Will neuroscience transform teaching in our colleges?

Crispin Knill sits down to map out his whole-year plan for his English literature A-level class. He works methodically, moving deadlines, crossing out topic titles and pencilling them in again, as the school year begins to take shape.

However, his plan looks a little different from most planning documents you would find in an FE classroom, because it has an added dimension to it. As well as mapping out what needs to be completed and when, Knill is also carefully planning around the stress levels that his students will be experiencing throughout the year.

If you were to represent these levels visually, they would form a wave pattern: each peak is followed by a trough, before another peak. This planning is not arbitrary. Knill is harnessing knowledge from neuroscience about the impact that stress has on learning to inform his plan and, hopefully, get the best he can out of his students.

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