Tip #385: What is Magic About the Number Three in Designing Curriculum for Better and More Lasting Learning?

“Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.” Ernest Dimnet

If training is to effectively change learner behavior, then the curriculum must be designed with learning activities that encourage and require the learners both to feel strongly and to think deeply about their conclusions. These design models and principles come in sets of three:

a. Triune Brain Model

The evolutionary Triune Brain Model (developed by Dr. Paul MacLean) identifies three major layers of the brain:

1. The Reptilian System operates relatively automatically and is concerned with safety and survival. Pre-reason and pre- language, it is over 500 million years old. This is the first brain to engage in any situation, which is why it is so important for trainers to create a comfortable learning environment.

2. The Limbic System is over 200 million years old and also pre-reason and without language. It monitors emotion and plays a significant role in remembering new information and organizing events. The memory is lodged in the emotions. The more senses and sensations engaged, the more likely a memory will be created and retained.

3. The Neocortex is only 50 million years old, but it constitutes 80% of the total human brain. This is the seat of reason and language, capable of creativity and complex analysis. It provides the ability to put feelings and thoughts into words.

The fact that the memory is lodged in the emotions means that participant-centered learning activities that engage the learners’ senses will result in longer-lasting learning.

b. Multimodal Learning

Research conducted for Cisco by the Metri Group has identified three design principles:

1. Recognize and address learner’s prior knowledge, experience and preconceptions about the topic. Positive transfer means that this information will be useful as a base on which to build any new learning. Create learning activities that will draw these from long-term memory into working memory.

Negative transfer means that this information can easily get in the way of the new learning. A good learning designer makes sure to incorporate learning activities that enable the learners to identify and build on positive transfer- and disconnect negative transfer.

2. Make learning meaningful by relating it to the learners’ experience, goals, or interests and values. Create learning activities that help the learners’ discover why a topic is relevant and meaningful.

This will result in authentic learning that has three key components:

(1) depth of learning

(2) real life relevance

(3) learner application

Learning designers need to incorporate learning activities that engage the learners both emotionally and intellectually and then give them a chance to apply what they have learned. These activities will, therefore, draw on working memory, sensory memory, and long-term memory.

3. Teach learners how to think about what they are thinking (metacognition). Create problem-solving activities that require the learners to predict outcomes and learn from their failures. This learning strategy creates germane cognitive load in working memory when learners are encouraged to give their own explanations of work examples.

c. Productive Self-Explanations

Cognitive load researchers suggest three ways to promote productive self-explanations:

1. Train learners how to give constructive explanations of their thought processes and rationale;

2. Use faded worked examples (where they have to complete portions of the example) and have the learners explain their rationale; and

3. Use worked examples (where learners have to complete the entire example) and ask questions that will stimulate self-explanations.

This three-pronged approach gives learners the knowledge of how to explain their thinking and graduated practice giving explanations of the underlying rationale for their conclusions and decisions.

d. Influence Learner Behavior

The three concentric circles of the Golden Circle (developed by Simon Sinek) explain the phenomenon that training is more likely to influence learner behavior when it starts with Why:

1. The outermost circle is What. Here, rational decisions [made in the neocortex] are justified on the basis of facts and figures. Since facts alone can be skewed, decisions made at this level generate the least amount of confidence in terms of emotional commitment.

2. The middle circle is How. Here, gut decisions [made in the limbic system] are justified on the basis of a “gut feeling.” Decisions based on feelings generate somewhat more confidence in terms of emotional commitment than fact-based decisions.

3. The center circle is Why. Why decisions [also made in the limbic system] “feel right” and can be justified with facts and figures. Both factors generate great confidence in these types of decisions, resulting in the greatest amount of emotional commitment.

This is another reason why curriculum design should begin lessons with a learning activity that enables the learners to discover why the topic is important and, thereby, make it meaningful to them.

Engaging learners on both emotional and intellectual levels generates greater commitment to new learning, increasing the probability that the learners will remember and apply it once they leave the classroom.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #364: How to Facilitate Learning Activities

“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” Herber J. Grant

In response to last week’s Tip on How to Close a Training Session on a High Note, Tom Jackson, Training Team Lead, Division of Strategic National Stockpile, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offered this great closing activity.

“I thought I’d share a closing activity that one of my old employees showed me and I’ve used quite effectively. I am always amazed at how much energy it creates for my wrap up. It may not work too well with large audiences, but for 10 – 50 folks, it seems to do just fine.

Here’s a wrap up activity that I think is pretty cool…I write the alphabet on a few flip chart sheets (takes 3 – 4) and at the end of the class, the participants have to give me something that they learned using the letters of the alphabet…for example…A – we learned about antibiotics, B – we learned about biological agents, etc.

For some of the more difficult letters, you can lightly pencil in a suggestion (they won’t be able to see it, but it helps things go quickly). I do however change the alphabet a little and place “X” as the last letter and I tell them that one’s for me…At the end we come to “X” and I write “eXpectations” and I point to the flip chart sheet that listed their expectations we opened the course with. I read the expectations and ask them if we covered them…when we get to the last “yes”, I finish with, “Together we met all of our expectations. We did a good job, so let’s give ourselves a round of applause.”

You’d be surprised how much energy people get from that little activity and it is a great finish. Then you hand out certificates at the back of the room as people leave. Shake their hand and thank them for coming.”

What a wonderfully creative and easy way to end a program with an energetic recap of the key learning. Thanks, Tom!

Today's Tip focuses on how to facilitate learning activities.

Facilitating learning activities involves more than simply giving the learners directions for an assignment. In order for the learning experience to be effective, the learners need to: (1) see a completed worked example, (2) practice completing partially worked examples, and then (3) work either independently or in small groups to complete a third example.

If a trainer attempts to facilitate a learning activity by handing it off to the learners without modeling what they are expected to do, one of two results will occur. The more likely result is that the learners will interpret the assignment with varying degrees of accuracy and end up working through the activity incorrectly. The less likely result is that the learners will miraculously intuit what the trainer wants and perform the activity correctly.

In the former case, the learners will be frustrated, the training time will be wasted, and the trainer will have to correct the situation by providing the demonstration of the desired process that should have been given at the very beginning. In the latter case, the learners will not endear themselves to the other learners who floundered in the activity.

Cognitive load research has shown that effective learning occurs more easily when there is a clear progression. The first step in learning begins with the review of a completed worked example. This gives the learners a model of the expected process or outcome.

The next step in learning has the learners practice completing partially worked examples. In one practice example, the first part of the problem might already be completed so that they need to complete the last part of the problem. In another practice example, the last part of the problem might already be completed so that they need to complete the first part of the problem. Once they have mastered how to complete each part of the problem, they are ready for the last step.

In the third step in learning, the learners work independent of trainer guidance or input to actively complete an entire problem on their own. At this point, they have the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to successfully apply what they have learned.

A key adult learning principle is that the trainer should become increasingly less involved in the learning process (fading) so that the learner will perform the learned skill or process with increasing independence. This three-step learning process produces this desired adult learning outcome.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah