What I’m Reading: ‘The Teenage Brain’

Emerging research in neurobiology and developmental psychology suggest that “adulthood” is attained later in life than was previously believed. In The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults (HarperCollins, 2015), Frances E. Jensen, chair of the neurology department of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, describes some interesting implications for higher education of this extended time required for cognitive development.

Though the teenage brain is capable of learning at peak efficiency, Dr. Jensen argues, “much else is inefficient, including attention, self-discipline, task completion, and emotions.” Professors expect, as they should, that students can learn. They also often expect that students can pay attention through long lecture classes, have the self-discipline to study regularly for far-off deadlines, know how to structure and sequence large projects, and regulate their emotions to ensure that life outside of the classroom does not affect their academic work. Her work suggests that those presuppositions are misplaced and developmentally inappropriate.

The neurobiological research does not suggest that we lessen students’ workload or reduce rigor, or that we change course requirements. Rather, a thorough understanding of neurobiological development ought to inform the expectations we have of students — both inside and outside of the classroom — and should influence the way we design courses and student-support systems.

Ryan Korstange is an assistant professor in university studies at Middle Tennessee State University.

Correction (1/23/2018, 1:25 p.m.): Because of an editing error, the original version of the article mistakenly referred to the author, Frances E. Jensen, as “his” instead of “her.” The reference has been corrected.