What Makes Learning Last? Takeaways from a transformative training experience

It was the final day of the workshop. I rubbed my hands together nervously as my three-person team stepped out onto the makeshift stage, ready to perform what was perhaps the worst Spice Girls parody ever written:

“Stop right now! Thank you very much

Let your “no be no” and don’t hold a grudge

Hey you! Always on the run

Gotta show them that you care, gotta stick to your guns”

To make things even worse, it went on for four more verses, and there was choreography involved. If my high school students had been present, they would have labeled us “cringe”. Thankfully, this wasn’t a song and dance competition, but a workshop on classroom management, so our routine was received with general hilarity and applause.

It’s a memory that makes me smile, but even more importantly, it was the culminating moment of a workshop that completely revolutionized my teaching practice. Two days with Grace Dearborn, author of Conscious Classroom Management, transformed me from an anxious, frantic teacher into someone who was cool, confident, and in control of any classroom I walked into.

As instructional designers, this is exactly the kind of transformation we hope to help make happen. Ultimately, we want to help people improve their job performance so that they can flourish in their roles. So what was it exactly that made this training - which I consider to be the best one I ever attended as an educator - so incredibly effective and memorable?

Enter: Cognitivism

While other learning orientations may focus on the learner’s experience or environment, cognitivism focuses on the mental processes of learning, i.e. what happens in the brain.

Learning, in this sense, is the encoding of information, from sensory, to short-term, to long-term memory. Once information is encoded in long-term memory, learners can retrieve it more quickly and easily, for when it’s needed on the job.

Figure 1: Image by Educ320 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (image modified by Ian Joslin from COCOER)

But what makes information memorable? Thankfully, we can use the latest findings in the field of neuroscience to supercharge our learning, beginning with the most powerful strategy of all.

#1 Storytelling.

Research suggests that humans are more likely to remember information that is presented in a narrative form, especially when the story is character-driven and emotionally-charged. University students score better on assessments when lectures include stories. Furthermore, the powerful connection between storytelling and memory probably also explains why scenario-based eLearning may be more effective than traditional, didactic forms of eLearning.

It’s important to note however that adding stories to a learning experience can also increase the amount of information that a student is presented with, i.e. the cognitive load. As such, it goes without saying that stories should underline a meaningful point - not just to grab attention.

In our workshop, Grace was a gifted storyteller, and she shared hilarious and heartbreaking stories about the difficult students she worked with over the years. Cognitive strategies aside, these stories also helped establish a connection between us and engender trust.

#2 Activating Prior Knowledge.

William Rothwell writes, “Few adults want to hear about history, theory or background when they are motivated to learn; rather, they want to build on their own wealth of knowledge and experience” (Rothwell, 2020, emphasis added). Activating prior knowledge does just that, and is as simple as asking learners:

“What is your knowledge of or experience with this topic?”

In our Classroom Management workshop, Grace gave us ample opportunities to share our own stories and struggles. Then, once we had identified those challenges, she made sure to address each one during the training.

While this back-and-forth sharing may not be feasible during self-paced eLearning, a designer could implement a poll on the topic, where learners get to see each other’s responses as well, or provide learners with a list of statements and ask them to identify whether they are true or false. These kinds of techniques can also help stimulate curiosity about a topic.

#3 Active Participation.

To underline this point, Grace told us a sad but revealing story about lab rats. Researchers placed the rats in an “enriched” environment (with toys and fellow rats), an “impoverished” cage (alone), or a standard control cage (fellow rats). Autopsies revealed that the brains of the rats in the enriched environment were 50% larger than those of the impoverished rats (Rosenzweig et al, 1972). As Grace pointed out, it didn't matter that the impoverished rat got to watch the enriched rats go about their enriching activities (an unfortunate metaphor for some styles of teaching), active participation was key to brain development.

This study, as well as many others, demonstrates the amazing capacity of the brain to “rewire and expand its neural networks”, a concept known as neuroplasticity (Merriam & Bierema, 2013, p. 172). Neuroplasticity is the neuroscientific equivalent of having a “growth mindset”. During Grace’s workshop, I’m pretty sure our neocortexes grew by a significant amount. In fact, at the end of day one, I remember discussing with the other participants how inspired but also mentally exhausted we were!

