judgement, and problem solving.

A Growth Mindset

When thinking about early educational institutions, the automatic reference is often an 8 hour long school day, which is structured in a class after class manner. In a developing brain such that of students in k-12 grades, a standard school day should be more than a negative connotation of boring school tasks.

Some schools lack the growth mindset that incentivizes students to go into a school day that will bring unexpected and interactive learning. With the current educational system, students know their structured day- which could mean expectations stay low and creativity is kept stagnated. This type of education teaches and habituates students to set declining effort- based practices and educational limits. Within each school, this system puts reductive thinking forward, leaving students to assign no meaning to learning. What classroom interactions should bring, however, are the essential components that energize and exercise the brain.

To act on the necessity of educational re-design, scientists suggest a neuro approach to transform schools into neuro gyms. Re-designing can take form by first engaging students in relevant and critical topics that may be involved in their future interests. Relevance is important to set on the critical foundations of learning and to keep up with an education that is well rounded.

Reportedly, only about half of US high school students think that what they have learned at school is relevant to their lives. A purpose and relevance mindset is therefore important to provide an education that is transcending beyond simple knowledge. To quote the admirable Maya Angelou " I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better." We must do better as educators, and also teach students to do better by applying what they have learned in school. Educational institutions are in fact, devaluating their relevance; teaching facts and methods that are not keeping up with the changing world. To do better, school systems need to change. How? By educating themselves about development, science, well being, and the individuals that they are teaching. Schools were once designed for students to learn and to prepare themselves, but the reality is that school systems are under preparing students, and more alarmingly so- discouraging students from preparing themselves and engaging in gist reasoning executive functions.

Going back to the neuro gym idea, the optimization of brain capacity is a start for preparation. As thinking scholars, we must keep others from becoming thoughtless, and this is what focused attention combats. The goal is to generate the questions, initiate and guide the debate, rather than give the answers and expect everyone to accept them. By doing this, a student can start using integrative reasoning skills and begin to build a strong neuronal network.

If institutions are built with the thought to generate, then schools should generate neuro gyms as a foundation for students to become thoughtful and independent scholars. Part of the independent individual is that sense of belonging to the collective, to focus on this, let's discuss community building.

Belonging and Community

When we find ourselves feeling like outsiders in an environment, we most often use our mental energy to monitor for threats. This leaves us with fewer resources for higher cognitive processes. Therefore, when students lack a sense of belonging, the cognitive energy that should be used on learning and engagement is being used to scan for group barriers.

For instance, a constant trend is for students to look for careers outside their communities. This could psychologically be attributed to students' lack of belonging in their communities. The mistake lies on not building that educational community, and the relevance of the community at hand. As part of the educational network, students must feel like they are making connections with others, their ideas, and their community. To avoid this disjunction, schools could collaborate with businesses in their community and incentivize a mutual beneficial relationship. Students must know that their learning is relevant in their community and across disciplines. This approach re-designs curriculum, but also prepares students to acquire workforce skills that can help them build a connection to their community- which falls into what elaborated reasoning entails.

Profile of a Graduate

The word graduate originates from the figurative meaning of taking "a step toward something". This step forward is a changing degree that is rising by changes. This means that a graduate has taken a gradual and growing development. To prepare graduates, schools must keep this in mind. Educational formation brings about gradual change in an individual, and the hope is that each individual is taking a step forward and toward something. To do this, creating the "profile of a graduate" has been proposed. This approach can help educators attain growth in their scholars. This way, both the school and the students hold expectations and accountability. With this in mind, educators can build students to be agile, integrative, and innovative. Gradual change brings about debating topics in the classroom, proposing thoughts, and doesn't leave the teaching completely to the teacher. Gradual change is symbiotic between the teacher and student , laying responsibility on the student too. To build the profile of a graduate, it must be kept in mind that the profile itself is ever changing. Educators should not fall on the nuances of such profile, which can be challenging. Creating the profile of a graduate also sets a framework for educators to meet certain standards, to aspire to get somewhere, and prepare to get there. This helps educators cover different areas of teaching and brings about challenges with the changing generations of students. The goal should be for the students to become the teachers, and lead a classroom mainly dominated by students. The neuro gyms that schools should be, would be there to serve as the environment for training, providing the necessary tools for such, and providing the brain reshaping results.

Agility for Change

The brain is most often resistant to change. It is difficult to adapt to change, as our brain tends to incline towards re affirming behaviors that have been supported in the past. In term of storage and energy, our brain struggles to adapt in trying to see what is good for the body. However, changing the aversion to change has also been proven to create a more agile brain. With neuro gyms at the forefront, change is bound to happen. Practices in the classroom including cognitive exercises can consolidate change and prepare it to combat reluctance. Change in fact, is needed for our brain to regenerate cellular activity.

Since an educational re-design is needed, a retrospective in-look is also required. The re- adaptation of change can be welcomed with the promising regeneration of education. Neuro training should not only be considered but enforced, setting neuro gyms in the hopefully not so distant future.

Like Donald Hebb once proposed, "Neurons that wire together fire together" and conversely "Neurons that are out of sync loose their link". It is educators' responsibility to continue to rebuild and rewire the links that have long been disconnected.

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This was more of an opinion based blog, yet some companies such as Medline, Nectar Group, and NeuroFit have made some efforts to incorporate what I talk about throughout this blog. These companies provide care to patients with neurocognitive diseases, intellect disabilities, or brain traumas. However, this service is not widely seen in the educational field, which is why I propose how this should change. Incorporating research based practices in the classroom should be a priority, and training educators on this should also be at the top of the list.

Thank you for reading!

Sources

“Graduate (n.).” Etymology, https://www.etymonline.com/word/graduate.

Medline’s Neurogym Therapy and Rehab Equipment. https://www.medline.com/capabilities/therapy-and-rehabilitation/neurogym/.

“The Psychology of Belonging (and Why It Matters).” Education Conferences, https://www.learningandthebrain.com/blog/psychology-of-belonging/.

Stringer, Kate. “Only Half of Students Think What They're Learning in School Is Relevant to the Real World, Survey Says.” The 74, https://www.the74million.org/article/only-half-of-students-think-what-theyre-learning-in-school-is-relevant-to-the-real-world-survey-says/.