What would it mean to you and your delegates if you could help them to boost their recall by up to 15%?
Here’s how!
In his book “Brain Rules”, John Medina describes an experiment where recall is tested with 2 sets of divers in 2 differing situations and concludes that there is an inescapable neurological connection between learning, recall and location.
Of course Brain Friendly trainers have known for some time both instinctively and, more recently, from scientific evidence, that learning and emotion are linked but this takes our understanding to a new and somewhat challenging new level.
Here is a summary of the experiment described in the book:
Take 2 teams of divers. Put them in their wetsuits. Put one team on the beach and the other team in the water. Feed them with some data. Some time later test their recall in the place they were during the test.
Then repeat the experiment but test their recall in the wrong location (test the beach team in the water and water team on the beach.
Result: Recall in the divers who were tested in the same environment as where their learning occurred recalled 15% more than those whose recall was tested in the “wrong” environment.
What does this mean for us?
Well, one thing it seems to indicate is that by doing all our training in training rooms we are depriving our learners about 15% of their ability to recall the learning later. And that’s quite a lot!
We already know that emotional state and learning are neurologically linked. For example: if we want people to be curious when they recall their learning, they will need to curious during the learning process. If we want people to feel energised when they recall their learning, they will need to feel energised during the learning process.
Medina’s evidence suggests that “place” or environment is also an important factor.
As deliverers, and even more so as designers, this is very powerful stuff and we can use this to really enhance our learner’s experiences.
For example, imagine how powerful the learning experience would be if we not only got our learners into an appropriate emotional state for their learning but if the learning occurred in the same environment as that where the things being learnt were actually going to be used.
For example, imagine delivering an entire induction on the contact centre floor or a coaching programme in the room used for coaching….. (you may already do this but by more by accident than design. Now you can do it on purpose with the science to support you)
Sounds a little extreme? Not really – chefs learn to cook in real kitchens, engineers learn their craft in workshops so why not run other kinds of training in the environment where the learning will be used?
AND, what difference would it make to your learners (and your business) (and your reputation!) if you could get a 15% uplift in your learner’s recall?
So here is a call to action:
- Buy John Medina’s book “Brain Rules”
- Consider an up and coming training event and think how you could deliver it in the environment where the learning will be used.
- Tell us what you did and how it went. We would love to share your experiences here for the rest of the Brain Friendly Learner community.
Paul and Ally are working on an exciting 6-part (online) course to help your learners fully engage with your training - sign up for the 'early bird' list for advanced notification and more info
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6 Comments
That’s a really interesting piece of research – thanks Paul.
At this stage I haven’t read the book, so I think I’d need to know more before commenting further on the research itself.
My thoughts are that for the majority of learning facilitators, we cannot replicate the environment exactly, particularly if your portfolio includes open programmes run in a variety of venues.
But you can encourage learners to review and recall within an environment that contains as many trigger factors as possible from the original learning environment – replicating one or more of the sights, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes experienced by the learners whilst absorbing and reflecting upon new information received.
Whilst we’ve not ‘scientifically’ researched our results, by continuous refinement of brain friendly models, our learners regularly now demonstrate between 50 – 100% retention of learning, including during examinations – an environment not always conducive to learning retention!
So another vote for using brain friendly learning methods I believe – to achieve measurable workplace results!
Ann Grindrod
Hi Ann,
Thank you very much for your insightful comments.
I agree that often it will be difficult to replicate the exact working environment.
My thoughts when writing this piece were that if a few people can and do and tell us their results, that’s one more step towards our understanding of the brain and learning and one more step towards improving our learners experiences.
And this is why Ally and I launched the site.
Once again thank you for your comments. (And do get the book. It’s a facinating read!)
Paul
Great article Paul and enjoyed your comments too Ann. Over the past 10 years I’ve trained and coached many people in ways to improve their personal productivity. In classroom settings, I’ve been acutely aware that recall rapidly declines when people get back to the workplace. To try and improve the retention rate, I’ve settled on two practices, the 2nd of which is relevant to this discussion.
Firstly, I maintain contact with the group via email and sometimes even phone call for 1 month.
Secondly, where possible, I try and incorporate a personalised coaching session “at the person’s work station” . This is always highly effective but can be expensive. Until now, I hadnt realised this had been tested. I am going to try and use that research as part justification for why it should be done.
Thank you again for your article. I’ve also become a subscriber.
Geoff
Hi Geoff,
Thanks for subscribing AND thanks for your comments.
I always think it’s interesting when we have been doing something that instinctively seems like the right thing and then along comes some research that supports our thoughts.
It would be great to hear how you get on now you have some solid data to support your coaching sessions.
Regards
Paul
Wow… I knew that virtual companies for training my students in business worked well, but this explains why. The students come to “work” not study and the room is set up just like an office. They have real business tasks to do as well.
Interesting!
Great example Jenni.
As Ann mentioned in the very 1st comment, it’s often difficult to tap into the benefits of learning in the ‘real world’ when you are running open courses or forced by circumstances to work outside of the ‘real world’ environment.
One thought that springs immediately to mind is training astronauts to work in space. It is not an option for them to learn in their ‘real world’ environment, so they replicate that environment as best they can by working underwater and in the famous ‘vomit comet’ aeroplane.
Your example is a good lesson for us all – if it is impossible to learn in the ‘real world’ how can we create a ‘virtual world’ for them that replicates the environment and tasks they need to master.
As long as it doesn’t descend in to a frightful roleplay, I’m happy
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