The Points Don't Matter

What you do after learning something new is much more important than what you do while learning it, according to Dr. Art Kohn, former faculty at Portland State University School of Business, and now president of AK Learning. In his article, Brain Science: Overcoming the Forgetting Curve in Learning Solutions Magazine, Dr. Kohn shares methods to overcome Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve. The Forgetting Curve shows the quick and sharp decline of how humans forget information. Active and purposeful recall proves crucial for information retention over time. Dr. Kohn suggests that forgetting is an adaptive process that is essential for human existence, especially in our current world of information overload. Our brains dispose of information that we don’t use. Therefore, using information is the most effective method for remembering it. In a fascinating way, Dr. Kohn’s research with students at Portland State shows that we don’t even need to use all of the information to remember the majority ...

Think about something you enjoy. It's likely that you're also good at it, and that you found it through some sort of play. This may have happened when you were young, or just this year. Play keeps our attention and fuels learning. Coders take on challenges in tournaments. Surgeons play video games for manual dexterity. Chefs create dishes with only a few ingredients. As Dr. Sam Wang and Dr. Sandra Aamodt describe in their book Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College (2011), play activates the brain’s reward circuitry, specifically norepinephrine, which can facilitate attention and action. They explain that "Norepinephrine improves brain plasticity, such that change becomes possible when this chemical is present in elevated amounts. The conditions of play—the generation of signals that enhance learning without an accompanying stress response—allow the brain to explore possibilities and to learn from them.” Have you thought about incorpor...