The Lily Pad

by Shannon McKenzie

Six frogs are sitting on a lily pad. One frog decides to jump off. How many frogs are left on the lily pad?

If you answered five, your logical, analytical brain is in tact... but you're wrong. That frog only DECIDED to jump off the lily pad. Did he really make the plunge?

The world we live in is full of fantastic, varied options. We are told from a young age that the world is ours for the taking; that we can literally do anything we want. We read stories about the "little guy" who makes it big, and we stare up into the sky and truly believe we can be an astronaut. How many of us actually take action on the things we decide to do?

Sometimes, action is doing really big things, like quitting your job out of nowhere, going back to school, and finding a new career. This type of action is the scariest type, and the rarest. However, "action" can be the smallest thing that sets you in an ever-so-slightly different direction.

Maybe today is the day you clean out your inbox.Maybe today is the day you walk to work instead of driving, like you have said you always COULD do, but never have. Maybe today is the day you spruce up your resume, or talk to your boss about what her job is like. Even if you never do a thing with that spruced-up resume, or if you don't lose 10 pounds from walking to work- the point is that you're moving things, changing your routine- taking ACTION. These little bits of action don't do much on their own, but they change your trajectory, and ultimately you'll land somewhere entirely different because of it.

Be the frog who just jumps off the pad. Stop thinking about doing things and DO them- even the little ones. 

Trust us, it'll feel awesome.

Long Term Learning: Music Makes Memories

by Shannon McKenzie

Emotional impact and repetition are two techniques for transferring short-term memories to long-term memories.

As I was driving today, I found myself singing out loud to the song on the radio. I knew every single word. I was feeling fantastic. As I sang, it dawned on me: I hadn’t heard this song since I was in high school – the year my best friend and I would ride the bus home from school field trips, listen to music, and sing at the top of our lungs. How did I possibly remember every single word to that song? I was emotionally engaged – to the lyrics, to the fun I was having, to my friend –when I learned it. And we sang that song over and over and over.

Not only do I remember those lyrics today, I can recall where I was sitting on the bus, how it smelled with the rain coming down, and how much I enjoyed singing with my best friend. My song?  The Cure – Just like Heaven – listen to it now

SuperFoods for Your Brain

by Shannon McKenzie

Just like our bodies, our brains need special attention in order to remain healthy. Exercise and the right kinds of foods are the top two ways to keep your brain at its best.

Here are the best brain, foods, broken down by age group:

The Best Brain Food for Infants and Babies

Iron. By 5 or 6 months, babies have used up the iron stores they're born with and need to get iron from food or supplements to support brain development.
Food solutions: Iron-fortified cereals. Try these iron-rich recipes.

The Best Brain Food for Children and Teens:

School-aged children should start their day with low-glycemic-index breakfast foods. (They need morning fuel.)
Food solutions: Bran cereals, oatmeal or whole-wheat bagels. Try these oat-filled recipes.

The Best Brain Food for Young Adults:

Got iron? 10 percent of women are anemic, and new studies show that being even mildly iron-deficient affects learning, memory, and attention. Luckily, restoring iron levels to normal also restores cognitive function.
Food solutions: Dark leafy greens, beans, meat or soy. Try these leafy green recipes.

The Best Brain Food for Older Adults:

Eat your antioxidants. People who eat more brightly colored fruits and leafy vegetables have less cognitive decline than those who don't; antioxidants in produce may mop up free radicals and protect neurons from damage.
Food solutions: Berries and other fruits, greens and turmeric (which contains curcumin). Try these antioxidant-rich recipes.

The Best Brain Food for Pregnant Women:

Pregnant women who eat fatty fish, such as salmon, during their third trimester of pregnancy have babies who tend to perform better on cognitive tasks. Researchers think the omega-3 fatty acid DHA is needed during this time to build neurons and their connections.
Food solutions: Salmon and other fatty fish, DHA-fortified eggs and yogurt. Try these healthy salmon recipes.

Check out these brain-boosting recipes to incorporate all the foods above into your diet.  

Learning & Memory: Seeing Is Remembering

A study in the journal Neuron indicates that eye movements reveal unconscious memories, which the conscious mind cannot quite recollect. Researchers tracked eye movements and saw that their subjects’ gazes dwelled on the right answer even when they got the memory test wrong. Learn more.

Learning Technique: "Read It, Write It, Say It"

by Shannon McKenzie

Learning hasn't always been my strength, so it's ironic that I am the co-owner of an employee development and training company. When I was a kid in school I used to dread having to memorize dates in history, vocabulary lists and multiplication tables. My Mum has a great technique always seemed to work and now through rose colored glasses I see the wisdom of her ways.