In an in-person setting, encouraging interaction can be incredibly simple. My favorite technique as an instructor is to say to participants, “You have one minute: turn to the person next to you and share your thoughts on this issue.” This technique works wonderfully with everyone, regardless of their age or role. While some learners, especially depending on their cultural background, may be a bit taken aback by this sudden opportunity for interaction, in general, people come alive when they get to talk.

Opportunities for integrating active learning into eLearning modules also abound, everything from simple drag-and-drop interactions to more complex games and branched scenarios. Plus, anyone who has ever taught in a K-12 setting knows that students, if given a choice, will go for an interactive, game-based Kahoot over basically any other learning experience in existence.

#4 Students Teaching Students.

At the end of each 30-minute session, Grace would do the following exercise (or some variation):

“Okay! Everyone find a partner. Now, decide who is Person A and who is Person B. Person B: B stands for “begin”, so you’re going to start this exercise. Unfortunately, Person A has completely zoned out during the last 30 minutes and doesn’t remember a thing. Person B, your job is to explain to them everything you just learned. You have 30 seconds. Go!”

This simple exercise made us laugh, and also challenged us to review what we had just learned (spaced learning being an essential part of the cognitivist approach). Believe it or not, even these short 30-second bursts were enough to help consolidate the new information in our brains.

To take this even further, when I returned to my workplace, administration encouraged me to train other teachers in the methods that I learned, which encouraged me to keep renewing these skills and knowledge weeks and months after the initial training event.

#5 The Power of Music.

“When all else fails,” Grace said, “Make your students write a song.”

We scoffed, but Grace insisted: “If you want someone to remember something for the rest of their lives, whether it’s APA citations or the steps of photosynthesis, make them write a song about it.”

And so she did. In teams, we had just 10 minutes to choose the melody of a well-known pop song and write our own lyrics. The lyrics had to illustrate our biggest classroom management takeaway from the workshop. My group chose the ideas of “let your no be no” and “hold your ground”, which means calmly asserting your authority to avoid getting drawn into unproductive arguments (learn about this and other great techniques in Grace’s book).

It’s worth pointing out that Grace was able to pull this off because she excelled in establishing a safe and supportive environment in the workshop, one that encouraged us to take risks. And while songwriting might not be the most practical strategy for your eLearning experience, it’s worth remembering that sometimes making a lesson truly memorable requires novelty, as well as social and sensory aspects.

So what is the most memorable learning experience that you’ve had in your life? One that transformed the way you work? Perhaps it wasn’t a training event, but something more experiential, like a peer mentorship or - to use the transformational learning term - a disorienting dilemma. What about that experience do you think made it last?

References

Jawaharlal, M., Schrader, P.G., & Shih, A. (2004). Use of Scenario-Based Learning Approach in Teaching Statics. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237244689_Use_of_Scenario-Based_Learning_Approach_in_Teaching_Statics

Kromka, S., & Goodboy, A. (2019). Classroom storytelling: using instructor narratives to increase student recall, affect, and attention. Communication Education. 68(1), 20-43. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03634523.2018.1529330?src=recsys

Merriam, S. B., & Bierema, L. L. (2013). Adult Learning: Linking theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Rothwell, W. J. (2020). Adult Learning Basics (2nd ed.). Association for Talent Development.

Rosenzweig, M. R., Bennett, E. L., & Diamond, M. C. (1972). Brain changes in response to experience. Scientific American, 226(2), 22–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0272-22

Smith, R., & Dearborn, G. (2004). Conscious Classroom Management: Unlocking the Secrets of Great Teaching. Conscious Teaching Publications.

Thailheimer, W. (2006). Spaced Learning Events Over Time: What the Research Says. Work-Learning Research, Inc. https://www.worklearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Spacing_Learning_Over_Time__March2009v1_.pdf

Zak, P. J. (2014, October 28). Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/10/why-your-brain-loves-good-storytelling