Adolescent Learning

Andrew Fuller
Ideally you would like to have a brain that has the connections than it needed and so it began a
organisational skills of Henry Ford, the planning process known as” synaptic pruning”.
skills of Hilary Clinton, the humour of John
Cleese, the spiritedness of Steve Irwin, the Jay Giedd and his colleagues scanned the brains
gentleness of the Mother Teresa, the ferocity of of 1000 healthy children and adolescents aged 3-
Mike Tyson, the romance of Casanova and the 18 years old. Just prior to puberty between 9 and
passion of Martin Luther King Junior. 10 years of age there is a huge growth spurt in
Unfortunately most adolescent brains have the the frontal lobes with millions of new synapses.
planning skills of a Teletubbie, the humour of Then around the age of 11, massive pruning
Ghengis Khan, the reliability of Lindsay Lohan, occurs. This time of life represents a great
the can do attitude of a sloth on a holiday, the opportunity for educators to develop the neural
cultural sensitivity of Pol Pot and the architecture that will lead students on to success.
communication skills of Paris Hilton.
Mindset
Let’s face it, adolescence is an awkward time Carol Dweck’s research shows us that students’
and it is no more troublesome than for the poor mindsets directly influence results. Adopting a
adults trying to guide these gangly, anxious growth mindset enables students to remain
narcissists towards maturity. engaged and achieve well. Students with a
growth mindset outperform controls because they
Despite all of this, most adolescents get along believe in effort and are resilient in the face of
quite well with their parents and teachers most of setbacks. Teachers who have a growth mindset
the time. Most succeed in school, have positive have students who improve faster.
relationships with peers, do not become addicted
to drugs or alcohol, and become productive and Changing students’ mindsets from a fixed (I can’t
healthy adults. do any better) to a growth (I can improve) raises
their achievement scores.
The adolescent brain is set up for being fast and
impulsive and we need to help it move towards Our aim should be for each student to develop
becoming slow and smart. their potential. To this we need to praise effort
not intelligence and improvement over
Slowing adolescent minds down so that they accomplishment.
don’t have to do the first thing that comes into
their heads requires kind coaching in reflective Momentum
rather than impulsive decision making. Many students develop rapidly during their
primary school years only to slow and falter in the
During childhood the brain develops an early adolescent years.
enormous number of connections (called
synapses) between brain cells. At birth, you had We need to get better at capturing the skills,
about 2,500 synapses per brain cell. By your leadership qualities and passions of students as
third birthday you had 15,000. By the time you they enter these years.
were 9 years of age, your brain had more

Copyright Andrew Fuller www.andrewfuller.com.au 1

Planning The amygdala is your own security watchdog. It
Lot’s of teenagers would have trouble planning keeps you safe. If it becomes over-activated, it
their way out of a wet paper bag with a fine wind moves into survival mode and not much learning
behind them. This is because their prefrontal occurs. This means that classrooms that are
cortex is being refined during these years. Most threatening, sarcastic, shaming or have teachers
teenagers should have a sign on their foreheads who yell are non-learning classrooms.
that says” closed for re-construction”.
Adolescents display considerably poorer
While the connections in the prefrontal cortex are cognitive performance under circumstances
being refined or pruned, it is also a time of great involving everyday stresses and time-limited
opportunity. It is in these years that thinking, situations than under optimal test conditions.
problem solving and creativity can surge if
nourished. Optimal Support
Adolescents achieve improved results when they
It’s all about the frontal lobes at this time and have deeper relationships with fewer teachers
once they are wired, they are harder to change. than a variety of teachers.

Key things we can do to boost the performance A pod is a group of 3 teachers who between
of the adolescent brain: them care for the learning, emotional needs of a
* structure learning so that most of the initial group of students as well as being the main link
organisation is done for them. They will absorb point for family liaison in high schools. Ideally the
the structures later; 3 teachers continue with the same group- of
* provide opportunities for mastery learning; and students throughout their time at the school.
* give them activities that develop the frontal
lobes- prediction games, anticipation of Most students will be able to relate to all 3
consequences, mazes, discussions about the teachers. Some students however are unable to
long term effects of social issues. hear mixed news (praise as well as suggestions)
from the one person. For these students we split
Emotional Processing the roles of the pod into:
Adolescents like intensity, excitement, and Manager
arousal. They are drawn to music videos that
shock and bombard the senses. Teenagers flock
to horror and slasher movies. Boundary Rider Advocate

At this time, hormones become more powerful The boundary rider’s job is to put consequences
and adolescent’s brains show more activity in the in place. The advocate’s role is to engage and
emotional parts of the brain (known as the limbic support the student and to remove themselves
system) than they do in the planning and impulse whenever possible, from disciplinary processes.
control parts of the brain (known as the frontal The manager’s role is to oversee the process
lobes and the pre-frontal cortex). and to have the final say in the event of
professional disagreements about student
This means that adolescents learn best when management.
there is emotion involved!
Successful teachers of adolescents base their
Stress work on relationships rather than power.
When emotional, adolescents have lower activity
in their frontal lobes and more activity in the Teachers need to “own” their own classrooms
amygdala than adults. so they can develop support and routines,
implement guided practice and create a visually
interesting, engaging and safe learning
environment.

