Brainy Resources

As instructional learning professionals, it is imperative that our industry utilize and reference the knowledge that has been gained regarding cognitive neuroscience, the brain, and information processing. In the past decade, advancements in research to understand our brain and how it contributes to learning play a vital role in how we, as learning professionals, can effectively and efficiently do our jobs and advance our field. Knowing how and why individuals learn, or don't learn for that matter, will allow us to create training initiatives that "enhance and embrace these differences in learning to gain more competitive advantage for individuals and for the organization" (van Dam, 2013). This week, I found two resources that I find extremely information on the topics of learning, "neurolearning", and information processing.

The article quoted above by Nick van Dam, entitled Inside the Learning Brain, is an excellent resource for instructional learning professionals seeking to utilize information about "neurolearning" with the corporate learning environment. As most of us do work in a corporate setting, his article and the resources he provides are an excellent jumping off point for someone looking for direction and suggestions on how to use the research and apply it to a more effective corporate training scheme.

In the article, Nick discusses tips and tricks to help enable learners to better utilize and form memories, focus attention, and support individual learning. He using research based evidence to support his ideas and provides additional readings that can be used to further implement and solidify how understanding "neurolearning" will make for a more productive organization.

The second resource I found particularly helpful, especially as a newbie to the world of IDT, was an article on the elearningindustry.com website called Instructional Design Models and Theories: Information Processing Theory. This article is great for the new learner hoping to gain a fundamental understanding of information processing theory. Although I have a big fancy text book that thoroughly explains it to me in very collegiate terms, this article provides very simple text with very useful information; not to mention a very convenient slide show that can be embedded into your own blogs and presentations about information processing. I also found the authors additional resources quite useful as I continue to explore different learning theories. 

I hope you'll find these resources as useful as I have and look forward to hearing what you think! 

Resources:
Pappas, Christopher. (2014). Instructional design models and theories: Information processing theory. Retrieved from http://elearningindustry.com/information-processing-theory 

van Dam, Nick. (2013). Inside the learning brain. Retrieved from https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2013/04/Inside-the-Learning-Brain