Brains, learning and e-learning

Dr Itiel Dror believes that learning theories such as Bloom, Gagne, Kolb, and Kirkpatrick are largely 'fossil' theories that have been hanging around because we rarely bother to relate practice back to current research.

It is a myth that there's no stable, scientific learning theory. We need only turn to the many pieces of solid evidence from experimental psychology to see how the three core processes in learning can be improved.

1. Acquisition

Cognitive overload is the greatest consequence of not understanding how knowledge and skills are acquired. The failure to understand how we prioritise and select information, and a lack of detailed knowledge on chunking, top-down processing and modularity, lead to demeaning, over-demanding or dull learning experiences. Expectation, motivation and engagement all have optimal techniques, which can be used to increase the efficiency of learning. Cognitive overload is at best a waste of resources; at worst a destructive force in learning. Yet far too much training ignores the fact that less is more.

2. Memory

We need to understand how to remember in order to retrieve, and so we need to understand how the different memory stores/structures/systems work. This is an area rich in solid research, from Ebbinghaus onwards. Working Memory is different from Long-Term Memory (LTM). It is vital we understand how these work, along with the two different types of LTM: semantic and episodic memory. Then there's incidental versus intentional learning, inferential reconstruction and context sensitive retrieval. These are pretty solid pieces of science that can be used to inform the design of learning experiences.

3. Application

Appropriate representations can be recalled but we must be aware of their limited scope. This is a trade-off between efficiency and flexibility. This 'transfer' problem is fascinating. How do we recall learnt knowledge and skills and apply them efficiently? The whole area of practice and work-related activity swings into action. Practice makes perfect, yet in education this is reduced to cramming, and in training, with its fixation on single, episode 'fixed duration courses’, ignoring actual reinforcement and application on the job, is largely ignored.

Dr Itiel Dror has a sensible and measured run though some basic ideas around how we acquire, store, recall and apply knowledge and skills. His appeal for the practical application of experimental psychology to learning is badly needed.

(Summary from article written by Donald Clark, June 2006)