Reflections on the Science of Focus with Barbara Oakley

The Learning and the Brain conference is an overwhelming experience.  That’s not a complaint.  It’s the best professional development I’ve ever participated in.  It’s overwhelming in the way a magnificent artwork is overwhelming, just too much to take in.  It’s overwhelming in the way meeting a beloved public figure would be overwhelming, just wanting to remember every part of the moment but also knowing that you won’t.  I have attended this conference twice now, and I have come away both times with the same mixture of feelings.  First, I feel mostly affirmed that much of what I and my colleagues are doing is in line with how student's brains work.  Even though much of it has been developed through trial and error or intuition, we seem to have done a lot right.  Second, there are some changes we need to make to some of our practices.  Holding those two thoughts simultaneously weighs down my luggage on the trip home.

The only way I have found to deal with the sheer volume of information I get from this conference is to reflect on parts of it a little at a time while I figure out how I might like to apply them.  Since this blog is for me to reflect and process my thoughts and let you read them if you wish, I’ll be dealing with those here for a while. They might come out in weekly posts or I might post several over the course of a few days.  Who knows?  If you just want straightforward notes (with a few personal thoughts because that’s how I take notes), you can find them at these three posts (Friday, Saturday, Sunday).  These posts will be both more and less than the notes.  More because I will be working out my own thoughts but less because I will likely choose small parts to reflect upon.

When I was a kid, I was on a car trip with my mom and brother.  I don't remember how it came up, but, at some point in the trip, we were trying to remember the names of the seven dwarves.  No matter how many times we tried, we came up with six.  This was before cell phones, so there was no looking it up.  It's a three-hour trip, so at some point, we gave up and moved on to other things.  During dinner, I clapped my hands together and yelled, "Bashful!"  This is one of the most satisfying experiences you can have, so don't always look things up on your phone.

When my dad was in college, he was an engineering major.  He would often spend a very long time on a problem only to go to bed with it still unsolved.  Then, according to my mom, he would sit bolt upright in bed, spouting long lists of equations.  His brain had solved it while he was asleep.  Dmitri Mendeleev dreamed the periodic table after 3 days and nights of solid focus on the problem of organizing the elements.  

Why do we figure things out, not when we are focused on them, but when we have moved on?

Barbara Oakley, in her keynote and subsequent session at learning and the brain, gave us the rundown AND how to take advantage of it in our classrooms.

When you try to focus for a long time, your brain is in a focused mode where it keeps rehearsing the same patterns.  This is why you get stuck.  You can't get the pattern out of your head.  It's what keeps you from solving a problem that doesn't quite fit the pattern.  At some point, you give up because focused mode requires a lot of energy.  That causes your brain to go into the diffuse mode, where there are fewer established patterns.  The information can now explore your brain more freely and draw in ideas that the other patterns didn't allow.  This is why you have "Aha" moments in the shower or while driving or just before falling asleep.

Focus mode is great for doing something we already know how to do.  Those patterns are what allow us to become good at things.  Diffuse mode is what allows us to find solutions we didn't already have.  Here's the cool part, after the brain finds a solution in diffuse mode, it establishes a pattern in focused mode.  Practice the solution a few times (by repeating it, writing it down, drawing a picture of it, etc.), and you have learned a new skill.  

Two pieces of classroom advice:

1. While teaching, take a 30s break.  Telling a joke, having students stand for a stretch, or asking them to doodle something will allow the brain to switch modes.  
2. On a test, encourage students to solve the hard problems first (if they have studied - If they haven't, solving the easy ones allows them to get points where they can).  Tackling the hard problems first has value because, if they get stuck, they can move onto an easier one, letting the brain go into diffuse mode, which will likely lead to figuring out the harder one.

Advice for studying (or staying focused for any task):

Set a timer for 25 minutes.  After a few minutes, your brain will start screaming at you that it cannot sustain 25 minutes, but it can, so just let that thought float on by and refocus.  After 25 minutes, take a 5 minute rest.  Do anything during that rest except for studying and going on your phone.  You can drink a glass of water, go to the restroom, have a snack, or lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling.  Then set the timer again and repeat.  At the end of the last cycle, make sure you take the rest time.  It is an important part of the process, so don't just dump it at the end.

Input creates links, but they are weak.  Retrieval practice strengthens them.  The power of retrieval practice comes from making the myelin (fat insulation) on your neurons thicker.  This is the one place you want fat.  Myelinated neurons work faster and make the next thing you have to learn in the same area more efficient.  Metaphor strengthens neurons in the part of the brain that is learning and in the part of the brain that is visualizing the metaphor, so it creates even stronger links.  

Sleep matters for more reasons than we think.  While you are asleep, chemical reactions happen that break weak links and strengthen others.  It's when your brain decides what to forget and what to keep.  These are actual images of the effect sleep has on neurons.  Those little growths that the arrows are pointing to are growth points on your dendrites, and dendrites are what communicate with other neurons.

Exercise (movement) matters too.  Check out these images.  The BDNF they refer to is a neurotransmitter (or maybe hormone - I don't remember) that is released in the brain during movement. 

There's so much going on while you are learning.  The energy it requires is massive.  Nutrition, exercise, and sleep aren't just good ideas for a generally healthy life.  They are also very important to the learning brain.