NAfME collegiate advisor
Curiosity: The Brain’s Secret to Better Learning
Donna Hewitt, WMEA State Chair, NAfME Collegiate Advisor
What Beatles single lasted longest on the charts? If you’re a Beatles fan, you may already know the answer or are grabbing the nearest device to find out. If you’re not a Beatles fan, this question
may not be all that intriguing to you though you still might look up the answer just because. Either way, take a moment and think about your internal response to be- ing asked this question. How curious are you? It turns out that curiosity can be a powerful motivator for learning and may even improve memory. In this article, I’ll share some of that research and how we can harness curiosity to enhance student learning and engagement in the classroom.
Why Curiosity Matters
The opening Beatles question wasn’t sim- ply to test your knowledge. If you were curious about the answer, then your brain may have begun preparing itself to learn. Research suggests that curiosity alters the brain by increasing its activity relative to our level of curiosity (Gruber et al, 2014). These neural pathways support memory formation while activating the brain’s reward system, essentially priming us to want to learn more. Researchers found that when a person’s curiosity was piqued before learning something new, they were more likely to remember it. Additionally, neuroscientist Matthias Gruber describes a “Curiosity Vortex,” in which people remembered not only the information that
sparked their curiosity but also unrelated information encountered while their brains were primed for learning. This suggests that sparking curiosity before learning increases both motivation and retention, even beyond the original topic. While trivia questions can be an effective way to pique students’ curiosity, I’d like to offer a few additional approaches.
Be Curious About Your Students
In order to create curiosity in students, we must first know what our students are genuinely curious about. This connects with being a culturally responsive educa- tor where we see and value our students as human beings within the larger cultural contexts of their lives. Taking the time to get to know our students’ musical lives and preferences outside of the classroom can be a great starting point. For example, creating a class list of songs students en- joy at the beginning of the year provides an instant resource for lesson ideas while also sparking curiosity through music they already know and love. Even songs students know by heart can become opportunities for discovery when we ask questions such as, “What do you notice?” or “Why do you think the composer or artist made that choice?”
Curiosity as an Anticipatory Hook
Anticipatory hooks are common in lesson planning where the first few minutes of the lesson are devoted to grabbing students’ attention, activating their prior knowl- edge, and preparing them for the lesson.
“In this article, I’ll share some of that research and how we can harness curiosity to enhance student learning and engagement in the classroom.”
Prompting questions are a great way to capitalize on curiosity while also serving as an anticipatory hook, but they must take into account how students will engage. For example, if students have never heard of syncopation and were asked, “What is syncopation?”, then their level of engage- ment (and potential curiosity) would be rather low. However, if a teacher plays two contrasting rhythmic examples and asks students to describe how the two rhythms make them feel and why, then we are al- lowing for students to engage with a new concept using their own knowledge and understanding.
Create a Culture of Curiosity
While it is important to ask questions of stu- dents to prompt thinking and assess learn- ing, it is equally important for students to learn how to ask questions. Doing so helps students take ownership of their learning as active participants in the learning process. One approach is an exit ticket at the end of class in which students write one thing they
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