Learning takes brains

Enterprise learnscape architects are opportunists. Perhaps “holistic” is a more polite way to put it. When you look at corporate learning from an ecological perspective, you take advantage of whatever works so long as it’s cost-effective. If tweaking the office lighting improves performance, I’m all for it. If something improves the learning capacity of individuals, that’s game, too. Which brings me to brains.

Fit brains learn better.

I just received the SharpBrains Fitness Newsletter from my pal Alvaro Fernandez. Alvaro is a former McKinsey consultant who helped turn around several major eLearning companies before founding his successful venture in cognitive health and fitness research.  SharpBrains  maintains a searchable index of 600+ articles on brain fitness and research.  A few relevant examples: 

Should Social-Emotional Learning Be Part of Academic Curriculum?: It is clear by now that our brains are more than cognitive machines. For example, emotions can either enhance or inhibit our ability to learn. Daniel Goleman explores the implications of “new studies that reveal how teaching kids to be emotionally and socially competent boost their academic achievement.” Brought to you in partnership with Greater Good Magazine.

Retain older workers beyond retirement: BusinessWeek covers a best practice in a topic of growing importance: how large companies, such as American Express, can retain older workers in productive ways beyond a set arbitrary retirement age. As Dr. Art Kramer told us recently, “as a society, it is a massive waste of talent not to ensure older adults remain active and productive.”

Exercising the body is exercising the mind: Dr. Adria Preda explains research conducted at Gage laboratory that supports the merits for physical exercise to be recognized as a form of brain exercise too.

What You Can do to Improve Memory (and Why It Deteriorates in Old Age): Is there anything we can do besides “exercise like crazy, eat healthy foods that you don’t like all that much, pop your statin pills, and take up yoga?” Yes: focus, focus, focus, suggests Dr. Bill Klemm.

Where does the “Feeling of Knowing” comes from?: Dr. Ginger Campbell shares some insights from her recent interview with neurologist Robert Burton (author of On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not). “While it might be true that one can learn to become more aware of the emotional signals coming from one’s body, Dr. Burton argues that “gut feelings” or intuition should not be assumed to be true without testing.”

 

Alvaro will be speaking at Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovation in mid-November. That’s the free, online, weeklong, alternative event on the future of learning that’s being sponsored by George Siemens, Tony Karrer, and Internet Time Group. 

 

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Related post: Brains are applesauce

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