Eradicating the Learning Styles Myth

Introduction Ancient peoples invented colorful stories about powerful gods expressing themselves through the physical world. They were trying to make sense of their world, using the only tools available at the time. Similarly over the years, educators have developed...

The Salesperson Effect

I’ve written before on this blog about the role of the human brain to ensure survival. Man is a social animal, so a good part of our survival programming is focused on getting along well with other humans. In studies watching people think about future interactions...

Extended Adolescence—and What it Means

Lately I’ve been catching myself saying things that make me sound like an old woman: “She looks way too young to be tending bar.” “He’s so immature. Were we like that at his age?” “When are these kids going to grow up and leave the house?” I recently was heartened to...

All Learning Is Emotional

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” ― Benjamin Franklin In the area of adult learning, Ben Franklin turns out to be quite prescient. If you think that emotions have no place in training or should be relegated to “soft” skills,...

The Growth Mindset Starts in the Brain

I sometimes like to think of the training profession as going through an evolution similar to the path taken by the medical science more than 300 years ago. Before we knew about microbes and viruses, we knew that certain diseases affected the human body. Through trial...