Teaching Students How to Keep Their Brains Healthy and Improve Their Learning Abilities

May 9, 2016

Originally published in the Spring 2016 issue of GIST by the Duke Social Science Research Institute (SSRI)

Professors Kuhn and Wilson

Walk into a 9th-grade honors health class at Wakefield High School in Raleigh, and you might think you’ve stepped into a freshman biology class at any local university. These high schoolers are learning the ins-and-outs of the brain down to the neuron level—details the average 14- or 15-year-old likely doesn’t know.

But, it was a chance meeting between investigators and the former head of North Carolina’s Healthful Living public schools program that made this type of instruction possible. The collaboration’s result: the idea of a high school curriculum that teaches students how to keep their brains healthy and improve their learning abilities.

Known as the Translating Neuroscience into Education: A Neuroscience-based Health Curriculum for North Carolina Ninth Grade Students—and a 2016-17 Bass Connections grantee—this project is integrated into Wakefield’s required-for-graduation health class. It was a ready-made testing ground.

“All of a sudden, we had a vector for delivering the information that we think is critical because it teaches kids to use their brains,” said Wilkie Wilson, Ph.D., research professor of prevention science. “We have to teach them how to use what they came to school to use—we’re not doing that right now.”

Alongside instructing students how to better care for their brain, he said, this course exposes them to the growing trend of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. Prompting the next generation of physician-scientists is a secondary goal.

The Course

Most students don’t know their brains are still growing and can be permanently damaged by alcohol and drug experimentation, Wilson said. That’s where this course—targeting honors level, college-bound high school freshman—comes in. The curriculum, tested with 150 students with five, 90-minute lessons in three classes, discusses the brain’s role in supporting life and physical performance, the fundamental neuroscience of motivation and learning, the critical role of brain health in brain function, and brain performance-inhibiting substance abuse.

Students also learn simple, day-to-day steps they can take to augment their brain’s health, said Cynthia Kuhn, Ph.D., pharmacology, cancer biology, psychiatry and behavioral sciences professor. For example, getting enough sleep, exercising adequately, eating breakfast can improve cognitive function.

Teachers delivering the curriculum participated in three training days to learn brain basics, such as how nerve cells control behavior and learning.

The pilot year has revealed challenges, however, Kuhn said. The largest has been translating neuroscience information and making it accessible to all levels of age and education.

“Translating from Ph.D. level, down to skilled teacher, down to students who are ready to take hold of this level of information has been complicated,” she said. “We must rethink how to present information. These are complicated concepts on how different parts of the brain work and coordinate.”

Extended funding, she said, will help project leaders make the curriculum accessible to students at all levels, not just those in honors classes. Despite underlying interest in the brain, she said, some students have pushed back, saying the curriculum is too demanding for what has traditionally been a physical education class.

Teacher Training

So far, only health teachers involved in pilot testing have been trained to deliver the neuroscience curriculum, Wilson said. But, with more time and greater funding, the investigators plan to provide the same level of training—if not more—to all teachers who will be involved.

“Teachers need to know how to address questions students have and further extend the curriculum to make it their own,” he said.

Once teachers are properly trained and comfortable in their abilities to adequately answer thoughtful questions from students, it will be easier to implement the curriculum across the state and, potentially, the nation.

Bass Connections

From the outset, this project has been a University-Medical Center collaboration, bringing together leaders from both sides to design a curriculum that can best address unmet health education needs in North Carolina.

“This collaboration has been nothing but a win-win with Dr. Kuhn on the medical side and me in the middle,” Wilson said. “The medical part is the key element to providing science-based, powerful rationales for engaging in healthy behaviors.”

There’s a huge unmet interest the Duke students have in teaching and connecting with the high school students in an academic way.

And, Duke students selected to participate through Bass Connections will partner with teachers, providing in-person and online professional development assistance. During the process, they’ll learn to translate high-level science into a high school curriculum, train nonscientists to deliver the information, and evaluate performance and outcomes to determine whether the program is effective.

The project is unique because it provides an avenue for Duke students to engage younger individuals with neuroscience information they previously didn’t have—all while meeting public school conventional health standards.

“There’s a huge unmet interest the Duke students have in teaching and connecting with the high school students in an academic way,” she said. “Through Bass Connections, we have the capacity to address that desire in students.”

In the course she teaches on drugs, Kuhn gives her students the choice between completing a group project or going into a classroom to share information about the brain. To date, 40 of 60 students have opted to work in the high schools.

Ultimately, Kuhn said, the project should actively engage high school freshman, increasing their chances for academic success as they learn how their behavior directly affects their brain function and overall health.

SSRI Involvement

Getting high schools on board with allowing and implementing a neuroscience curriculum can be a tall task, Wilson said. And SSRI has been a valuable partner in supporting and sustaining this program.

Without its resources, much of the work wouldn’t be possible, Wilson said.

Kuhn agreed. SSRI tools have helped program leaders create a curriculum that fits the high school mold. Without this assistance, it would’ve been far more difficult to translate high-level neuroscience concepts into content that students at every level can grasp.

“It’s been crucial to have a partner that can collect data on whether and what students are learning,” she said. “SSRI has the ability to navigate the bureaucracy to get us into the schools effectively. This support is critical.”

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Photo courtesy of Shelbi Fanning: Cynthia Kuhn and Wilkie Wilson discuss their research.