In CTL1119, Gaining Confidence in Mathematics: Reconstructing Mathematics Knowledge and Overcoming Anxiety (K–8), I led a seminar on how attention, working memory, and self-regulation shape math learning. I chose the topic because I was interested in a gap I kept noticing: mathematics is often treated as if performance depends only on what a student knows, even though their ability to use that knowledge can change dramatically when they feel anxious, rushed, or exposed.

I began my research from an educational-neuroscience perspective. I wanted to understand what happens when a learner is trying to focus, hold information in mind, regulate frustration, and solve a problem at the same time. Research on math anxiety helped me see that worry is not simply an emotion sitting beside the learning process. It can consume some of the same attention and working-memory resources a student needs for problem-solving. A student may therefore understand more than their performance in a stressful moment suggests.

From the brain to the classroom

As I developed the seminar, my focus shifted. The most useful question was no longer simply, “What is happening in the brain?” It became, “What are we asking students’ brains to manage in our classrooms?” Speed pressure, public comparison, harsh correction, and fear of mistakes can turn an already demanding task into a threat. By contrast, predictable routines, wait time, supportive relationships, and carefully timed scaffolding can make confusion feel manageable. Neuroscience was most valuable to me when it helped translate these invisible demands into concrete teaching decisions.

Making struggle visible

I wanted my classmates to experience this idea rather than only hear me explain it, so I gave each person a triangle made from pennies and asked them to make it point in the opposite direction by moving only three coins. Most people did not immediately see the solution. Instead of revealing it, I offered prompts: What would you do if you could move as many pennies as you wanted? Now, how could you reduce the number of moves?

That small activity became the centre of the seminar. During our discussion, classmates described feeling confused, pressured, curious, and surprisingly vulnerable while struggling in front of other people. Their responses mirrored the concepts we had just discussed. The task itself had not changed, but the prompts made it feel possible again. Watching that shift helped me understand scaffolding less as giving a student the answer and more as providing enough structure for them to remain in the “stretch zone,” where a challenge is difficult but still approachable.

The task itself had not changed, but the prompts made it feel possible again.

Neuroplasticity without empty reassurance

Our conversation about neuroplasticity also prompted several classmates to reconsider the labels people acquire in school, particularly the idea that someone is naturally “good” or “bad” at math. Some said they wished they had understood earlier that ability is not fixed and that anxiety can temporarily interfere with access to knowledge. That response reminded me that brain literacy can support students’ agency, but only when it is communicated carefully. Telling students that their brains can change is not a substitute for changing the classroom conditions that may be producing fear or shame.

Difficulty is not automatically productive

The seminar ultimately changed how I think about mistakes. An incorrect answer is not automatically evidence of productive struggle, and struggle is not valuable simply because it is difficult. A mistake becomes useful when a learner has the emotional safety, time, feedback, and support needed to examine it. Likewise, a correct answer can conceal shallow understanding. The teacher’s role is not to eliminate difficulty, but to distinguish between a challenge that stretches a learner and one that overwhelms them.

Looking back, the project brought together three ideas I want to carry into my teaching and learning-design work: help students understand how learning works, build classroom cultures where mistakes are treated as information, and scaffold challenge intentionally. The penny puzzle was simple, but it made the argument tangible. Math learning is never only cognitive or only emotional. Attention, memory, self-regulation, identity, and classroom culture are interacting every time a student decides whether to keep trying.

Research that informed the seminar