Training Our Learning Muscles

Picture Credit: Jamie Bernhardt

I made this picture in Art Studio for iPad.

The summer 2012 Olympics ended this past Sunday. I am extremely proud to see that the US athletes not only performed well, but also took home 104 medals collectively as the world’s top performers in the Olympic Games. For a full list of the medals earned, see the London2012 medal count or the NBC Olympics medal count. 

As I discussed in my last post, results and competitive standing are not the only reasons we might have for watching the Olympics. We can watch the athletes to be inspired by their dedication, sacrifice, training, and their joyful efforts to develop towards skill building, capacity to complete tasks at new ranges of possibility, and high performance. Also, we can watch the Olympics to be inspired by its values, collaboration necessary to organize events, and capacity to bring people together for the creation of moments in front of the world that both share and explore the possibilities of harmony between performing well as an individual and performing peacefully. 

While watching some of the Olympic Games I thought a lot about learning in terms of performing the tasks necessary to achieve some result (e.g. arriving at an answer to a question, knowing that something in true, knowing how to do something, being able to recall all of the items on a to-do list without a memory aid, creating an instructional aid, or being able to pass a test).  I also thought a lot about the purpose of educators and education. The purpose of education obviously entails having someone perform tasks, and it could also prepare someone to be able to perform tasks.

Further, I think education—whether institutional, training-based, or as personal learning—can also sharpen one’s learning skills, enabling them to expand their ranges of possible learning tasks that they could perform. 

Let’s work with an analogy between Olympic athletes and a learner. These athletes train hard, yes, and often. They even take these trainings and care for their physique to levels that we ordinarily would not, but this is beside the point. Consider what their training involves, their performances, and how it benefits them. They perform physically (e.g. warm up, exercise, stretch, maybe even cool down, and strategically rest).  After these performances, they are eventually able to things they previously could not do. The human mind (or brain) is often likened to muscles by saying that if you don’t use it, you loose it, and if you work it, you’ll be able to perform at higher levels. Judging from my personal experience and from what little I know of educational psychology and cognitive science, I think this is true. 

A learner, like an athlete, can train one’s mind to enable it to perform at higher levels. The trick is to do activities that train or build skills, enabling you to perform tasks within a duration that you could not previously do in that duration. Heightened abilities enable you to perform at new ranges of possibility. Plus, for learning purposes, the mind (or brain) is not the only thing that can be trained towards benefiting learning processes. Broadly speaking, cognitive (e.g. conceptual), sensory, and bodily skills can be used within a learning process, which can require using skills of each type to perform what is essential to the learning objective. These abilities can be trained to become skills that benefit learning processes by expanding the range of possible learning tasks.  

No doubt, Olympic athletes also experience a “spill over effect”: the physical fitness they gain that enables them to perform at high levels of exercise also spills over into other areas of their lives. For example, physical training affords someone better flexibility, balance, and motor coordination, each of which contribute to physical posture, composure, and control over bodily movements in everyday life activities. Unlike the couch potato with stiff hamstrings, a well-trained athlete has few problems climbing or descending stairs when an elevator is broken. Like athletes, well-trained learners (can) experience spill over effects that enable them to enjoy benefits of their learning abilities in everyday life activities. 

Let's come back to the purposes and methods of education, which can aim to equip learners with abilities to perform varieties of mental tasks or to train and build skills that enable one to perform at new ranges of learning tasks. Delivery of information, whether textual or auditory, is vital to education. Instructors, trainers and instructional designers might also consider how their methods of delivery of information and learning-based assignments might better train learners' learning abilities. Using learning skills will help keep the brain active and ready for using those skills again, but I wonder about the ways in which a learning activity can be designed to satisfy three purposes of education--delivery of information, use of skills in ways that prepare learners to use those skills again, and use of abilities such that learners expand their learning skills, enabling them to perform in new ways or within new ranges of possibility--all in one activity. This is something that I look forward to exploring. You can expect me to blog about this topic in the future as I continue blogging about topics revolving around the human application of technology resources for enhancing learning experiences.