You can feel it. The hair rising on the back of your neck. The confusion and frustration saturating your mind.

All in response to a simple phrase we learn in childhood math class: "Word problem."

But it doesn't have to be that way.

By acting out a word problem, rather than just reading an esoteric explanation in a book, the things could actually become fun — and encourage a new generation of kids interested in math and science, said Mike Weisend, a researcher at The Mind Research Network in Albuquerque.

"In math class, instead of saying 'if Johnny walks this far and Billy walks that far, where do they meet?' you can go to the Internet, go to Google, and find your students' real route to school," Weisend said. "Then go out with a stopwatch and find out how fast real students walk. You can see how fast they meet (approaching each other from) different directions. Compare walking speeds to cars."

Things like that don't cost very much money, but they have a huge impact on a student's ability to retain information and think about things in a more complex manner, Weisend said.

And that's something he plans to emphasize in a new free seminar series for New Mexico teachers over the next three months.

The seminars — called SCORE, for Scientific Collaboration on Research and Education — will provide open discussion on how teachers can improve learning.

They're sponsored by The Mind, a national network focused on understanding the brain, and the New Mexico Mathematics, Engineering Science Achievement group, a nonprofit that promotes math, engineering and science education for middle- and high-school students.

"When we first met with The Mind, they called us and said they wanted to collaborate," said Toney Begay, executive director of MESA. "We decided from the onset the best thing to do would be to start with some seminars to help our teachers."

The resulting seminars in Albuquerque, to be held at The Mind, 1101 Yale Blvd. N.E., from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 20 and April 17, will be a starting point for the two groups, who hope to expand the series next year and take it on the road, hopefully to Santa Fe and several other towns around New Mexico, Weisend said.

"We're hoping teachers from all over the state will come to these first seminars and help us understand what would be most valuable to them," Weisend said. "The big idea is that New Mexico is fairly low on the national education scale, but Senator Pete Domenici has dumped a bunch of money into The Mind, and we want to do what we can to make sure that benefits New Mexicans."

The Mind is conducting studies in several areas of brain research with about $30 million worth of grant money, according to the group's Web site at www.mrn.org.

Weisend said he also hopes the collaboration and seminars will lead to more studies of education and the brain and an expanded educational program that introduces teachers and students to some of the neurological work done at The Mind.

"What we're going to do is talk about things that make information go into brains well," Weisend said. "That includes things like repetition and things like creating a relationship between information and reward that is closer together in time."

Repeated hands-on experience and learning, such as having students physically do the word problem, help the brain remember information. But another important aspect is the reward system used in schools — which most often comes in the form of grades, he said.

Rather than relying on a grade at the end of a semester, frequent grading as close as possible to when assignments or quizzes are turned in works better with the brain's anticipation of rewards, he said.

"If you get a grade for every activity, that actually plays well in the brain," Weisend said. "The way my daughter's classes go, she turns in a bunch of stuff, and a couple weeks later it gets graded. That weakens the relationship between the knowledge and the reward."

Another technique is to have students grade each other's papers immediately after a quiz, he said.

"So you hand your paper to the person next to you and they hand theirs to you," Weisend said. "And then the teacher reads the answers and you grade the test. That teaches you a new way of thinking about the world — because you and your partner may have two different answers, but they could both be correct."

Another activity he suggests seems almost like a sociology study.

"You could go to the Internet, pick some pictures of different people, and then show them to your fellow students and ask, 'what is this person most likely to do?' " Weisend said. "You can see what their reactions are based on race, sex and cultural variables and use that to broaden the students' understanding of themselves and the world."

The first seminar will include a free dinner and door prizes for teachers. For more information or to sign up, call Julie Cervantes at MESA at 366-2510.

Contact Sue Vorenberg at 986-3072 or svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.