As a company, The Bob Pike Group uses brain-based research to create our training principles and promote our participant-centered methods with research. Here is part four of a four-part series that gives you the why behind our instructor-led, participant-centered how.

Bob Pike, in his Creative Training Techniques Handbook and in the design of his workshops specifically discusses seven keys to aid long term memory/retention:

• Primacy - We remember first things best.
• Recency - We remember last things next best.
• Chunking - we remember best when presented with small chunks of information.
• Linking - we remember best when we can connect new information to information we have already learned.
• Record and Recall - People remember best when they write things down themselves.
• Review/revisit - We need to revisit information six times with interval reinforcement to move information from short-term memory to long-term memory.
• Outstandingness - We remember the silly, the ridiculous, the unusual and the out of the ordinary

The Bob Pike Group and its participant-centered instructor led methodology, training strategies and techniques represent academic research findings on adult learning from the fields of brain-based research, multiple intelligences and emotional intelligence. 

H. Gardner's work shows that we have at least eight intelligences or talents. He identifies them as linguistic (word smart), logical-mathematical (number smart), spatial (picture smart), body kinesthetic (body smart), interpersonal (people smart), intrapersonal (self-smart) and naturalistic (nature smart). Some of our eight talents are developed more than others, but we all have the capacity to improve our weaker talents and learn throughout our lives. Learning is a physiological event as the brain is an organ working according to physiological rules. Learning consists of both intentional processes and inadvertent processes. The senses are important and the brain has a hunger for novelty, discovery and challenge.

Laura Erlauer also indicate that effective brain-based teaching strategies include music, movement, personal stories, humor, metaphors, colors, and brainstorming. These findings are consistent again with TBPG's participant-centered training methodology, and the use of interactive activities that encourage fun, storytelling, humor, colored dot prioritizing, and music during breaks and before beginning.

Brian Dwyer states that in addition to brain based research, concepts, social environment and emotional intelligence are also important factors for learning. Emotional well being is the strongest predictor of academic achievement and success in life. Emotional intelligence is being able to manage distressing moods and control impulses; it is remaining hopeful when setbacks occur; it is empathy and social skills.

Five emotional attributes should be incorporated into every training session: self awareness, knowing how to handle emotions, moving towards goals, empathy and social skills. With role-plays, case studies, simulations and meta-cognition, exercises are more appropriate learning strategies than lectures. Building a sense of community and sense of belonging is also important for learning as well as self-confidence. If learners feel self-confident, they will be successful learners.

Dwyer asserts that training sessions should be designed and delivered to embrace brain-based learning, multiple intelligences, and emotional intelligence in order for optimum learning to occur. These will bring to the training environment an attitude that provides a true understanding, empathy, tolerance and respect for all learners.

To read parts one, two and three of this article, click:
part one
part two

part three

References

Dwyer, Brian M. (2002) Training strategies for the twenty-first century: using recent research on learning to enhance training. Innovations in Education and Teaching International. pg. 265-270.

Erlauer, Laura (2003). The Brain-Compatible Classroom: Using What We Know About Learning to Improve Teaching. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision Curriculum Development.

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple Intelligence: The Theory in Practice, Basic Books, New York, NY.

Pike, Robert, Creative Training Techniques Handbook. Amherst, MA:  HRD Press. 1987.

Pike, B., Pluth, B. The Bob Pike Group Train the Trainer Boot Camp Guide, Eden Prairie, MN, The Bob Pike Group, ver. 2009.3