This past week I had the great opportunity to hear several different speakers presenting on whole brain learning and neuro-learning. If you haven’t looked at these topics yet, check a couple of sites out here and here.
As professional learning and organizational development people, this can really call to your inner geek. It’s really fascinating stuff.
One of the key points is a model developed by David Rock. He has been conducting brain research and is really honing in on how we learn and recall information. He developed this model entitled AGES. It stands for:
- Attention – We can only focus on one thing at a time. That means multi tasking does not work. He now knows that focusing attention to multiple areas does result in a decrease in neurons firing which will decrease learning.
- Generation – Research shows that learning has to be owned by the participant. The participant needs to apply the knowledge in their own way, and contextualize it in their own way. This will allow them to personalize the information in a meaningful way.
- Emotions – In learning we need to create a positive emotion-arousing event to stimulate certain areas of the brain. You can use some type of entertainment to accomplish this. Before a keynote this past week, the program began with extreme jugglers who were also comedians. It was very early in the morning and by the time the keynote started; everyone was very awake from laughing so hard for 15 minutes.
- Spacing – We now know that offering learning over time leads to better long-term memory. Cramming does not work over the long term. Short periods with multiple sessions will lead to better recall.
Of course I am just scratching the surface here. You should really read ‘Learning that Lasts through AGES’ by Dr. Lila Davachi, Dr. Tobias Kiefer, Dr. David Rock and Lisa Rock. Much of this article is based on that white paper. You can find it here.
What do you think?
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