Neuroscience for Learning and Development

If you’re a good trainer and people are learning, you are fundamentally changing people’s brains, so it is worth understanding enough about the hardware and software that you’re working with to get the best results, according to Stella Collins in her book Neuroscience for Learning and Development: How to Apply Neuroscience and Psychology for Improved Learning and Training.

After an initial discussion of neuroscience and the biology of learning, the book goes on to describe a number of things which a teacher can do to make the learning experience more effective, including:

Motivating learners by getting their brains into states which help them to learn Increasing the sensory inputs to make learning richer, stronger and more interesting Ways of optimising the level of attention aroused in the brains of learners Designing learning in ways which make sense to different learners Types of memories and ways of helping learners remember Testing, experimenting and practising as techniques for learning more effectively Effective reviewing to make learning stick

Most good teachers and trainers are continually searching for resources like this book to help make the learning process more effective for their students. In my opinion this book is certainly not the last word in learning and development, but it does contain quite a number of ideas which are well worth trying.

If you're involved in training or teaching, and you want to be more effective, this book has a number of suggestions that can help.

This book provides a good overview of brain functioning and of how the physical structures and its biochemistry is related to the psychological and behavioral elements in learning.

One of the key things Collins tells us about is that to learn we must first be curious. Second, there has to be a way for learning "to stick" or to be remembered. This means that we have to create the right level of attention and motivation for learning to be persistent about learning.

If you are a learning and development professional, chances are you use techniques and tricks that you have learned on the job, rules of thumbs acquired from others, and your "good old common sense" based on your own experience. This book looks at why some things work and some things don't. And you might be surprised at the things that we do that are not as effective as we might think. Understanding why will make us far more effective.