"READ IT, WRITE IT, SAY IT." - I can still hear her drumming that into me! When I wasn't too lazy to try I would apply her technique almost always with great results. Of course what she was doing was engaging me cognitively (read it, say it) and physically (write it).

Now, take that same technique a step further and incorporate emotional engagement. I could have created a story using the vocabulary words, or created a mental picture or just had a dialogue about the content with my Mum, a friend or someone with whom I felt an emotional connection.

At IdeaLearning Group we take the Read it, Write it, Say it concept and create physically, emotionally and cognitively engaging employee learning experiences.

Looks like my Mum was onto something!

Brain-Based Learning: Of Mice and Memory

Brains learn and remember better if there's fun involved. This fact was reinforced for me recently while watching a Nova Science Now episode where mice were tasked to find an island within a pool of water. 

After finding it, some mice were taken to a getaway – a fun game and exercise filled mouse vacation; others were not. After two weeks away, guess which mice easily found their island again? Okay, we're talking about mice and not people, but the same principles apply – relaxation, fun, creativity, and exercise all enhance the brain’s ability to create memories and form positive associations. Fun and games are fun, but they also serve a purpose - even in the classroom, and even for those uptight participants who think it's a waste of time.

Brain Yoga: Get Fit to Learn

Grow smarter with this fascinating technique that takes just 2 minutes a day.

Before you dismiss this as just for kids, remember, a Yale neurobiologist is doing this every day.

According to research done by Carla Hanford,  PhD and discussed by Eric Jensen in his book Brain-Based Learning, "Since the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa, engaging the arms and legs in such a way forces the brain to 'talk to itself.' A brain which is fully engaged is far more efficient and effective"  and is "particularly effective for students who are sleepy, overwhelmed, frustrated, or experiencing a learning block."

How to do it:

• Remove any jewelry before proceeding.

• Take your left hand and hold your right earlobe with your left pointer finger and thumb. Your left thumb should be on the front of your earlobe. Make sure that the thumb nail is facing away from you.

• Take your right hand and hold your left earlobe with your pointer finger and thumb. Once again, make sure that your thumb nail is facing away from you.

• Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth as when saying LLLL.

• Inhale through your nose and slowly squat down to the ground. Stop gently; do not bounce.

• Exhale through your mouth as you stand back up to a standing position. Continue holding your earlobes and sticking your tongue to the roof of your mouth as you perform this exercise.

• Repeat a total of 15 times every day. You may not notice a change immediately, but after a few weeks an improvement in concentration should become apparent.

Learning Quotient: Measuring the Inquisitive Mind

by Shannon McKenzie

We live in an era and culture that's preoccupied with tracking personal metrics, or quantitative assessment. Attempting to attain self-knowledge through numbers is more popular than ever. But is it possible to discover our "learning quotient," or our ability to learn new things and adapt new skills and behaviors?

Attempting to measure cerebral matters is nothing new. After all, we've got ways to tally one's Intelligence Quotient (IQ), Motivational Quotient (MQ), Experience Quotient (XQ), and even Emotional Quotient (EQ). In their book Learning at Work, the authors suggest that these are the factors that seem to predict our "learnability":

• Education
• Age
• Family/social background
• Cognitive ability
• Personality (openness, conscientiousness)
• Self-esteem
• Motivation to learn

The authors suggest that a traditional mathematical equation isn't possible for assessing LQ, but it is possible to measure each of the above factors on a scale to determine a "pattern of learnability." For example, you can rate one's educational background on a scale that includes "highly successful" on one end and "very poor" on the other. Or in measuring social background, the extremes might be "encouraged to work and read" and "no encouragement at all."

Adrian Furnham continues examining the role of LQ at work in his book Management Intelligence. "People with higher LQ cope better with ambiguity and complexity: they experiment and handle new ideas deftly. They are characterized by curiosity and imagination." He goes on to suggest that organizations should put more emphasis on LQ early in their employees' tenure and make LQ resources available, so that employees can develop meaningful career paths.

Of course we're getting into tricky territory when we talk about making assessments based on age, family background, etc, especially in the workplace. But I do believe that willingness to learn and dedication are important factors to consider when developing a training program. The more we know about the audience's desire and readiness for learning the material, we can structure the materials accordingly so that they get the most out of the learning experience.

What do you think of "LQ," and how does your organization consider "learnability" when training staff?

