The 2 biggest reasons your courses are failing - Part 2: Curiosity

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.?-- Albert Einstein

In part 1 of this article I discussed the importance of ‘choice’ in any course or training strategy. In this article, I share why ‘choice' needs to partner with ‘curiosity' to improve the learner experience.

My sons love nothing more than climbing up on anything and looking over at a building site. Given half the chance, they’d spend all day watching the different trucks coming in and out of the site and dumping stuff and picking it up again. And through this curiosity they know every make, model and type of truck. To be honest my two year old has more knowledge in this area than do and will ever have. And that’s because he has spent many a day being curious about what goes on behind the wall. And that’s what this article is all about.

Don’t aim for better learners, aim for better interrogators

Curiosity noun - a strong desire to know about something, Oxford Learner’s Dictionary

In Part 1 of this article, I refer to my Jewish nose as more a symbol of my curiosity than it is of my religion.

But to tell you the truth, my religion did play a massive part in my love of learning and teaching. And all this started at the age of 11 in Sunday morning Hebrew classes.

Sadly I learned very little Hebrew. But thanks to a wonderful teacher taking the class, I did end up learning a lot about the jewish culture, ethics and also about learning. In particular, I learned that everything we are taught can and should be questioned.

This class ended up leaving me with one skill that I will never forget; that was not to become a better learner but to become a better interrogator.

I have realised that creating better learners means creating an environment of curiosity.

Many years later, having studied UK law, art, Italian, Australian law and less official courses including marketing, design, and a heap of courses aimed at entrepreneurs, I have realised that creating better learners means creating an environment of curiosity.

Studying law, in particular, may sound sexy but as any lawyer will tell you, it is hard hard work. It is complex, often has no one right or wrong answer and takes an inordinate amount of brain activity.

So, whether we are a learner or a teacher, we need to help stimulate our brains (as the learner) or our learner's brains (as the teacher) to be active.

The Experiment

...curiosity puts the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything around it. Dr. Matthias Gruber

Curiosity breeds stimulation and all sorts of brain activities that keep us studying even when the going gets tough.??But don’t take my word for it – there are neurological studies that demonstrate?that curiosity makes our brains more receptive for learning.

Researchers at the University of California?conducted?an?experiment to understand what goes on in the brain when our curiosity is aroused. Participants were hooked up to an MRI machine and their brain was scanned to see what was happening when they were asked to rate their curiosity when asked to learn the answers to over 100 trivia questions, including questions about Beatles songs, questions about what certain terms mean etc.

The experiments revealed two important findings.

1.?????Curiosity prepares the brain for learning.

Researchers?discovered that?once the subjects' curiosity was switched on, they were better at learning and remembering information. Dr. Matthias Gruber, co-author?of the experiment,?explains that “curiosity puts the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything around it.”

2. Curiosity makes subsequent learning more rewarding.

The researchers found that when?they sparked?participants' curiosity, there was an increased activity in two important parts of the brain involved in the creation of memories and related to reward and pleasure. This is the same part of the brain that lights up when we get or see something we love, such as Netflix or our kids or money. This circuit feeds on the "feel-good" chemical, dopamine, that relays messages between neurons and gives us that feeling of a high.

So whether you’re developing a new compliance course for employees, a course on ESG for board members, or a course on creating a framework for entrepreneurs, curiosity is an essential part of the learning process in order to create or receive valuable content.

Curiosity in practice

How do we cultivate this practice of curiosity in a learning environment???We know from the University of California experiment, that if an educator is able to arouse learners' interest or curiosity about something, they're going to be more motivated to learn.

And I would also add another factor from my experience - and this is that learners will also be more prepared to learn things that may normally be considered to be boring or difficult, such as training on policies, procedures or the law for non lawyers.

So how do we do this? Here are my three principles of curiosity:

1. Principle 1: Set the scene with a great pre-frame. It’s important to understand that it’s not just about creating curiosity in the main content of your training. You want to stimulate curiosity before people actually attend or participate in your course. You want them to be curious about why they are learning what they are learning and answer that important learner centric question ‘what’s in it for me?’. Just like my kids with the wall built around the construction site - you want to stimulate a learner before they have even started your course. You can do this by letting them know the key elements that they will be interested in/want to know about before they even take your course. Notice I am referring to what they are interested in and not simply what you want them to learn. Our learning messages can come later. For example - on a course for Anti-bribery and corruption - I might pre-frame my audience with the happy prospect of ‘getting deals through quicker, navigating forms and processes with ease and building better relationships with your clients." Once they are in the same room, course or virtual environment with me, I can then share with them the organisation’s key messages.
2. Principle 2: Put two different elements together and ask people to figure out why. Ever wondered what Campbells soup has to to with Andy Warhol or what compliance and creativity have to do with each other? Well the first was Warhol’s way of dealing with his childhood through his art and the second is my way of engaging people into good compliance behaviours. And the same comes with your training. Add unexpected elements together and ask people about them. For example, in one particular workshop I put on for a bank, I asked people what the London Underground had to do with compliance. The room stared at my blankly for a few seconds until I started acting out a journey I had on the underground one morning with passengers of different ethical levels. Suddenly my train ride home became their experience at work. I had used curiosity and storytelling to stimulate their brain to understand how specific behaviours and actions overtime can be a real problem. Soup and train rides might at first glance be very far away from their intended topic but on closer interrogation they are perfectly in line.
3. Principle 3: Get curious about your learners. This seems obvious and I know that everyone will probably say that they know who their learners are. But do you know them well enough to feature them (or a related them) in any of your case studies or examples? Are you really speaking about them when you are creating content or simply speaking to them when teaching? In one course I created with Jason Meyer for board members, we placed someone we believed would be a typical learner into a character in our case studies. We ended up animating her and featuring her throughout. She became our learner, our hero and our guide. She connected us to the audience and she made the course a resounding success. And all we did was get curious about our audience.

These principles stand me in good stead whenever creating engaging training that people actually remember. And the great thing is that from these principles, you can create hundreds of different ways to stimulate your learners’ brains to get them curious and get them learning, remembering and using your content.

Good luck with your next course.

Nicole

Read The 2 Biggest Reasons Your Courses are Failing- Part 1: Choice

I have 10 free spots during the next month for people to chat through their training or learning questions. Click?here?to apply.?

• www.nicolerose.co
• Director of?Create Training
• Co-Host of the?Eight Mindsets Podcast