How I learn
- Colleen Farris
- Jul 10, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 24, 2024
A master teacher can change your life in no time at all.
10 July 2024
In August 2019, I was riding in the car on my way back home to Raleigh from Florida. After a summer of traveling up and down the East Coast visiting family, I was ready to think about setting goals for the new school year. As a part of that goal setting process, I revisited a question I asked myself every year. Will this be the year that I finally go back to school to finish my master’s degree?
With this question on my mind, I stumbled upon the rebroadcast of an NPR TED Radio Hour episode entitled “How to make stress your friend,” featuring Dr. Kelly McGonigal . Listening to her podcast changed my mind and changed my life, but I have never reflected on why it was so effective. Fast forward five years. I am in the second week of a second master’s degree, this time in education technology. I have new tools and understandings at my disposal to analyze the masterful teaching that introduced me to a new context in which to think about stress. That new context allowed me to replace my previously held beliefs about stress as negative with an understanding of stress as positive and helpful.
Dr. McGonigal begins her TED Talk by doing a quick audience check-in. This exercise quickly reveals that her listeners view stress as negative. By identifying and acknowledging this preexisting understanding of stress (Bransford, 2000, pp. 10-11), even admitting that she shared that understanding herself, she connects with them. Then, she tells her audience that she was wrong. That she, a trained psychologist and college professor, has been misleading people about the negative effects of stress. Then she says, “But I have changed my mind about stress, and today, I want to change yours (McGonigal, 2013, 1:13).” What follows in her talk is a brilliant demonstration of the best practices discussed in How People Learn : Brain, Mind, Experience, and School : Expanded Edition (Bransford, 2000) .
In her introduction, Dr. McGonigal establishes herself as an expert in the content and pedagogical knowledge areas being presented (Bransford, 2000, p. 31). She shares her credentials, including her position as a university professor with appropriate medical training to discuss the psychology of stress. She also explains how, as an expert, she processed new research about stress that challenged and ultimately replaced the context in which she views stress.
This discussion reveals her metacognitive process and adaptive expertise (Bransford, 2000, pp. 45-47) and creates a model upon which the audience can build a new understanding for themselves using a similar process. As discussed in chapters two and three of How people learn (Bransford, 2000), explicit discussion of expert metacognitive processes with students helps them acquire, store and process knowledge like experts. The framework for this process allows for knowledge to be transferred and/or adapted to incorporate new information.
Dr. McGonigal goes on to discuss the results of the study that introduced her to new information about the effects of stress. The research reveals that it is what we believe about stress, not the stress itself, that is harmful. Her interpretation of the research data reveals the factors she considers important–correlations between measurable health outcomes and beliefs about stress. In explaining which data she considers relevant, she demonstrates her expert thinking process which enables her to see and interpret patterns that non-experts may not perceive (Bransford, 2000, pp. 32-36), but she does not expect her listeners to just take her word for it.
Dr. McGonigal deftly turns the research results into an imagined scenario in which each listener can experience the truth of her assertion. She employs an appropriate psychological tool for this exercise (Bransford, 2000, p. 22), a thought experiment that activates the stress response. The transformative teaching moment of her talk occurs when her listeners are experiencing the stress response and she explains what physical responses to stress really mean: “That pounding heart is preparing you for action. If you’re breathing faster, it’s no problem. It’s getting more oxygen to your brain (McGonigal, 2013, 5:33).”
Of all the best practices of teaching discussed above, the most effective is how she addresses context. In the United States, it is considered common sense to believe that stress itself will kill you. Changing such an ingrained idea requires a contextual shift. By admitting that she, an expert, was wrong about this idea she makes it safe for her non-expert audience to discard their previous understandings and adopt new ones. By using an appropriate tool, she guides her listeners from an abstract discussion into a visceral, personal learning experience.
Although her talk goes on to discuss other positive results of believing stress is helpful, it is the charge to the audience at this juncture that affected me most: “...the next time your heart is pounding from stress, you're going to remember this talk and you're going to think to yourself, this is my body helping me rise to this challenge (McGonigal, 2013, 7:10)." It turns out that I did not just believe that stress was unhealthy. I also believed that when I experienced a stress response it was my body telling me, “You can’t do this.”
I was shocked to learn that I had misinterpreted my body so profoundly. For eight years, everytime I tried to restart my master’s degree I took the stress response I felt to be a vote of no confidence. Suddenly, it felt completely different. The message I received was, “Oh, you want to do that? Great. I'm right here with you. Let's go!” I got home. I called my advisor at the University of North Florida. I received permission to take classes and transfer credits from North Carolina State University. Three days later, I was enrolled at NC State. In December of 2020, I earned my degree.
This is how less than fifteen minutes with a master teacher impacted my life, but now I understand how and why her message was so effective. Expert teachers are mindful of the entire learning process from beginning to end. They find us where we are. They gain our confidence and respect by modeling expert learning processes. They lead us gently into new ways of thinking using the right tools and learning experiences. And, they partner with us to refine our contexts to accommodate lifelong learning.
For more information about best practices for teaching and learning, reference How people learn : Brain, mind, experience, and school: expanded edition. (2000). National Academies Press.
Click here for the transcript of Dr. McGonigal's TED Talk (S, 2023).
References
How people learn : Brain, mind, experience, and school: expanded edition. (2000). National Academies Press.
S, P. (2023, November 25). How to make stress your friend by Kelly McGonigal (transcript).
TED. (2013, September 4). How to make stress your friend | Kelly McGonigal [Video]. https://youtu.be/RcGyVTAoXEU?si=xla8RJgKuN3pzc5Z
