Gary Scherling in Individual Learning Vs. Org. Learning (LO13375)
discussed the research of Edwin Coppard and that activities and actions
cement learning, and how constant change in the body helps learning.
I'm not into the research side of this, but there is a large body of
evidence and anecdotal stories in the NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP)
arena that also supports this position.
People tend to have a lot of (and different) preferred modalities for
handling information, metaprograms as it were, that combine aspects of
auditory, kinesthetic, visual and tactile / olfactory to give a blended
and higher-order experience, conscious and unconscious.
Knowing a bit about how the brain works (my doctoral work) and how
associations of various types aid memory and retrieval (not my doctoral
work!), it makes sense that the more multi-modal the experience and the
understanding of that experience, the better the learning.
It would be easy for us to get into the pedagogical gobbledegook of this,
but the key, methinks, is engaging all of the person and a group of the
people into any learning activity, being associated in the task and
dissociated in the review, and allowing for the most associations that we
can create.
That is why there is not one Best Way. Different people prefer different
modalities and sort with different styles. Preferences, conscious
enhancements, and "learning tricks" can aid long-term retention.
One of the simple things I do toward the end of a presentation (which are
group-oriented and highly interactive, BTW) is to review the
transparencies shown with no dialog and with music playing. With about 5
seconds per image (a bit longer for the quotes that might be read), it
doesn't take long and it puts each person into a position to review
content and remember the main points that THEY took from the materials and
discussion. Doing a full day session, I generally do this right before
lunch and right before my closing story / metaphor.
Hope that helps a bit more,
-- For the FUN of It!Scott Simmerman Performance Management Company 3 Old Oak Drive, Taylors, SC 29687 (USA) 864-292-8700 fax 292-6222 SquareWheels@compuserve.com
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