In this article Ill look at how we can use the latest neuroscience to maximise the learning retention. Last time we looked at the physical, emotional and social environments and how they can help to accelerate learning. In that article I mentioned some of the latest thinking about social learning and safety, as well as the part dopamine plays in keeping participants attention. These cross over into this fifth secret about the brain and knowing how it works in order to learn in the best possible way.

Let me say from the outset that I am not a neuroscientist and do not wish to take away from some of the many experts out there in this field. My fascination has never been in the brain and naming all the parts, but in the practical application of the latest neuroscience to help us in the field of learning and development.

Therefore, this article will help you to take away a handful of nuggets from the latest neuroscience, while offering some practical applications that you can implement immediately to maximise the retention of learning.

We already know that dopamine plays a big part in engaging people, whether in a live learning situation or virtually. Dopamine activates your reward systems. It controls arousal levels in the brain.

So here are some ways in which we can arouse curiosity and increase those dopamine levels in the brain:

On the use of emotion in learning, Nick Shackleton-Jones (in his book, How to Learn) says, It makes perfect sense for memory to work in this way: your memory needs to be efficient so it only stores the stuff that matters but which stuff matters? Answer: the stuff that has an emotional impact.

If this is true, then the connection with the content and the participants in learning has to be a strong one. They have to be brought in to the learning and its application in order for them to be engaged as fully as possible. Here are some suggestions for what you might do practically:

There used to be a myth that brains could not change as you got older, but Eleanor Maguire conducted research that uncovered that our brains are not fixed as we had previously thought. Her study on taxi drivers in fact showed the opposite.

This does not help however, when you have participants who think that they are bad at learning. This limiting belief soon becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. To remove this barrier, you might:

Until I read Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, I thought that knowledge testing was just a way for me as a trainer or facilitator to find out whether participants had learned what they were supposed to learn. After reading this book, it became clear that testing, or retrieval practice as it is known, is a key part of the learning process.

Here are some ways that you can make it a fun and engaging part of the learning process:

Is guessing a valid form of learning? Can it really make a difference to how much you retain? Well according to Stella Collins: it seems, perhaps counter-intuitively, that we learn better after guessing, even if we have guessed a wrong answer first.

The basic idea is that this activation (the guessing) affords a richer encoding of the information, she explains.

You can incorporate a guessing element to any learning by:

Were now at the end of my five secrets of accelerated learning. If youd like to catch up on the rest of these secrets you can visit the content series page here. I welcome any questions and feedback you might have in the comments below.

Link:
The fifth secret of accelerated learning: how the brain works to maximise retention - TrainingZone.co.uk