This document discusses how to design learning experiences that people engage with. It argues that most corporate training fails to do this. It then outlines principles for effective learning based on brain science research. These principles are that attention is critical, insights take time to generate, emotions govern learning, and spaced learning helps information stick better. The document advocates designing learning with these AGES principles in mind to improve engagement and impact.
6. Source: “Your Brain on Learning” CLO Magagine, Apr-2015, quoting research from NYU
Neuroscience is Changing Learning Design
An explosion of brain research shows us...
Attention is critical.
Generating insights takes time.
Emotions govern.
Spaced learning sticks. @judy_albers
10. “The course
is an artificial
construct.”
Cathy Davidson
• Courses are designed
around content.
• Courses are designed
around constraints.
• Course experiences fade.
11. The Five Moments of Learning Need
Source: Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson. For more information, see Meeting the Five Moments of Need
13. People don’t Learn Without Focused Attention
• Help me hear about it.
• Make every visit worthwhile, even
fascinating!
• Bring me back.
Training Marketing
14. The Art of Crafting Contagious Content
• Social Currency
• Triggers
• Emotion
• Public Behavior
• Practical Value
• Stories
Source: Contagious, by Jonah Berger
18. How to help people generate insights.
People gain insight over time, in community with other learners.
• We’re social learners.
• Generating insights takes time.
• We want to contribute our original insights.
21. We make decisions with our emotional brain
and justify them with our rational brain.
• Curiosity
• Delight
• Flow
• Engagement
• Confusion
• Frustration
• Boredom
6 Basic Emotions
• Anger
• Disgust
• Fear
• Joy
• Sadness
• Surprise
To get people’s attention,
appeal to these.
Source: Paul Ekman
7 Academic Emotions
Focus on these once people
are committed to learning.
Source: Annie Murphy Paul
22. How do we tap into these emotions?
• Take the time to set the emotional stage
• Make it personal
• And comparable
• Andrewarding
25. Prevent forgetting with
• Spaced intervals
• Repetition
• Feedback
Spaced
repetition
increases
learning by up
to 50%
Sources
“The New Way Doctors Learn”, Time, Mar-2012
“When Remembering Really Matters”, Dr. Sharon Boller, DevLearn 2014
26. Source: “Your Brain on Learning” CLO Magagine, Apr-2015, quoting research from NYU
So create learning for the AGES
Attention is critical.
Generating insights takes time.
Emotions govern.
Spaced learning sticks. @judy_albers
28. Credit for slides 2-5 to the brilliant marketing strategist
Laura Walsh at WordWealthy Consulting.
Meet her. You’ll thank me.
Image credit: RSA Animate, Susan Cain
Credits Did you know? PowerPoint
links are clickable in
SlideShow mode.
Learning that lasts through AGES
was published in the NeuroLeadership Journal
by Dr. Lila Davachi, Dr. Tobias Kiefer,
Dr. David Rock and Lisa Rock.
Intrepid Clients:
Want to reuse all or part of this deck? Go ahead!
Just include this credits slide. Judy Albers, Intrepid Learning
Notes de l'éditeur
Let’s talk about breakups.
Show of hands – how many of you have broken up with someone because. . . to be painfully honest. . .they were boring?
Right? Boringness is a valid reason to break up. I should know. My entire life’s journey was altered because of a boredom-induced breakup, but that’s another story.
Instead, let’s reminisce a little. About the internet.
Remember when the internet was still fun?
Now it feels we’re drowning in information, and our jobs as learning professionals are way more challenging – learners have shorter attention spans, less time and ever higher expectations.
The challenge can seem bigger than we are, like there’s no clear solution. But there is.
Let me tell you a story to illustrate. I know a woman from Spain who moved to the US, but couldn’t speak English very well. Overwhelmed and scared, the didn’t leave her house for two weeks. She finally decided she’d venture out for a simple task, to buy bread. She expected to be in and out, like at home. A successful first shopping trip to build her confidence.
So that didn’t happen. Faced with an American bread aisle, she burst into tears and left the store, without her bread.
The lesson? Too much of a good thing can make you cry.
You see,
We can all get paralyzed by information overload.
When we have infinite choice, our expectations set us up to be unhappy with any choice we make.
And sometimes we choose NOTHING, even when that hurts us. Like when too many mutual funds are offered, more employees don’t choose ANY for their retirement plans, which hurts their financial future.
As John Medina taught us this morning, neuroscience is changing our understanding of how people learn. There’s a great model for remembering four of the biggest practical implications for learning design, because I see my job as giving the practical, tactical “so what” companion to Dr. Medina’s speech. It’s called the AGES model, and like everything I mention today, there’s a link in your deck to read more about it. And the deck is in your app, or you can message me for it on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
A is for Attention The average human attention span is 5 seconds, 2 seconds less than the average goldfish.
G is for Generating insights Learning is a journey. People need time and opportunities to make their own meaning.
E is for Emotions. The stronger we feel the right emotions, the more we learn.
S is for Spacing. Longer term recall is best when we learn over several sittings.
Makes sense, right?
Then WHY is there SO MUCH boring training?
Here’s a humbling statistic. Or comforting, to know you’re not alone in your concerns.
It’s hard with the constraints a typical classroom course forces us into.
And It’s risky to say this to a group of trainers, but think about it…
First, Courses are designed around content
To generate insights, the learner has to be in the center of the experience, not the content.
You want to answer the questions in learners’ heads. Meet all five moments of learning need. (yes, I’ll show you those next)
Second, Courses are designed around constraints. What do I mean by that?
Courses have start and end times, but learning needs to be continuous.
People need ways to practice, reflect, and share. And time to make it real.
We can only afford to bring so many people into classrooms, never enough.
Third, Course experiences fade.
Participant guides sit on shelves, eLearning gets lost in LMSs.
But an online learning journey like what we’re creating for Crucial Conversations and Trainer Certification, if it’s spaced and marketed right, can live on continuously.
Here are the five moments of learning need. Course are great for the first moment of need, when you’re learning something for the first time. You want to be guided through the body of knowledge. But most of the time, I’m in the other 4 moments of need.
Let’s talk in more depth about the AGES model of learning based on brain science. A is for attention. Here’s where we can learn a lot from the Marketing department, who’s in the business of getting people attention, and keeping their attention.
I tell my clients that the learning journey is not just the course, it’s the sum total of every interaction the learner has with us. Every email, every bit of coaching, every resource. Marketing folks get this because they think about the customer experience as a journey.
Help me hear about it.
Marry the learning content map to the marketing editorial calendar.
Use great content in social media, adding more value to what’s hot
Make every visit or interaction worthwhile, even fascinating!
That five seconds we have is..after every click. And you’ve seen it in the classroom too, right?
Enable each person to scan and find exactly what they need today.
Bring me back.
remind, refresh, and reinforce, so it feels like a game, a journey.
You have GOT to read Contagious, by Wharton Marketing Professor Jonah Berger. He studied what made NYT articles get on the most emailed list, essentially what makes content go viral, and he found six reasons. I used a few of them in my bread story, so you felt the pain of cognitive overload before I discussed it.
I’ll give you another example -- social currency.. A new steakhouse, Barclay Prime was opening in Philadelphia, (anyone here from Philly?) Well if you’re familiar with Philly, you know that’s a crowded market. There are 89 Philly steakhouses on Yelp. So how was this one going to get any attention?
It has so much social currency, it even got its own jeopardy question.
We’re social learners.
People will have opportunities to learn from each other, ask the experts, and get feedback.
Generating insights takes time.
We’ll give people real world missions, time to practice, and ways to reflect on their experiences, making their own meaning.
We want to contribute our original insights.
The community builds the body of knowledge. Moderators reduce noise by curating the best ideas, and people find it fun, even addictive.
Watch me tap into your emotions. What do you feel when I do this?
(This is the logo for Alex Boye, who entertained us the night before. It was pure joy.)
“If you’re inviting someone into an experience and the first thing you do is ask them to watch or observe, you’re inviting them to just tap out. When you make the emotional appeals and build in a sense of exploration, you’re engaging them.” – Sean McConnell, Pearson
Take the time to set the emotional stage.
By making it personal
Because what’s more fascinating than ourselves? Personalized assessments will show people their strengths and blind spots.
And comparable
Games tap into our competitive spirit, our desire to achieve, and to see how we stack up
And rewarding
Not just intrinsic rewards, but extrinsic ones, too. Like meaningful badges on your LinkedIn profile, validated and granted by Pearson.
Lastly, the S in the AGES model is for SPACING. Perhaps the most significant constraint of the classroom
We’ve found that people LOVE the idea of spacing as a solution for the kind of extreme instructional flexibility they want. A Harvard Medical School study…
We know it works, and intrinsically so do our learners. Here’s how we talk about it
So use the AGES model and create learning people love.
That old training might be beautiful and polished, but if it’s boring, then breaking up could be the best thing that ever happened to both of you.
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We left this deck in PowerPoint for our clients’ use. You are welcome to reuse the entire deck and modify any of the slides, placing them in your own templates, as long as you include this slide. Please just include this slide.