Christian Jarrett: Myths and Facts About the Brain and Learning (Video)

Submitted by Judy Hanning on Sat, 2016-10-01 18:31

The media is full of stories about the brain and ways to boost concentration, and how to become a better leader and more educated. Speaking at the 2015 Learning Technologies Exhibition and Conference, Christian Jarrett discusses the common myths we have about the brain. He also discusses concrete ways to improve learning. He tries to remove some of the mystery from the three pounds of matter in our heads and help us understand how we think.

I think President Obama had it right when he introduced the so-called Brain Initiative in the States, he pointed out that: "Today we're able to identify galaxies light years away, we can study particles smaller than an atom but the three pounds of matter inside our head remains largely mysterious."

Key Takeaways:

1
According to the speaker, common myths about brain and learning are: right-brained people are more creative and left-brained people are more analytical, we only use 10% of our brain capacity, and women have more balance in their brain activity than men.
2
Other brain and learning myths: people learn better when they are taught by their preferred learning style and performing physical coordination exercises can help integrate the function across brain hemispheres.
3
The most powerful learning is incidental learning. This is when you are using the skill or knowledge in the course of activities.
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