A Learning Journey

Confusion is good for learning. Research has found that confusion creates a powerful drive for the brain to try to understand what is happening. It pushes us to learn “more efficiently, more deeply, more lastingly—as long as it’s properly managed,” according to the NOVA/PBS article The Science of Smart: The

We remember stories. Most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories. We live in stories. When we hear a story we compare it to what we already have in memory, and note the similarities or differences. This allows us to index and understand new information

So what do people remember? We remember emotions, our feelings, and the behavior of others. Research shows that emotions are important to learning. “Emotions form a critical piece of how, what, when, and why people think, remember, and learn,” says Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, EdD, associate professor of education, psychology, and neuroscience

Placing facts in context makes them more important to the learner. It gives the content relevance. Context lets learners connect concepts, and relate them to their own real world experiences, making it “easier to translate to the workplace” according to Nigel Paine, corporate learning expert and author of the The

The brain looks for patterns and fills in the blanks. It uses patterns to understand the relationship between things—putting them in context.  “The human brain is a pattern-recognition machine. It evolved to identify related events or artifacts and connect them into a meaningful whole,” According to the NOVA article The

We have a difficult time remembering facts and details, they’re just not important to human memory, yet most of our courses are laden with facts. According Dr Roger Schank, cognitive psychologist, learning scientist, in his report What We Learn When We Learn By Doing, facts can only be acquired in