Science of Boredom

                                     Science of Boredom 

         

I found the Judy Willis YouTube clip fascinating and I felt that it was applicable to any educational situation. The main points that I found to be thought provoking were:

Boredom is a stress state of the brain: This is crucial for all teachers to know. Upon reflection it makes sense, I know in educational settings when I am trying to process too much information that is being read to me I go to sleep. I’m bored but at the same time I’m stressed as I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be getting out of the lesson.

Creating curiosity is essential:I particularly liked the idea of using signals and colours to indicate importance of information; I think this could equally be applied to secondary school situation once it had been modified to the maturity levels of the students. 

Creating a safe environment: I hate being tested or asked questions without adequate time to practice or assimilate the required skills.  I tend to panic, focusing on the test rather than the content of the lesson, and now I know the science behind it. This has inspired me to put in some serious thought of how to provide individuals the opportunity to practice skills and answer questions in maths and science setting without fear of failure.

Video Games: Personally I hate video games and I am incredibly biased about them. The point that video games reward people with harder and harder challenges was eye-opening and something that I had never considered, but I think if I was sneaky enough about it this technique could be adapted for maths and science topics.

Individual challenge levels: I have come across the idea that lessons needs to have the flexibility to challenge students on a variety of levels before, but in light of the science of boredom information instead of thinking it is a good idea, I feel that it should form part of my basic teaching approach.

Executive functions: The idea that 50% of facts that are taught at school will have been revised by the time students leave school was something that I had never considered before (and in part it’s why I like maths, the concepts don’t change much at school level, only the application).  However it highlighted that testing facts, to an extent, is meaningless in the rapidly changing world we live in instead the focus needs to be on teaching problem solving and conceptual application.