Rule 3: Every brain is wired differently

In this chapter, John Medina explains how every brain is different from every other:

  • "When you learn something, the wiring in your brain changes."
  • "What you do in life physically changes what your brain looks like."
  • "Our brains are so sensitive to external inputs that their physical wiring depends upon the culture in which they find themselves."
  • "Learning results in physical changes to the brain and these changes are unique to each individual."
  • "Students of the same age show a great deal of intellectual variability."

So what are the implications of the fact that every student is different from every other and that every student takes something different from every learning experience? Here are John's suggestions:

  • To the extent that you're committed to learning in groups, keep class sizes small, so teachers/trainers stand a better chance of understanding and reacting to the differences inherent in every student.
  • When you hire teachers/trainers, use one of the established tests for detemining their empathetic ability, because this is so crucial to effective communication.
  • Develop adaptive software that provides an individsualised learning experience that is well suited to the particular learner.
  • For best results, combine adaptive teaching with adaptive software. John's cites research carried out by Carol McDonald Connor which showed, when teaching reading skills, that a combination works better than the teaching or software used alone.

What does this mean for in the context of workplace learning when delivery is online? Here's my take:

  • Empathetic teaching is going to be inhibited by the fact that, unless webcams are being used, students are not visible to the trainer and therefore no body language cues are available. To compensate for this, the trainer needs to work hard to establish a climate of open communication, in which students can freely articulate their needs and provide feedback.
  • We need to place a renewed emphasis on the development of adaptive, intelligent learning materials. Back in the 1980s, when artificial intelligence was in vogue, we saw some real progress being made in this area. By comparison, modern e-learning materials are prettier but dumber. You could argue that the best way to increase adaptability is to make the materials modular and to provide the student with the facility to determine their own progress, but this is only useful to the extent that the student knows what they know and what they need to know; novices require structure and support.

My postings on Brain rules #1, Brain rules #2, Brain rules #3, Brain rules #4, Brain rules #5, Brain rules #6, Brain rules #7, Brain rules #8, Brain rules #9, Brain rules #10, Brain rules #11, Brain Rules #12

The Brain Rules book

The Brain Rules website

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  1. Kia ora Clive!

    I had conversations with Tony Karrer about brain wiring in August last year - Medina's chapter follows ideas very similar to my own on this one.

    Catchya later
    from Middle-earth

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  1. In October 2005, I wrote my first post for the Clive on Learning. It was called Bringing e-learning into the twentieth Century. We're now 20 years into that new century and I'd like to think that, thanks a great deal to coronavirus and repeated lockdowns, we now have a pretty good idea of what advantages we can gain by learning online. Paradoxically, we've also realised just how important it is for us psychologically to be face-to-face.

    Anyway, this is my 900th and last post addressing issues around learning in the workplace, so I thought I would celebrate that fact with a blast of the trumpet. I am shifting to a new phase of my life in which I will be exploring other interests of mine, including music composition and writing, with an emphasis less on how others learn and more on how I learn and develop. At the end of March, I will share my First Post to reveal what I have been up to in this year of forced seclusion.

    For now, I would like to thank the 4 million or so readers of this blog over the past 15 years and wish you well as you continue your careers in learning and development. As we rebuild our lives and economies post-pandemic, you will have a pivotal role to play.
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  2. If you have an hour to spare (and, let's face it, in the current circumstances, that might just be the case),  you might enjoy this podcast hosted by the wonderful Jane Daly. I really enjoyed talking to Jane and reflecting on my career in learning and development.

    And I thoroughly recommend Jane's site People Who Know as a rich resource for learning professionals.



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  3. Last year I worked on a major project to develop online courses for HR professionals. Most of the content was aimed at influencing behavioural change so, as the principal writer, I decided to major on storytelling as strategy for learning. Over a six-month period, I reckon I must have written hundreds of stories, some no more than simple prompts for reflection and discussion, while some formed the primary means for uncovering ideas and generating insights.

