Seeking Mega-Success: Setting goals and making priorities is only half the story.
About 15 years ago I was sitting on a plane. It was one of those times when I felt so uncomfortable that I just wanted to flail my arms around and jump and scream and generally exhibit the sort of anti-social behaviour that would earn me a quick introduction to the Captain. So, instead I gave in and opened the Inflight magazine. Flicking through the pages I found an article by a bloke who was interested in successful people. Not just the normal successful people – not just the high flyers – but the really successful people, the ones who don’t just fly high, they soar way above the high flyers. He wanted to know what separated these mega-successful people from the everyday successful people. He found one thing. Every day successful people set goals. They focus on them, and they pursue them. And they succeed. This is not surprising. … Read More..
What Socrates Taught Us About Brain-Based Learning
Once upon a time, learning theory was limited to the imaginings of scholars. No one had any way to study what went on inside the brain during any kind of learning process. In the last twenty years, the advent of sophisticated imaging technology and massive computing power ushered in an explosion in rigorous scientific research on brain-based learning. Long before the onset of this scientific investigation of how the brain actually learns, people all over the world have been challenging the traditional approach to educating others – the teacher-tell model. “Teacher-tell” is an efficient means of transferring knowledge in the mind of the expert teacher into the minds of large numbers of novice students. University classrooms in every corner of the planet feature auditorium seating for students sometimes numbering in the hundreds. Students sit patiently in their seats while the teacher spews forth his or her knowledge in the expectation … Read More..
Asking Questions: Tools for Brain-Based Learning
Although much of what we are now discovering about how the brain learns is new, the idea of asking questions as a way to keep students’ attention is not. Indeed, some teachers have been asking questions of their students for decades, even in the hallowed lecture halls of the world’s great universities. So why is there such discontent with much of what we call “higher learning?” Why are so many students so bored and so uninvolved in their own classroom instruction? A question should elicit a response and thinking of the appropriate response should actively engage the mind of the students, so what so often goes wrong with this picture? Some teachers and industrial trainers are adamant in their belief that they make effective use of questioning in their educational settings. Anyone involved in teaching of any kind needs to ask themselves the following questions: Why are you asking the … Read More..
Building a Question-Friendly Environment
Trial lawyers are often told never ask a question for which you do not already know the answer. That might be true in the courtroom, but in the classroom, that mentality is one of many things teachers and trainers do to discourage a question-friendly environment. Intellectually, we all know the ability to ask questions is a critical component of learning. Practically, it does not take much to create an atmosphere that encourages refraining from questioning and answering. Are you really asking a question when at the end of your presentation you ask if there are any questions as you check your watch? Are you encouraging thinking when you call on someone for an answer the moment the question is out of your mouth? Are you encouraging future questioning when you fail to accept an answer because it is not the one for which you were looking? Are you evaluating responses … Read More..
The Threat of Questioning – What We Can Learn From Brain-Based Learning Research
Teachers have been asking questions for centuries and for centuries there have been students who do all they can to avoid answering. Some teachers try a variety of means to force the reluctant to answer from time to time, but more often, the path of least resistance in calling on those all too eager to answer is the path taken. Today we have scientific evidence to support what many teachers have long suspected. Some students feel threatened when asked a question. In 1983, researcher Leslie Hart published Human Brain, Human Learning in which he explained how the brain learns best when challenged, but shuts down when it senses threat. Today this is an accepted principle of brain-based learning. It is easy to restrict our thinking about constructing an accepting and non-threatening classroom environment as one where physical safety is not an issue. In many urban schools, physical safety is a … Read More..
