Alternative Academic Title: Learner Procrastination: Why They Do It (and How to Respond) Parental Driving Question: What the F*** Can I Do about Student Procrastination? Topic Overview Find out what is happening in your students’ brains when they procrastinate. Learn the common factors which cause students to procrastinate on projects. Discover the best practices for projects to engage students’ brains and help them own their learning outcomes. The session will be a intersection of neuroscience’s latest evidence-based research with PBL best practices Three Big Ideas you will learn: The importance of and methods for: 1. Helping students break projects into achievable subgoals 2. Growing a project’s neural footprint until it reaches critical mass 3. Creating ownership, urgency and accountability Education and PBL World Relevance By understanding how the brain works, we can better set students up for success. There are specific steps you can take which make it easier for students to engage with projects.

1. The Brain on Procrastination
(and what you can do about it)
Learner Procrastination: Why They Do It
(and How to Respond)
DQ: What the F*** can I do about
Student Procrastination?
Dion Lim, CEO, PacerRabbit
dion@pacerrabbit.com

2. (but the habit starts in elementary)
of college students engage in frequent
academic procrastination95%
(but the habit starts young)

3. 6 weeks
REASON #1
Because time is too abstract to their brains, they feel no
urgency.

4. REASON #2
Because the project’s limited unpredictability, novelty, value
and/or pleasure results in low dopamine levels and
therefore, low interest.

5. REASON #3
Because it’s got a small neural footprint
(it’s harder for the hippocampus to access it)
Your Project
SportsSex

6. Brains are
wired for
present
bias result
of
Hyberbolic
discounting
by fronto-
parietal
network
REASON #4
Because hyperbolic discounting
by the fronto-parietal network
values present certainty over
delayed gratification.

7. REASON #5
Because the amygdala goes into fight mode due to overloading and
just reacts to the most imminent item.

8. Reason #6
Because the amygdala goes into flight mode when it feels
overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to start.

9. Reason #7
Because fear and anxiety overarouse the brain with
norepinephrine and lock out frontal lobe.

10. There is hope!

11. Intervention #1
Make time concrete and visual to enable the brain
to place tasks and urgency into context.
START FINISH
You are
here Today

12. Intervention #2
Set deadlines to raise
urgency, dopamine and
norepinephrine.

13. Intervention #3
Keep the project top of mind
in multiple, original ways to
make it easier for the
hippocampus to access it

14. Intervention #4
Build a big neural footprint by connecting the
project with existing concepts & interest areas

15. Intervention #5
Use humor and surprise
Catch the attention of the
anterior cingulate cortex by triggering
a prediction error and dopamine

16. Intervention # 6
Raise dopamine through
novelty
iPhone 10

17. Intervention #7
Use rewards.
Expecting a positive event generates dopamine
(food, positive social interactions, money)

18. Intervention #8
Remove fear and anxiety through a
culture of effort, revision and redemption.

19. Intervention #9
Teach them how to
break any task into
small enough steps to
create ownership and
sidestep the amygdala.

20. Intervention #10
Baby Bear balance their arousal