    Reflecting on how central storytelling had become so central to my approach to learning design, I thought back to the point at which I really became hooked on this technique. Back in 2003, I devoted a great deal of energy to the design of a new CD-ROM course entitled Ten Ways to Avoid Death by PowerPoint. In blatant disregard of all the usual constraints of time and budget, I set out to design a programme that was both highly interactive and media-rich, engaging as many of the senses as possible.

    As the course was nearing completion, I came up with the idea of introducing the programme with a short story, adapted from a classic fairytale. Because the moral of the tale seemed to echo the main message of the course, I added this in, even though I was concerned about starting a course in such a passive, linear manner.

    Some time later, I met with a colleague who had been reviewing the course. She had shown it to several managers in her company and got some feedback. I asked if anything stood out that they found particularly enjoyable or memorable - perhaps the games, the multimedia, the illustrations? No, you guessed it, it was the story. It made the point, it stirred the imagination, it stuck in the mind.

    You may not be surprised, but I was. Can stories really be more powerful than interactivity in bringing about learning? I investigated further and found a site called storyatwork.com (it's long since disappeared). They said: "We are story-making machines. Cognitively speaking, every experience, every relationship, every object is stored in the mind as a story." OK, but any website that calls itself 'story at work' is going to be biased. What about the science?

    Well, Jerome Bruner, the father of cognitive psychology, believes storytelling is hardwired into our brains. The primary reason infants are motivated to learn to speak is because they have stories inside them that they want to share with others. Simple stories like "I fell over" or "I had a bad dream and I'm scared", but stories nonetheless.

    In his book Tell me a Story, psychologist and artificial intelligence expert Roger Schank argues that "knowledge is stories" and that intelligence may be more or less equated with the ability to tell the right story at the right time. Even the old-timers agree. According to the old Hopi proverb, "He who tells the stories rules the world". Hollywood already knows that.

    When you attend a really good workshop, the one thing you can guarantee is that the facilitator will have some good stories. Perhaps a few are just good jokes, but many will be extremely relevant to the subject in hand. They illustrate a point, they stimulate discussion. That's why it's so much more difficult to run a workshop for the first time - it can take quite a while to come up with all those anecdotes and examples that bring the event to life. It also explains why your average facilitator's guide is never quite enough of a foundation on which to run a workshop - however thoroughly it lists all the steps involved in preparing and running the event, it's inadequate if it doesn't also provide you with a repertoire of interesting and illuminating anecdotes.

    There's a clue here as to why so much self-directed learning is dry and boring. The typical designer will work with a subject expert to define the learning objectives and list the important learning points. They will structure this information and support it with visual aids and practical exercises. If they're not careful, what they will end up with is the online equivalent of the facilitator's guide, when what they should have done is spend hours in conversation with the subject expert, wheedling out their favourite stories on the topic - the successes, the horror stories, the amusing incidents.

    Even if you don't fancy yourself as a budding chat show host, you are unlikely to encounter much opposition. Subject matter experts will find it much easier to tell stories than to articulate what they know in terms of neat and tidy abstractions. Funnily enough, learners won't be any different. Try as you may to come up with clever mnemonics to help them remember the five stages in this, or the seven elements in that, they're much more likely to recall the tales you have told or the experiences shared by other participants. They'll also waste no time in passing these stories on to their colleagues. After all, they're only human, and if the scientists are to be believed, simply story-telling machines.


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  4. Back in 2009, I posted a simple analysis of learning technologies based on Diana Laurillard’s conversational framework. This became the second most popular posting ever on this blog, so I thought I'd give it a further look.

    I was particularly taken by Diana’s five media forms (the descriptions are mine):
    1. Narrative media: explain, demonstrate, describe
    2. Interactive media: facilitate reflection, check understanding, encourage exploration, provide feedback
    3. Communicative media: allow exchanges between learners and between learners and tutors / subject experts
    4. Adaptive media: facilitate experimentation and practice
    5. Productive media: allow learners to articulate, express, demonstrate understanding
    I was interested to see what light these categorisations would shed on my understanding of the wide range of learning technologies currently at our disposal. The following table is my updated 2020 attempt at allocating technologies to each of the five categories. I have added a column to explain whether digital content would be an input to the learning processes involved or an output.

