The science of learning

Last week I attended a one-day workshop entitled The Science of Learning, which was facilitated by cognitive neuroscientist Dr Itiel Dror of Southampton University. Itiel is becoming a bit of a celebrity amongst the e-learning community in the UK as someone who avoids the grand theories of learning and concentrates instead on practical tips based on what we know about the brain and how it works (assuming we really do and this I must place on trust).

Anyway, I thought it would be useful for me to clarify what I took away from the workshop (which may or may not be what Itiel intended), as an opportunity for my own reflection and for others to challenge. So here we go:

1. The brain is a machine with limited resources for processing the enormous quantity of information received by the senses. As a result, attention is extremely selective and the brain must rely on all sorts of shortcuts if it is to cope effectively.
2. Teachers/designers can adopt two strategies to reduce the risk of learners experiencing cognitive overload: provide less information (quantitative approach) or take much more care about how this information is communicated (qualitative approach).
3. It is easier for a person to focus their attention on the desired point if there is minimal noise (other information) surrounding it. Reducing noise also reduces context, so a balance needs to be struck.
4. Overload can be reduced by grouping items/steps (what Itiel calls 'chunking'). Grouping can be accomplished by placing people/objects/events into categories, or by compressing a number of procedural steps into one, automatic action. Visually you meay separate items by space, size or colour. Learners will naturally employ grouping as a strategy, although they may do this inappropriately and the process requires effort. Better for the designer/teacher to present material ready grouped.
5. A side effect of grouping is that once the action is completely familiar (that old 'unconscious competence' phase), the individual finds it hard to explain how they do it; they lose control over the process because it has become automatic (so old hands may not always be the best teachers?). Grouping is essential to our functioning, but there are obvious dangers, i.e. unhelpful stereotyping.
6. Individuals use top-down processing to reduce overload. This draws automatically on their past experience of the particular context, existing knowledge and intelligence and avoids them having to evaluate all new information from the bottom up. An example would be how people can easily read a sentence in which the letters in each word are jumbled up.
7. Designers/teachers need to take account of the way in which the information is likely to be encoded and processed - it's not 'what you teach' but 'what is learned'.
8. Different parts of the brain specialise in different tasks. Individuals can engage in more than one task at the same time, as long as each uses a different part of the brain.
9. It's a myth that we only use 5-10% of the brain - we use it all.
10. The brain continues to change throughout our lives, even though we stop adding new brain cells in our early 20s. Some parts of the brain are relatively hard-wired (through nature or nurture), some very plastic. It makes sense to concentrate in recruitment on finding those people with hard wiring which suits the job, because no amount of training will sort the problem out later. (Itiel did not go into detail about those capabilities which tend to be hard-wired and those which are more plastic - this is clearly important.)
11. As you grow older the hard-wired capabilities persist - the most learnable capabilities go first.
12. Language is more than just a means for expressing thought - in many ways it is thought. If a person is not exposed to any language in early years, then by the age of seven they are incapable of learning it.
13. The two sides of the brain really do have different functions (I thought this was just pop psychology). The left brain concentrates on language and analytical skills; the right has the spacial abilities. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa. The left and right sides of the brain do not interact physically.
14. The size of a person's brain is not an indicator of intelligence.
15. 20% of your blood is in the brain.
16. You never lose anything from long-term memory, just the ability to retrieve it. Retrieval is a function of how you encode memories / the number of links you provide.
17. Working memory consists of 7+/-2 items (again I thought this was pop psychology).
18. To reduce cognitive overload, take out every word or picture that is not necessary or relevant to your learning goals. Even then, don't deliver more than the learner can handle (presumably by modularising the learning).
19. Provide the learning when it is needed, not before.
20. Be consistent in the manner of your presentation, e.g. the interface.
21. Be consistent in the level of your presentation, i.e. not too complex, not too simple. Try to work with homogeneous groups; better still personalise the learning.
22. Engage the learner by grabbing their attention, allowing them to determine their progress, providing constructive feedback, introducing an element of excitement/surprise.
23. Be careful of allowing the learner too much control over the learning process if they don't have the metacognitive skills, i.e. they don't know what they know and what they don't know, nor how best to bridge the gap. Ideally help learners to increase their metacognitive skills, i.e. learning how to learn.
24. Providing the learner with control over pace and allowing them to go back and repeat any step is important.
25. The learning benefits by being challenging. Performance targets, rewards and competition can increase the degree of challenge, perhaps through the use of games.

So, Itiel, do I pass the test? Have I interpreted the content of the workshop correctly? Did you teach it in such a way that the most important points were retained?

More importantly, how useful is this material? Can it help us to design better learning materials and experiences? Can it help us to become better learners? What do you reckon?