We can apply the principles used in video game design to classroom practices.  The same dopamine-reward response that drives one to not just play video games – but persevere in the quest to improve – can also motivate a student in academics.  This is based on the research of Judy Willis, M.D., a neurologist and educator, who is an authority on the neuroscience of learning and how that can be incorporated into best teaching practices.  Her work has been of particular interest to educators who work with students with learning differences, as these students often struggle with motivation regarding academics.

Remember from last week that a larger than usual amount of dopamine (enough to make it feel good) is released when the brain recognizes that it just made a successful prediction or behavioral response.  This dopamine surge requires some uncertainty about success – there must be a challenge that has not already been mastered.

Achievable Challenge Level

Video games are designed to get you to your achievable challenge level very quickly so that you will not be bored with a level that is too easy, nor frustrated by one that is too difficult.  In education, we call this is the zone of proximal development – it’s where you are challenged at just the right level that you maintain motivation and will persevere to learn.  Ideally, academic learning experiences are individualized for each student at his or her level of achievable challenge.   Yes, the teaching and task need to be appealing to the student, but the “just right” level of challenge is what will cause the student to expend the effort to work through a challenge.  The brain will also be more responsive to feedback under these circumstances – it knows that the dopamine surge is within reach . . . and it wants it.  This results in increased student engagement.

Incremental Goal Progress and Frequent Feedback

Video games do not require mastery all at once with the reward delayed until mastery is achieved. They allow the player to build the skills gradually and receive frequent rewards; the dopamine reward occurs each time the player receives feedback that a correct response was made.  When the big dopamine surge comes at the successful completion of a level, that is what motivates the player to work harder at the next level, which is a bigger challenge.  Remember, you must move on to more challenge to receive more dopamine.  Also remember from last week, that when you hit an 80% failure rate, the games are designed to give you some type of guiding feedback to assist in the incremental progress.

Teachers can use this same principle of making students aware of incremental progress toward a goal.  This can be done by setting smaller goals that build to an end goal, while also providing frequent feedback to students on their successes and guidance when they are off-track to help bring about some reward/reinforcement that progress is being made.  Remember, they need to know they have made progress in order for the dopamine-reward to occur.  Delayed gratification is not a strong-suit of the adolescent brain – show your students the progress they are making, even if it is incremental.  It is particularly beneficial in sustaining motivation and effort if the teacher can show the students how to recognize incremental progress on their own.

Mistakes as a Necessary Part of Mastery

Video game players are perfectly fine with an 80% failure rate!  It is accepted as a necessary part of mastering the challenge.  While I’m not sure that we’d ever get students to feel comfortable with that percentage in the classroom, we can strive to instill in our students a growth mindset (a topic for future discussion) – the belief that mistakes are a normal and necessary part of the learning process and are necessary for growth.  The growth mindset promotes the ideas that you can “grow your brain” and “the power of ‘yet’” – you will get there, but you are not there yet.  It sounds simple, but convincing students who are struggling that they will master something, but just aren’t there yet, is powerful and has been shown to be highly effective in promoting learning.

Difficulties associated with learning disabilities can include trouble distinguishing the big picture from supporting details, as well as understanding abstract concepts.

College classes often involve a significant amount of implicit instruction, where information or problems are presented to students to explore, assimilate, comprehend, and determine how it fits with existing knowledge on their own.  Explicit instruction (or direct instruction), on the other hand, clearly outlines learning goals for students and directly explains skills or concepts, as well as how they relate to other skills or concepts.

For LD students, explicit instruction strategies can often be very beneficial, even at the college level. The instructor directly explains a skill or concept, then models that same skill/concept, often using a “think aloud” to demonstrate the method or thought processes involved.  The instructor provides guided practice for the students, with immediate feedback to the student.  Moving forward the instructor scaffolds the student’s practice less and less, building toward independence.

Here’s an example of this approach that I’ve used.  I had my students read a chapter of a non-fiction book (Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers) and then asked them the main idea of the chapter.  A student answered that the majority of professional hockey players have birthdays in January, February, or March.  The rest of the class agreed.  I told them hockey players had nothing to do with the main idea of the chapter, that hockey players were a “pickle.”  Yes, I got odd looks…but, they were intrigued.

