How can teachers keep an entire classroom of students engaged when each child has different learning capacities? The key lies in strategically managing your students’ working memory.
In Uncommon Sense Teaching, learning experts Barbara Oakley and Beth Rogowsky team up with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski demonstrate how clear classroom procedures free up mental resources for learning, while flexible accommodations allow every student to succeed at their own level. They also address the neurological reasons behind procrastination and provide practical strategies to help students push through these mental barriers. Here’s a look at their findings.
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Using Working Memory to Engage Students
No matter how good your lesson plan is, in Uncommon Sense Teaching, Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski say that keeping a room full of students engaged and focused is an exceptional challenge. However, you can greatly mitigate this problem if you effectively manage your students’ working memories. This means keeping those with small working memories from getting frustrated, while preventing those with large capacities from getting bored.
(Shortform note: Avoiding frustration and boredom is certainly important for keeping your students engaged, but it’s only one part of the solution. In Humanocracy, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini say that there are four key elements to keeping people engaged with their work. Those elements are the autonomy to find their own ways to solve problems, growth through learning new things and tackling interesting challenges, a sense of connection with their peers, and a mission they can believe in; for students, that usually means a compelling answer to the age-old question “why are we learning this?” While Hamel and Zanini apply these principles to employee engagement, they’re equally valid as elements of student engagement.)
The authors write that having clear rules and procedures for your classroom will benefit all of your students, regardless of their individual memory capacities. This happens because your expectations eventually become procedural knowledge for the kids, after which they’ll automatically know how to get ready for class and how to behave. As a result, they won’t have to use up their working memory capacity thinking about what they’re supposed to do.
(Shortform note: In 1-2-3 Magic, clinical psychologist Thomas W. Phelan says that clear and regular routines have benefits beyond reducing the need for working memory. First, routines help children build their executive functioning skills—self-control and the ability to act on their own initiative—because they already know what they’re expected to do. Second, routines boost children’s self-esteem because they can carry out those routines on their own, instead of needing to ask for an adult’s help.)
The authors also say building a lesson plan in the way they recommend will create an overall structure that’s accessible for all students. However, they urge you to build on that initial structure by accommodating individual students’ needs as much as possible. You can do this effectively by providing options and resources that every student is able, but not required, to take advantage of.
For example, you could hand out written instructions that break tasks down into smaller steps, so students can refer to them as needed. This can be helpful for everyone, though students with smaller working memories will likely need to refer to the instructions more frequently. You might also offer optional, extra-credit activities that encourage students to apply their knowledge in new ways, such as writing an essay or creating a diorama. This will provide interesting challenges for students with large memory capacities, while not punishing those who don’t have the capacity for such activities.
(Shortform note: The authors offer some suggestions that can help most students effectively manage their own needs. However, some kids—especially those with learning disabilities or other disorders—may need additional accommodations. For example, some common accommodations for children with ADHD include allowing extra time for tests and assignments, technological aids like text-to-speech programs (so they can listen to the material instead of reading it), or permission to use fidget toys in class as long as they don’t disrupt other students.)
Why Students Procrastinate and How to Help
Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski add that people tend to assume that when students procrastinate on an assignment, it’s because of a lack of engagement (or simply laziness), but that isn’t always the case. Instead, procrastination is often the result of genuine discomfort.
The authors explain that when people think about unpleasant or difficult tasks, it activates the parts of the brain responsible for processing physical pain. As a result, people tend to avoid thinking about such tasks, just like they avoid physical discomfort—in other words, they procrastinate. Understanding this will help you respond to procrastination with appropriate strategies, rather than simply demanding harder work or better time management.
(Shortform note: Speaking more broadly, the human brain processes physical and emotional pain in remarkably similar ways. This suggests that, on a subconscious level, we can’t differentiate between physical danger and mental or emotional distress. Furthermore, this neurological quirk has effects that go far beyond simple procrastination. For example, it helps to explain why so many people suffer from such an intense fear of rejection that they spend their lives trying to please everyone else, to the point that they neglect their own needs and desires.)
To stop your students from procrastinating, the authors advise you to help your students learn how their minds operate and how they can work with their brain’s natural processes. When kids understand why a task feels unpleasant and have the tools to deal with that feeling, they’re much less likely to procrastinate.
For example, suppose you have a student who gets frustrated because they can’t seem to grasp a skill, no matter how many practice questions they work through. You could explain that working through numerous, similar problems is only helpful at first (during the declarative learning process), and that they’ll develop true mastery more easily by trying different kinds of exercises and practicing a little bit each day. You could then suggest a strategy for building procedural knowledge, such as working through just five exercises a day while consulting their notes as little as possible.
(Shortform note: This strategy works because, neurologically speaking, procrastination is the result of a conflict between two parts of the brain: the limbic system’s emotional drive to avoid discomfort and the prefrontal cortex’s rational drive to finish a task. When your students understand and address the feelings behind their procrastination, their limbic systems become less active—in essence, their brains convince themselves that there’s no real danger, and therefore no reason to keep avoiding the task. This allows the rational parts of their brains to take control and get the task done.)
Cultivating a Safe, Supportive Classroom
Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski say that a healthy social environment is crucial for students to learn effectively. Without it, a hurt, scared, or overwhelmed child will be more concerned with feeling safe than with paying attention in class—stressful situations trigger instinctive fight-or-flight responses that shut down rational thinking. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that your classroom dynamics are supportive rather than competitive or judgmental.
Building a safe environment means sometimes being flexible with your rules and expectations. Individual students may have days when they’re upset, overwhelmed, or struggling for some other reason. During those difficult times, your patience and understanding will help them far more than rigidly enforcing the rules (which would only put them under even more stress). For example, a child who’s too upset to focus on their work will only become more upset if you berate or punish them for their inattention.
(Shortform note: While “fight-or-flight” is how people commonly describe instinctive self-defense mechanisms, there are other responses to the feeling of danger. In Complex PTSD, psychotherapist Pete Walker identifies two more common responses: freeze, in which the person tries to avoid notice by doing nothing at all, and fawn, wherein they try to stay safe by appeasing the people around them. This means that students who simply sit and do nothing might feel unsafe, and the same may be true of students who try too hard to please you. However, they show their discomfort, such students will benefit from reassurance that your classroom is a safe place where they won’t be hurt, insulted, or unfairly punished.)
The authors also say that your role as a teacher includes guiding your students’ social and emotional development. Young children in particular need to learn collaboration, conflict resolution, and communication skills. You can reinforce those skills by having students model various interactions with one another or work together on assignments—this will help create a positive learning environment both in and out of your classroom.
(Shortform note: What the authors describe here is known as social-emotional learning (SEL), and research supports the academic benefits of developing these skills. For instance, a study from 2011 found that teaching students SEL skills like self-awareness, empathy, and emotional self-management raised their grades by an average of 11%. In the long run, SEL skills lead to greater success in the workplace, improved mental health, and stronger interpersonal relationships throughout a person’s life.)
Learn More About Engaging Students
If you want to learn more about how to keep your students engaged, you can dive deeper by reading the full guides of the books mentioned in this article.