    Media formExample learning technologiesThe role of content
    Narrative mediaOnline videos, online articles and papers, podcasts, software demos, infographicsContent is an input to the learning process
    Interactive mediaScenarios, quizzes, simple games, click-through e-learningContent is an input to the learning process
    Communicative mediaSocial networks, forums, virtual classrooms, online meetings and discussions, webinars, email / messagingContent is an output from the learning process
    Adaptive mediaSimulations, AR/VR, intelligent tutorials, strategic games, intelligently curated content, adaptive learning pathwaysContent is an input to the learning process
    Productive mediaWikis, blogs, spreadsheets, apps for editing text, video, audio and slideshowsContent is an output from the learning process

    On re-visiting this analysis, I’m still not sure yet whether these categories move things along. Are some media forms more valuable than others? Are they situational? Should they be used in sequence or in combination? There's plenty of room to take this thinking further.

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  5. In my last post, I argued that, although face-to-face learning has been the default since the dawn of time, online learning has changed everything. As we have discovered over the past few weeks, online learning is scalable, flexible, accessible to all but a small minority, economical, environmentally advantageous and, of course, socially distant. What’s not to like?

    So OK, there are situations when we simply can’t achieve what we want online, which is fine because, in time, we’ll be able to go back to doing some learning face-to-face. Used judiciously and typically as part of a blend, face-to-face learning is capable of adding tremendous value. But not for everyday learning, for special occasions.

    Let’s imagine you’re currently in a position in which you simply have to deliver your programmes online because your classrooms are all closed up.  You still have a big decision to make …

    1. Should I develop online materials to cover the content of my programmes?
    2. Or should I run live online sessions that approximate what I currently do in the classroom?

    If you spend most of your time in a classroom, you’ll be drawn to option 2, because the experience will be similar and you will have less work to do in developing materials. But, in doing so, you only take advantage of some of the benefits of online learning - the social distancing, the reduced carbon footprint, the cost reduction. What you don’t get is the scalability and the flexibility. You can’t address as large an audience as quickly as you can with digital content and you can’t offer your learners the opportunity to learning when they want, at the pace they want and in the way they want. So there has to be a good reason for delivering your sessions live. In short …

    Live online learning is also for special occasions

    So, what are those special occasions? Why do you want to fix your learners to a particular date and time? Here are some arguments:

    1
    Live events allow for a free-flowing dialogue, something that is simply not going to happen by email, in a forum or on Twitter. Many learning activities, including role-plays, simply have to be live.

    2
    In a live event, you have the potential to get quick answers to your questions and immediate feedback on your performance. This level of responsiveness can be important in some situations, such as learning to operate a process or to handle customer queries. Generally speaking, a real-time approach gets the job done quickly, whereas it can take ages to resolve an issue while you wait for people to respond when it suits them.

    3
    Live events can also have more emotional energy (sometimes negative as well as positive) than their self-paced equivalents. Most of us would prefer to watch a big sporting event as it happens rather than see the recording sometime later, even if we do not know the outcome. There is something about experiencing an event as it happens in the company of our peers, whether that’s face to face or online. And this upsurge of emotion is going to make a big difference in terms of what we remember.

    4
    In the context of a blended solution, live events also act as a milestone to encourage learners to get the self-paced work done. In a course which has no timetable, it is inevitable that individual study will be put off to a later date – after all, learning is rarely the most urgent task on our to-do lists. Even if deadlines are established for self-paced learning, there is always the feeling that these could easily be pushed back if required. However, when a programme is punctuated with live events, there is a massive incentive to get on with your ‘homework’ – no-one wants to be the one who hasn’t got their assignments done.

    Choices, choices, choices. To keep it simple, let’s reduce all this to three steps:

    1. By default, deliver your learning programme as online content
    2. When online content won’t do the job (you want free-flowing discussion, you need to provide instant feedback, you want emotional energy, you want to introduce milestones into a longer programme, and so on) then consider delivering some elements live and online
    3. When live and online still isn’t enough (people need to be hands-on, you need full attention, you need maximum sensitivity to body language, etc.) then consider delivering some elements face-to-face

    Except, of course, that option 3 is not available at the moment. So, make option 2 work.