Laugh to Learn

Research indicates that children smile or laugh 400 times per day while adults smile or laugh only 15 times per day. At IdeaLearning Group we know that laughter is an important component of learning; it reduces stress, is emotionally engaging and enhances creativity and cognitive thinking.

Want to laugh more?...I am a big fan of Laugh and Learn by Doni Tamblyn. Also try subscribing to a RSS feed of daily jokes:

http://www.funnycleanjokes.com

http://www.cleanjoke.com/humor/bestaverage.html 

Optimize Employee Development Environments

I recently spent a week observing a client’s existing formal training program. When I arrived I was horrified to discover the state of the room. While the adjacent corporate offices were clean, well-appointed and uncluttered, the room dedicated to learning was just the opposite. Here is what I observed:

• White walls complimented by coffee stains near the full garbage cans

• Industry relevant artwork that had been screwed into the wall, mostly askew

• Stacks of cardboard boxes, some full, some empty in stacks throughout the room

• A tangle of cords at the front of the room

• Dirty and bent mini blinds on the windows

And the list goes on. It wasn’t very pleasant. While it may seem obvious that this space is not particularly conducive to learning, most learning spaces could use an upgrade.

In his book Brain-Based Learning, author Eric Jensen tells us that “The brain simultaneously operates on many levels of consciousness, processing all at once a world of colors, movements, emotions, shapes, smells, sounds, tastes, feelings, and more” and “Between 80 and 90 percent of all information that is absorbed by our brain is visual.” Knowing this it just makes sense to create an environment that is appealing and stimulating to all the senses, but most particularly visually.

Employee Training and Development That Sticks

Research shows that while 95% of organizations measure the degree to which employee like the training, 63% fail to measure whether or not employees learned anything and a shocking 97% fail to measure whether the learning actually impacted job performance.

Sadly, much corporate education is like Father Guido Sarducci's Five Minute University – where participants only remember a tiny fraction of what was presented and are able to apply an even smaller piece, if any at all.

IdeaLearning Group’s Complete Learning Experience model works to ensure that your employee development and training programs result in participants that not only remember, but can actually use their new knowledge, skills and abilities to improve your business.

 

Father Guido Sarducci is a fictional character made famous by American comedian Don Novello. The character was featured in 1970s cartoons by underground cartoonists Dave Sheridan and Fred Schrier, appearing in person in the early 1970s on Laugh In and later in 1975 Smothers Brothers' TV show. His most prominent appearance was on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s.

Training Tip: Cognitive Reflection

Here is a training tip for you: Think about one of your earliest memories. Can you see it in your mind? What does it feel like? Now, why do you remember this particular experience and not almost everything else that has happened since then? Did this event have a strongly emotional component; was it something that happened with great frequency? 

Emotional impact and repetition are two techniques for transferring short-term memories to long-term memories. That is one of the ways IdeaLearning Group works to create custom and complete learning experiences that will positively impact your business.

Plant the Seeds of Adult Learning

Not just there to look pretty, plants can positively impact adult learning:

“Scientists at NASA have discovered that the use of plants creates a better learning and thinking environment for astronauts" (Wolverton 1996). And “Federal Clean Air Council studies found that plants raised indoor oxygen levels and increased productivity by 10 percent.”

Include plenty of live plants (not fake ones that are inevitably dusty) in your learning environment and see if learning grows. Argh ... bad pun!

Feed Your Brain: Best Foods for Employee Training Sessions

When planning your next employee training session, give a little extra thought to the food. Here's why:

"A new study finds obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals. Their brains look 16 years older than the brains of lean individuals, researchers said today.  Those classified as overweight have 4 percent less brain tissue and their brains appear to have aged prematurely by 8 years." livescience.com

Given this new evidence maybe it’s time to reconsider the food we bring into our employee training and learning environments. Instead of candy, soda, and the occasional over ripe banana, use the tips below to enhance adult learning:

• First things first – encourage participants to eat a healthy breakfast.  Ideally it should include protein like yogurt or egg.

• Provide water (lots of it) instead of soda, juice or coffee. What, no coffee!? Okay, okay, maybe you can’t actually get away with that one, but having lots of water available is critical – the brain is composed of nearly 80 percent water.

• Encourage frequent snacking: too much time in between eating can cause loss of concentration and decreased alertness.

• Choose snacks carefully; look for low-fat, high-protein, minimally processed snacks like these: nuts, fresh fruit, carrot sticks, pre-wrapped cheese, whole grain crackers, dried pineapple, apricots, raisins, banana chips, cranberries, blueberries, fruit leather, single serving yogurt cups, pretzels with peanut butter.