I then asked the class what they would need if they wanted to make themselves an excellent burger.  Some kind of patty, right?  Beef, turkey, veggie, whatever, but without a patty, you just don’t have a burger.  It is the main point of the burger.  I took out my colored marker set and drew a brown patty on the whiteboard.  I asked what else you need for a burger.  Some kind of bread – bun, roll, focaccia, etc.  It’s essential to support the patty otherwise you have a mess on your hands, literally.  The bun represents the key points that are necessary to support your main idea.  I drew a yellow bun around the patty.  What makes the burger exciting to eat?  All the stuff you put on the burger – mustard, ketchup, mayo, cheese, onions, lettuce, bacon, avocado, pickles . . . !  Those are the details of the burger that help make it delicious; they enhance the burger the same way an author uses interesting details to help support and explain the main idea. I used all the other colors to draw on a bunch of toppings.  Since distinguishing the big picture from details can be a struggle for LD students, the drawing was a concrete representation of those abstract concepts.

Do hockey players as pickles make sense now?  The story about the discovery that the majority of hockey players have birthdays in January, February, or March was a (deceptive) detail in the chapter.  Deceptive because it sure takes up a lot of pages in the chapter.  But, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is the main idea, and the students needed to be told that outright.

How did I then guide them to figure out the main idea? Explicit instruction in how to read the text.  The chapter is divided into six sections – why?  Does each section have a purpose or key point?  I walked the class through certain key paragraphs.  What is the significance of this word or phrase?  Which sentence in this paragraph should jump out at you?  How does this paragraph function in the context of the chapter?  I didn’t give them the answers outright, but guided them through the types of things to look for when reading a non-fiction text.

I also used explicit instruction regarding the relationship of ideas – how the interesting details that they focused on support the key points, which in turn support the main idea.  I supplemented that discussion with another visual representation – I drew an umbrella shape, writing the main point on the umbrella top in one color, with details in a different color contained underneath the umbrella to represent their relationship to each other.  This type of visual cue can be very helpful for LD learners as it helps to ground their thinking.

Even if much of a class involves implicit instruction, incorporating explicit instruction at times can be beneficial to all students.  It can be especially helpful to consider this approach in a one-on-one context with a struggling student.

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Wait time is the window between a teacher’s asking a question and expecting a student to respond.  What usually happens when a student doesn’t respond quickly?  The teacher either expands upon the question, provides an answer, or cold calls on someone else.  Teachers typically wait only up to one second after asking a question before moving on to one of these options.  When students do respond that quickly after the question, the answer tends to be a superficial response.

Research has shown that increasing  wait time from 1 second to 3-5 seconds can have significant benefits including increases in response length and quality, the number of volunteer responses, student confidence, the number of student follow up questions, and the amount of student interaction with each other.

Remember from last week that the neurological differences that cause learning disabilities affect a person’s ability to receive, store, process, retrieve or communicate information.  Taking in information, processing it, and forming a response often take longer in an LD student.  This is why we have the accommodation of extended time during tests.  This is also why an LD student likely needs a longer wait time when asked a question.  It allows the student’s brain to take in and process the question and formulate their response.  It also helps to decrease the stress that builds up in the LD student who is working on an answer, but at the same time knows that the teacher is expecting a quick response; stress slows down processing even more, which only exacerbates the situation for this student.  An LD student who feels the pressure of needing to respond quickly, will often resort to “I don’t know,” not because they don’t know, but because they have learned that they can’t get an answer out fast enough so why try.

There is actually a second wait time – the time between the student’s response and the teacher’s reaction.  Again, research shows that teachers typically wait less than one second before reacting to a student’s response.  Increasing this wait time to 3-5 seconds allows the student to expand upon their answer, which allows the student to use higher order thinking.  This also leads to better class discussions.

This sounds simple and can make a big difference in student achievement.  The tricky part is that teachers aren’t comfortable with silence – we think the student doesn’t have an answer or that learning isn’t taking place if there is silence.  One suggestion is to put it right out there to students that after you ask a question, you want “thinking time” before you will call on anyone or before anyone raises a hand.  Allowing longer wait time can also concern teachers who feel as if they have a large amount of material to get through and by increasing wait time, they will not get through as much.  However, research has shown that increased wait time results in better understanding, therefore less time is spent on follow up questions and clarification – it can actually make class time more efficient and effective.