Uniqueness

Why isn't someone who's clever at maths automatically clever at dancing? Why doesn't a gifted musician automatically have great interpersonal skills? Because there are different kinds of intelligence.  Harvard professor Howard Gardner has identified at least eight different kinds of intelligence, ranging from the logical to the interpersonal. This theme has been further developed by Daniel Goleman, who popularised the concept of emotional intelligence.  Each of us has a unique profile - it's not so much 'how smart are you?' as 'how are you smart?'.

It's a truism to say that each individual is unique, but this fact is often overlooked in conventional approaches to learning.

We each have a unique profile in terms of our intelligences, our learning styles and our preferred communication channels - to name but a few. An appreciation of the uniqueness of each individual is an important component of brain friendly learning.

Not only does brain friendly learning recognise each individual's unique learning profile, but it also encourages people to develop new ways of learning - so that they actually become smarter at the end than they were at the beginning.

State is Everything

When do you learn best - when you are tired, hung over and depressed, or when you are refreshed, alert and keen? For most people the answer is obvious - your state dramatically affects your ability to learn. But taking the next step is less obvious - what can you do to put yourself into the most resourceful state for learning? Recent research by neurologist Antonio Damasio confirms what many practitioners have concluded pragmatically - that your mental state is a subtle combination of your physiology and the way you direct your conscious attention.

The state you are in when you learn something tends to get neurologically associated with the content - and the more dramatic the state the more lasting the memory.  There are many different kinds of state appropriate to different kinds of learning.We all know that the food we eat makes a difference to how we feel - but did you know that proteins tend to put the brain in a more alert state, while carbohydrates tend to make the brain more relaxed? Did you know that neuroscientists recommend the drinking at least eight full glasses of water a day to keep the brain/body at full power?

We all know that regular exercise has a psychological as well as physiological benefit - and specific physical movements can have an immediate effect on the way the brain operates. The disciplines of nutrition and educational kinesiology (also known as brain gym) are further demonstrations of that our minds consist of one system, which includes both brain and body.

Brain friendly trainers understand the biological influences on learning - and appreciate that learners need to be engaged as a complete system.

You want to ensure that the participants are in the most resourceful state possible. Before they even arrive, what information will you send them? What will the venue look like? Can you use posters, music, flowers to create a welcoming environment? What will you provide in the way of 'brain food' to nourish the body part of the brain-body system?

As the event progresses, you will pay attention to the rhythms of learning. You will know when to match a quiet activity to a time when the participants are naturally in a more low key reflective state, and you will know when to use an energising activity to put them into a more alert learning state.

Brain friendly trainers have a smorgasbord of ways to influence their own state - and that of the learner, so that everybody is more resourceful and creative - and enjoys the process more.

 

Keep it Real!

By the time a person leaves school at 18 years of age, he or she has experienced some 2,500 days of education. How much of that is truly useful? 

It's easy to be sniffy about irrelevant subjects taught in schools and universities, but surely business training is more relevant? Not so. Many business training events are still organised around the teaching of models and concepts which, frankly, don't have any connection to the real business of business. According to one piece of research, less than 10% of business training transfers back to the workplace.

We believe that the main reason for this is that there is often insufficient attention paid to making a strong linkage between a learning event and the real business context.  How often have you led a training event where the participants show up unprepared, not having thought about the event until they walk through the training room door? How often have you asked participants to complete an action plan towards the end of the training event, knowing in your heart that only a small proportion of participants will actually do any of the things on their action plan? Unless more attention is given to what happens before the learning event - we call this the "set up" - and what happens after the learning event - the "set down" - then the full value of the learning will be lost.

This principle of brain friendly learning makes sure that there are real personal and business benefits which follow from the learning event. One of the most powerful ways of keeping it real is to pay lots of attention to the set up and set down.

This principle also means taking into account factors like the organisational culture, the attitude of the learner's boss, what else is going on in the business (and the learner's life!), transfer of learning, evaluation and follow up.

Facilitate creation not consumption

In a group learning experience, the best trainers are able to elicit a flow state quickly, and then get out of the way. 

The role of the facilitator is to design a series of activities orexperiences through which the learners can incorporate new insights, skills and strategies into what they already know, do and believe.

In other words, learning is not about the consumption of information - it is about the creation of meaning, value and action on the part of the learner.  Learning is not something you 'absorb', it is something you create for yourself - literally and physiologically - in your total mind/body system. 

This means that trainers must develop superb facilitation skills, rather than just being an information 'hose'.  And these skills are extremely useful in all kinds of business contexts - from chairing meetings to coaching a 'problem' employee.

As you move to the part of the event where the participants move from knowledge to understanding, from understanding to wisdom, and from wisdom to action, you will be mindful that your role is that of facilitator; creating an environment where each person can learn best. Because you understand what intelligence really is, you will structure different kinds of activities at this sense-making stage from those at the inputting and embedding stages.

Rich and multi-sensory

Where do you learn best - in a bare, uncomfortable stuffy room: or in an environment which appeals in a very positive way to your five senses - seeing, hearing, touch, taste and smell?  Brain friendly trainers understand the importance of creating the most productive learning environment.

Brains do not work in the same way as computers. When you input data into a computer, you only need to do it once, and it will stay there until it is deliberately wiped out.

When you input data into a human brain, it will not necessarily be recorded accurately the first time. This may seem so obvious as to be hardly worth saying, but think about it for a moment.  Most training courses are designed on the principle that if you want to communicate something, doing it just once is enough to make it stick.  This is not the case.

If you give a computer information with gaps, it just remains ignorant of the information you failed to supply.  If you give a human brain information with gaps, it tends to fill in the gaps, making things up if necessary.

Your brain stores information as a pattern of neurons firing. The stronger the pattern, the stronger the memory, the more permanent the learning.  Although the idea that the brain is made up of cells was established at the end of the nineteenth century, it's only in the last twenty years or so that modern brain imaging techniques have shown conclusively what happens when we create or recall a memory.

Strong memories and effective learning are about creating strong firing patterns.  One way to do this is to use repetition and rehearsal.  Another way to create strong firing patterns is to associate new learning with existing learning. The new firing patterns are all the stronger because they ride on the back of existing firing patterns.  As facilitators, we can associate new learning with existing learning directly, by asking learners to recall what they already know; or indirectly by using stories and metaphors which link new concepts to existing understanding.

A second significant difference between a computer and your brain is this. A computer stores information in the next available space of free memory; where the information is stored doesn't matter. Your brain, by contrast, stores information topographically - that is to say that where in the brain the memory is stored helps to identify what kind of memory it is. 

In fact the brain consists of a number of specialised modules, each responsible for different kinds of activity. For example, when you think about a red bus driving by, one part of your brain deals with the shape of the bus, another with its colour, another with the movement and so on.

The implications for this topographic brain organisation are very significant for trainers. If you want to create a vivid and lasting memory, then make sure that memory is created in a multi-faceted way.

Create a memory that is based on colourful moving images, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes - and use the modalities that the brain finds it particularly easy to remember - images of places and faces for example.

A third key aspect of brain structure that has no parallel with a computer is the division between the left and right brain. We really do have two brains, linked by a bundle of nerve fibres called the corpus callosum.  Our left brain tends to be logical, analytical and linguistic and our right brain creative, holistic and perceptual.

Effective learning appeals to both left and right brain, and as a trainer you can design learning activities for both.

Finally, computer memory is limited. To all intents and purposes, human capacity to learn isn't.