Copyright Andrew Fuller www.andrewfuller.com.au 2

Teach the main skills Reading
As early adolescence is a time when the neural Today’s early adolescents read differently than
pathways and habits of success are laid down, it most adults do. If we track eye movements,
makes sense for us to assess and then create most adults read in a zigzag fashion down the
improvements in the following skills: page, most teenagers read in a F pattern.

* Removing unnecessary noise- this means having Most teenagers won't read texts thoroughly in a
some moments of a lesson in silence. word-by-word manner. The first two paragraphs
* Identifying similarities & differences- how must state the most important information.
concepts overlap and differ. There's some hope that users will actually read
* Summarising & Note taking – paraphrasing and this material, though they'll probably read more of
organising information. the first paragraph than the second.
* Reinforcing effort & providing recognition for
that effort. Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points
* Homework & deliberate practice with information-carrying words that teens will
* Presenting new information non- verbally notice when scanning down the left side of your
* Co-operative learning- teamwork. content in the final stem of their F-pattern.
* Setting objectives & providing feedback
* Generating & testing hypotheses They'll read the third word on a line much less
* Using cues, questions & advance organizers often than the first two words.

Repetition Expectations for themselves

It takes humans 24 repetitions to get to 80% of Teenagers who have lower expectations for
competence. Repetition also builds mastery and themselves ask for help less often and are less
synaptogenesis. likely to use feedback to improve outcomes.
While we want to praise effort more than ability,
One major implication of this research is that we also want to make sure our students know
schools should think long and hard before that we think they are capable and clever.
sacrificing regular (daily) exposure to the
information in each subject area for longer Numerous teenagers are sapped of motivation by
learning times but fewer repetitions. the fear of failure. Shame is toxic to learning.
Build a classroom culture in which “having a go”
Spaced repetition pays off even more is expected and mistakes are looked upon as
“Spaced repetition” has a positive impact on steps towards a correct answer.
learning. Instead of concentrating the study of
information in single blocks, learners encounter Tuned into the peer group
the same material in briefer sessions spread over Teenagers are highly tuned into the opinions of
a longer period of time. those around them, especially their peers. They
tend to be preoccupied with what others think
Spaced repetition produces impressive results. A and will sacrifice success for social acceptance.
study completed at the University of California-
San Diego in 2007 found that Year 8 history This means we need to manage the peer culture
students who relied on a spaced approach to by giving all students ways to be helpful, have a
learning had nearly double the retention rate of go at new activities and succeed.
students who studied the same material in
consolidated units. Nothing overcomes reluctance and low
motivation faster than challenges and a whiff of
This research implies that the more times success. In this area we need to emulate
students encounter information the more likely computer game designers.
they are to understand and retain it.

Copyright Andrew Fuller www.andrewfuller.com.au 3

Listening Sleep declines from an average of 8.3 hours in
Between 5 and 10 % of teenagers have hearing Year 8, 7.5 hours in Year 10 to 7 hours in Year
and central auditory processing disorders. This 12. Most teens function optimally on 9.25 hours.
often leads to language problems in vocabulary Sleep deprivation is associated with weight gain,
comprehension, speech reading writing and moodiness, poorer attention, and increased use
decoding information. These students spend 3 of caffeinated stimulant drinks to become alert.
times as much time decoding information and
often never store it in long term memory. Adolescents getting only 5-6 hours of sleep lose
out on the last two REM cycles and thereby
For this reason we need to keep instructions reduce the amount of time the brain has to
simple and deliver them in small steps, repeat consolidate information into long term storage.
them, check that they are understood (for
example, “now Harry tell me what we are doing”) Assessment
and back key messages up with visuals. While frequent testing does not improve learning,
exposing teenagers to quizzes, puzzles and short
Visual Learners challenging tests inoculates them against later
Most early adolescents are visual learners. exam anxiety.
When new information is presented orally with no
image present only 10% of what was presented The most effective study strategy is to review and
is retained 72 hours later. If a picture is added study the entire subject, test the entire subject,
the retention rate rises to 65%. study the items you got wrong, and then test the
entire subject again.
Multi-tasking
Doesn’t work. Teaching students how to revise and prepare for
exams should begin in the early adolescent
Memory years.
Memory is increased by repetition but is also
increased when the new information is used to Passion Projects.
perform some tasks. Describing the new Students learn best when the information is
information in different forms and organising the emotionally engaging and is relevant to them.
new information so it is meaningful also The perceived relevance of the topic is more
increases retention. powerful in improving learning than whether you
have a student or teacher centred curriculum. It
We need to provide well-structured practice is more powerful than providing electives or
opportunities and frequent reviews. negotiating curriculum.

Graphic organisers outline processes and Shedding some of the “busy” work that plagues
procedures can also be used to enhance. Aim most schools to free up time for students to
to create multiple descriptions that can be used develop passion projects makes sense.
flexibly (diagrams, outlines story boards,
cartoons, hierarchies) One possible structure of a school day that would
suit early adolescents would be to have skill
Sleep Patterns sessions in the morning followed by passion
Most teenagers’ brains aren’t ready to wake up projects on at least a few afternoons each week.
until 8 or 9 in the morning, Adolescents need
more sleep than they did as children and that Students completing projects of interest to them
their circadian rhythms appear to be set later results in amazing leaps in learning. The findings
than children’s or adults. of Big Picture Schools, Montessori education and
Challenge–based learning are impressive in this
area and show that these types of projects can
contain rigour and mastery.

Copyright Andrew Fuller www.andrewfuller.com.au 4