How To Teach & Learn Anything
We've never been taught to think. No directions. We've been told to think.
Once we were told what to think, we were spoon-fed the perspectives to think about.
With spoon-fed perspectives directing our thinking, a belch of questioning assessed our intellect; our recall of what we memorized based on whatever the teacher decided to quiz/test you on. What did this system label you as? A C student? An F? An A?
Today, Google has memorized the facts and we can all recall anything as fast as we can type out a search string. Today, Cognitive Thinking is the business demand because you must apply creativity, critical thinking skills and constant digital upskilling to solve complex problems in today’s marketplace.
How you innovate, how you ideate, how you solve problems, and how you come up with new concepts now outweighs tenure, experience, and the ability to be the master of trivia night.
Today, you must think. You must not only think, but you must also help others to think.
Now, think about that for a moment.
Thinking is often bundled into the soft skills arena and is often referred to as ‘creativity.’ Creativity does not mean ‘thinking of stuff.’ Creativity is thinking of stuff that innovates, solves problems, and creates new markets, technologies, products, or services. All of this is worthless unless you can effectively teach others to replicate the stuff you thought of or communicate fully, deliberately, and with intentionality what it was you wanted to communicate. Anything less is less effective.
Today, thanks to cognitive learning neuroscience, you can now take your thoughts and organize them in the way the brain accepts them, and present in a way neuroscience shows us how people love to learn.
Frameworks like Brain-centric Design give you a simple framework to organize your content into. It's that easy. "Say this here, put your perspective here, ask them these questions here." Voila. Your Workshop Neuroscience'd! Get your point across, make more sales, conduct better meetings/classes/workshops, and enjoy less stress by not being creative, but by using the science that's available to you.
Moving forward, it's what we do with what we remember, and how it becomes agentic by continuing to grow & expand through the thoughts and experiences of those you collaborate with…the more diverse, the better.
How have you made the 21st-century shift to cognitive thinking & learning in your organization?
Co-founder @ Neural Education | Visiting Assistant Professor @ Pacific Lutheran University
4 年As an educator, I have been conditioned to fire hose scripted curriculum and then label and stratify my students based on behavior and ability to manage the fire hose of information. Breaking from that mold was liberating and now I teach using a neural lens. I will never go back!
STEM/CTE Instructor specializing in Middle level Robotics, Engineering, Programming and Drone instruction.
5 年I couldn't agree more. In this new word it is key for educators to make sure they are giving students opportunities to think about their learning as well as how to apply it. Simply giving them tasks that show memorization isn't cutting it today.
Best Selling Author| Keynote Speaker| Learning Scientist| Cognitive Neuroscientist| Educator| Engineering Education |Teacher Professional Development| Parent
5 年The words Meta and Cognitive used to be difficult concepts and together the word metacognitive was impossible. What does it mean to think about my thinking? I knew that metacognition was built-in to the BcD model, but what I hadn't anticipated was that the model was more than just a content model - a place in which information was rendered accessible to learners through neuro-based methods like chunking and rehearsal. It was in fact a Social Model as well - a place where numbers mattered (the more people the merrier), and a place where? emotions which were made visible during the new 3Rs (Reflect, Revised Thinking and Report Out) caused knowledge retention with deep understanding. Simply brilliant!
Learning Experience and Instructional Designer with expertise in Brain-centric Design? | Jewelry Designer | Wife and Mother
5 年Rich Carr, In my current work developing small business owners, cognition and metacognition are secret weapons for success in training and beyond.