Design for How People Learn (Voices That Matter)

Habituation means getting used to a sensory stimulus to the point that we no longer notice or respond to it.

We are still very much in the process of understanding how different types of memory work in the brain, but some of the types of memory include: • Declarative or semantic memory. This is stuff you can talk about—facts, principles, or ideas, like WWII ending in 1945 or your zip code. • Episodic memory. This is also a form of declarative memory, but

For most of us, a large percentage of our day is habit-driven. When I get up in the morning, probably the first half hour of my day is on auto-pilot (let the dog out, make coffee, brush teeth, etc.). The difficulty with habits as a gap is that most of the traditional learning solutions have only mixed results at best.

You can use this one of two ways. You can move the point of learning closer to the point of use (a just-in-time video that the learner watches only when they need it), or, if that’s not possible, you can move the point of use closer to the point of learning, by using a scenario or problem for the learner to solve (more on that shortly).

Learning experiences are like journeys. The journey starts where the learner is now, and ends when the learner is successful (however that is defined). The end of the journey isn’t just knowing more, it’s doing more.

include: • Scouring their situation for intrinsic motivators. Is there anything—anything—that they find intrinsically motivating about the subject matter? Ask lots of questions about what they might do with the information. Try to tie it back to relevant, real-world tasks or to their sense of identity as professionals. • Having them tell you. Start

You want to start with the gaps when identifying the destination.

Using pure memorization to grind something into a learner’s brain is the equivalent of building really thick walls—yes, it works, but it takes a lot of resources, and it’s a clunky solution.

The biggest problem with memorization through repetition is that it frequently puts the information on just one shelf:

How Do You Help Novices Structure Their Closets? The first thing you need to do is help your learners build a few shelves. There’s no way that any single class or training program is going to get them all the way to your mental model, and you shouldn’t try (that’s just as bad as burying them under a flood of multi-colored laundry).