    Easy

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  6. Having spent the past 25 years advocating the greater use of online tools and resources for education and training (not to mention many other aspects of our lives), I've met my fair share of opposition and have to admit that I've been frustrated at how slowly we have responded to the opportunity.

    I needn't have worried! All we needed was a pandemic. All of a sudden, it seems quite absurd to question the concept of online learning. For me, this is the silver lining on a very dark cloud.

    Of course, the crisis will come to an end and, when it does, we have a chance to re-think before automatically assuming our previous positions. So, should we simply go back to doing as much learning as possible face-to-face? Or perhaps dispense with the idea of face-to-face learning altogether? To answer the question, I return to my post of 9th December 2011. For me, face-to-face is for special occasions.

    ***

    Ask yourself. What proportion of the music that you consume is at a live performance? Chances are it's something between 0 and 10%. What proportion of the drama that you watch is at the theatre, rather than at the cinema or on TV? I'd be surprised if it's more than a few percent. And what proportion of the sport you watch is in a stadium rather than on TV? You get the idea.

    And yet, there's a good possibility that those live events that you have attended - music, drama, sports or whatever - are among the most memorable occasions of your life. Perhaps even peak experiences.

    If you wanted to up the percentage of time you spent watching live music, drama or sport, it would come at a considerable price in terms of admission fees, travel, time and sheer adrenaline. Chances are that, unless you're rich and with considerable discretionary time, it would be completely impractical. In fact, with all the rush of modern working life, you're probably finding it increasingly impractical to watch TV or listen to radio at the times at which the programmes are broadcast. A great deal of your media consumption is almost definitely asynchronous - under your time control - using downloads, streaming media and the like.

    Is it too fanciful to apply the same logic to learning? The default position is now asynchronous and online, giving you complete control over time and place. If you want to share an experience with other learners in real time, you go synchronous, using some sort of virtual meeting platform. If you need a rich sensory experience that you'll remember for years, then spend the money, put aside the time and meet up face-to-face at a conference or workshop.

    There was a time when the only way you could listen to music, watch a play or a sporting event, or attend a class was live and face-to-face, because there were no ways to transmit or record these events electronically. Quite clearly those days are gone and we are the richer for it.

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  7. This week on The Good Practice Podcast, I join Ross Garner and Owen Ferguson to discuss the promise of e-learning.
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  8. An orchestral re-imagining of Robin Williamson's epic song for The Incredible String Band, conceived for the musical 'U' some 50 years ago.

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  9. Six months of highly concentrated effort by the Skills Journey team has paid off with the launch, on January 23, of a major new online learning resource for 150,000 members of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD).

    We worked closely with the CIPD learning team to help produce eight courses aligned to the core behaviours in the CIPD’s New Profession Map:

    Ethical practice
    Professional courage and influence
    Valuing people
    Working inclusively
    Commercial drive
    Passion for learning
    Insights focus
    Situational decision-making

    This was a real team effort with design and development shared across CIPD and ourselves. To get this resource out in such a short time, including the production of 73 new videos and animations, we employed a highly agile and collaborative approach and this certainly seems to have paid off with a fantastic early response from CIPD members.

    A big challenge was that we were not focusing on knowledge-based material; we wanted to challenge and shape the behaviours of those working in HR, L&D and OD, not just in the UK but across a wide range of cultures. This led us to adopt an innovative design, centring on storytelling, authentic challenges, personal exploration, reflection and social interaction.

    We were determined not to bombard learners with abstract information. We wanted to stimulate insights that would transform practice and enhance the professional standing of those working in the profession. I reckon we have every chance of achieving that.

    The courses are free to CIPD members. If that doesn’t include you, you can get an overview of what the resource contains on the CIPD website.


    Clive is now Instrumentality
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  10. .

    Something about Quelque Chose
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