Show them how far they have come

As we approach the end of another school year in Australia, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you of the importance of helping students to celebrate their progress and wins.

There is much research to show that our brain loves to feel it has been successful. It releases dopamine, making us feel good and encouraging us to seek similar opportunities again.

This week was a big moment of celebration in our house.

For a couple of weeks I have been teaching Mr 5 to ride a two-wheeler bike.

Every evening after dinner we have headed out to do laps up and down our street. 

I have written a blog previously about teaching my daughter to ride a bike when she was a similar age.

Our family places a lot of importance on being able to ride a bike. It is an important part of developing gross motor skills, but also sows the seeds of independence and a love of exercise.

We love to go on family bike rides, so we are all excited to have everyone on two wheels!

This is now my fourth time teaching a child to ride a bike! So I feel I am approaching master teacher level!

This time I once again used the 'towel technique', where I loop a towel around their midriff to provide support and avoid me having to injure my back as I try to hold them upright!  In terms of pedagogical techniques it is an absolute winner!

There is so much to process when you are learning to ride, but every session I saw Mr 5 improving in confidence, and saw his brain strengthening the neural pathways.

On Tuesday night, Mr 5 rode his bike independently for the first time (I wasn't there to see it, as my husband happened to take Mr 5 out to practice that night while I was driving one of the girls to their violin lesson- don't worry I will be unpacking the disappointment I felt missing the 'big moment' in a blog next year🤦‍♀️).

Having done lots of reading on the brain and how it learns, I cannot help but analyse every moment as I watch my children learn and marvel at what is happening inside their head.

Mr 5 was SO excited to have achieved the goal he had been working towards for weeks. He was on a high! (and so was I, once I got over my feelings of grievance having been 'robbed' (possibly an overexaggeration, but it is still raw!) of my crowning teaching moment! 😂).

The feeling of elation he felt, took me back to work I have read from a wonderful neurologist who works in the education field Dr Judy Willis.

I first listened to Judy on this Victorian Academy podcast and was so fascinated by her research around our brain's dopamine reward system. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, which means it is a chemical messenger that takes messages from nerve cells in your brain to your body.

Our brain releases dopamine when we experience success. In terms of evolution, this reward system was in place to encourage us to continue to do the things we need to do to survive: eat, drink, reproduce.

But in modern society, our dopamine system is being triggered more and more by things such as sugar and social media🤦‍♀️!

Unfortunately, when we receive a 'like' on social media, we receive a hit of dopamine. Our brain then continues to seek these pleasurable experiences, and soon we are reaching for our phone more and more!

But on the flipside, in the classroom, we can apply our knowledge of the dopamine reward system to help our students develop an appetite for learning.

By providing students with opportunities to succeed, we are setting up the conditions that will encourage their brain to release dopamine.  This in turn will make them feel good and seek similar opportunities in the future.

A virtuous cycle!

This is true in any subject at school, but I believe is particularly important in maths. As we all know, maths is a subject that often students feel a sense of hopelessness and a lack of success. This leads to feelings of anxiousness and avoidance.

I believe we should be harnessing the power of our dopamine system to help change how students feel about maths.

So this week, I encourage you to look back on the year with your students. Talk to them about their successes and show them how far they have come in their maths learning. Let them experience the 'good feelings' associated with making progress in their schoolwork. Hopefully their brain will begin to find this motivating and seek further experiences of success (Mr 5 has been asking non-stop to be taken for more rides since his success on Tuesday night!). 

Let's try to make learning success the dopamine hits our kids are addicted to, rather than social media!

Have a great week!

Ange🎓🎲

 P.S. You can download the PDF version of this blog to print or share with colleagues here.