Mashed Articles

Donald Clark has written a nice piece for Line entitled ‘10 facts about learning that are scientifically proven and significant for training’.

There’s nothing terribly new in the article, but it’s great to read and remind yourself of these key factors in learning. I’ve printed the list and pinned it up to focus me when I’m planning work. Synopsis below, but I think you should go read the article – it’s short and snappy.

* Spaced Practice – we learn through practice, little and often
* Cognitive overload – too much, too long!
* Chunking Information – less is more
* Order – learn stuff in a useful order
* Episodic and semantic memory – teach for the types of memory we use
* Psychological attention – hello? anyone out there?
* Context – learn on the job/task
* Learn by Doing
* Understand peer groups – teachers and parents don’t matter. Peer groups do.
* Murder the myths – bye bye to learning styles, left-right brain, NLP etc etc

Line have also published a series of white papers – I’ve not read through all these, but they look useful:

Rapid development of e-learning – risks and opportunities
Making e-learning a viable business tool
Understanding the culture of e-learning
Podcasts and learning
Beyond blended instruction
Web 2.0 and learning

Thanks to Deborah Limb of Learning Pool for the link!