Best Practice

Changing teenage brains and the implications for the classroom

Pedagogy Pupil wellbeing
Continuing her series on the biological changes our students face and how they can affect their education, Dr Stephanie Thornton discusses the brain changes that occur during puberty.

It seems that our brains change in fairly impressive ways as we pass through puberty. Given the drama of hormonal change at this time, it would be most extraordinary were it not so! Although we are still in the early stages of research in this area, with many questions yet to be answered, a number of interesting phenomena are already emerging. 

New methods have given us, for the first time, the extraordinary ability to see the brain in action. Of course, we can’t see thoughts or feelings – but we can see the areas of the brain that are active when an individual is engaged in a given type of activity. Research of this kind has revealed marked changes in the brain systems that process both social and emotional phenomena during adolescence. 

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