A new year and the second month of the stickylearning blog! This year is all about learning how we learn and using this to make learning more effective for others.
Through the year you'll see learning ideas coming from many disciplines - corporate training, knowledge management, school teaching, marketing, advertising, music, design, athletics and more.....anything that can make learning more effective!
First up though a book for the year - everyone should buy it (seriously!) The book's titled Brain Rules and is by a bloke called John Medina, a molecular biologist. I have a scientific background originally - but this book is not typically scientific - there are no boring bits - there are no convoluted scientific explanations - and there's a DVD that has the key points in easy to digest chunks.
The book's all about 12 'Brain Rules' for surviving and thriving at work, home and school. You can see them all listed at the Brain Rules website. But a few key ones for learning are:
SHORT-TERM MEMORY (Rule #5) - repeat to remember
LONG-TERM MEMORY (Rule #6) - remember to repeat
SENSORY INTEGRATION (Rule #9) - stimulate more of the senses
VISION (Rule #10) - vision trumps all other senses
At the Brain Rules website follow the link to further video's on youtube that illustrate the remaining Brain Rules. Also for another view of the Brain Rules book, here is a presentation from Garr Reynold's on the book (from slideshare)
And for those who'd like to hear Dr Medina talk, here he is speaking @Google.
As you can see from these videos, a picture tells the story better than words ever will alone!
Throughout January follow stickylearning as I focus on how to better use visuals in learning environments.