Your Brain on Learning: How Neuroscience is Changing Corporate Learning Design
1. Your Brain on Learning
Presented at Pearson CITE Conference
04.28.2015
Judy Albers
Learning Strategist
Intrepid Learning
2. Pearson & Intrepid Learning1
Neuroscience is changing learning design
An explosion of brain research proves that…
• Attention is critical.
â—‹ Getting it and keeping it, when the average attention span is 5
seconds.
• Generating insights takes time.
â—‹ Learning is a journey. People need time and opportunities to make
their own meaning.
• Emotions govern.
â—‹ The stronger we feel the right emotions, the more we learn.
• Spaced learning sticks.
â—‹ Longer term recall is best when we learn over several sittings.
Source: “Your Brain on Learning” CLO Magagine, Apr-2015, quoting research from NYU
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But most corporate learning misses the boat
The constraints of classroom and online courses
can inhibit transformational learning.
• Courses don’t live where people are looking
â—‹ A learning experience begins with making people aware it exists, and
making it sound fascinating. The best marketers know how.
• Courses are designed around content
â—‹ To generate insights, the learner has to be in the center of the experience.
â—‹ Answer the questions in their heads. Meet all five moments of need.
• Courses are designed around constraints
â—‹ Courses have start and end times, but learning needs to be continuous.
â—‹ People need ways to practice, reflect, and share. And time to make it real.
â—‹ We can only afford to bring so many people into classrooms, never enough.
• Course experiences fade.
â—‹ Participant guides sit on shelves, eLearning gets lost in LMSs.
○ But an online learning journey, if it’s spaced and marketed, lives on.
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66%
Of learning professionals have
trouble getting people to engage
with corporate learning
Source: Bersin by Deloitte survey, 2014
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People don’t learn without focused attention
Borrow attention-getting practices from Marketing
• Help me hear about it.
â—‹ Marry the learning content map to the marketing editorial calendar.
○ Use great content in social media, adding more value to what’s hot
• Give me content that’s contagious.
â—‹ Marketers have researched what makes content go viral. We apply
the same STEPPS in our shareable, bite-sized content.
• Make every visit worthwhile, even fascinating!
â—‹ We have five seconds to get their attention...after every click.
â—‹ Enable each person to scan and find exactly what they need today.
• Bring me back.
â—‹ Our comprehensive technology stack will include ways to remind,
refresh, and reinforce.
â—‹ It will feel like a game, a journey.
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The art of crafting contagious content
• Wharton marketing
prof Jonah Berger
studied what made
New York Times
articles go viral.
• These six principles
drive all sorts of
things to become
popular.
• Our content will
demonstrate them.
Source: Contagious, by Jonah Berger
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Meeting the Five Moments of Learning Need
For more information, see Meeting the Five Moments of Need
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How to help people generate insights.
People gain insight over time, in community with
other learners.
• We’re social learners.
â—‹ 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.
â—‹ The community builds the body of knowledge. Moderators reduce
noise by curating the best ideas, and people find it fun, even
addictive.
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12. 6 Basic Emotions 7 Academic Emotions
Curiosity
Delight
Flow
Engagement
Confusion
Frustration
Boredom
Focus on these once people
are committed to learning.
Source: Annie Murphy Paul
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
Surprise
To get people’s attention,
appeal to these.
Source: Paul Ekman
We make decisions with our emotional brain
and justify them with our rational brain.
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How do we tap into these emotions?
• By delivering unique content in creative ways
○ A Pearson specialty, we refuse to create boring content. We’ll
prevent negative academic emotions and generate positive ones.
• By making it personal
○ Because what’s more fascinating than ourselves? Personalized
assessments will show people their strengths and blind spots.
• And comparable
â—‹ Games tap into our competitive spirit, our desire to achieve, and to
see how we stack up
• And rewarding
â—‹ Not just intrinsic rewards, but extrinsic ones, too. Like meaningful
badges on your LinkedIn profile, validated and granted by Pearson.
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How to space learning so it sticks.
Proven at Harvard, spaced repetition increases
learning by up to 50%
• Ways to prevent forgetting & enhance remembering
â—‹ Spaced intervals
â—‹ Repetition
â—‹ Feedback
• A technology stack that includes “push” and “pull”
â—‹ Pull - The transformational learning experience is always there to
ground learners, support them all their moments of need, and grow
the body of knowledge
○ Push – Marketing platforms and spaced education games can keep
them learning, and keep them coming back.
Sources
“The New Way Doctors Learn”, Time, Mar-2012
“When Remembering Really Matters”, Dr. Sharon Boller, DevLearn 2014
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