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Accelerated Learning – 
Fact or Fiction?

 		 Is there such a thing as Accelerated Learning?  It’s a great concept for us facilitators and an ‘umbrella’ term we hear all the time these days.  But what exactly is it and is there really any proof it really does work to ‘accelerate learning’?

Accelerated Learning is several things.  Its:

  • A philosophy of learning

  • A wide variety of learning techniques

  • A system for creating optimal learning environments

It’s aim is to make learning (and learning design) fun, fast and effective.  It also claims to increase retention, reduce training time and reduce training costs.  Big claims!

Broadly, the main principles of Accelerated Learning include:

  • A positive learning environment – including the use of Baroque music

  • Total learner involvement

  • Variety that appeals to all learning styles

  • Collaboration between learners

  • Learning in context

The learning revolution (as it was/is termed) made its debut in the 1970’s following the work of Georgi Lozanov1, a Bulgarian psychiatrist.  His work won world-wide attention when Lynn Schroeder and Shiela Ostrander published their book Superlearning2 in the 70’s.

Since then there have been many exponents of the concept of Accelerated Learning, some with a real passion for learning (probably one of the leading exponents of applying accelerated learning techniques is Dave Meier3 from the Centre of Accelerated Learning in the USA), and some that think by playing music, using non-relevant energisers and adding a bit of colour is all you need to do to improve information transfer.

Unfortunately, because of bad exponents of the Accelerated Learning principles, Accelerated Learning gets very bad press in the corporate environment and is dismissed as a waste of time.

The armed forces in the USA (always looking for competitive edge) carried out extensive research over a 2 year period in the early 80’s to see how valid the Accelerated Model was.  Their findings revealed that the claims made of improved achievement when applying Accelerated Learning Techniques did not stand up to scrutiny.  Their results were published in ‘Enhancing Human Performance 19884 

  • Of eleven elements identified, only two were non-traditional and both were found to be ineffective: relaxation (too much of it causes lack of focus) and review with music (it interferes with attention).

  • No basis was found for the high claims

  • Good Accelerated Learning is basically no different from good teaching generally

  • Claims of 5-50 times’ improvements were based on poor research designs

  • The 2 best studies (Bush, 1986 ; wagner and Tilney, 1983) found that Suggestopedia and Superlearning produced 40-59% lower results than with traditional methods.

  • The other nine elements of Accelerated learning were all deemed to be traditional characteristics of effective teaching already in mainstream use: advance organisers, dramatic presentations, spacing, practice, mnemonic aides, student generated elaborations, tests, imagery and co-operation in groups.

My concluding thoughts

I am happy to embrace the principles of excellent facilitation and if some facilitators want to put these principles under the named umbrella of Accelerated Learning that’s fine.  It seems that by applying these principles may improve learning.  However, the claims of ‘faster and cheaper´ remain in the realms of wishful thinking and floored evaluation.

1 Lozanov, Georgi.  Suggestology and Outlines of Suggestopedy.  New Your:  Gorden & Breach 1978

2 Super-learning 2000 by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder with Nancy Ostrander ISBN 0-440-22388-1

3 Dave Meier – The Centre for Accelerated Learning

4 Druckman, D and Swets, JA 1988.  Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Thories and Techniques.  Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

 

Is ‘Touchy Feely’ in the training room just fluff?
Or is it a valuable way of enhancing cognition?

 

 

In other words, is understanding and memory recall improved when learners’ feel/play with related and relevant objects during a workshop?

Within the corporate world, until very recently and still in many types of organisation, it is regarded as only for children to touch and feel objects.  To do this is within the corporate environment is seen to be childish and a waste of valuable time.  But what does current scientific research suggest to us?

Pomeroy-Huff (2000)1 believes there is real value including touch into any workshop.  He found in a study of third and fourth graders in the USA, that touching objects in a history museum during a field trip contributed significantly to students’ learning and recall of the facts relating to the exhibit one week later.  Furthermore, those students who touched and handled the museum objects in close proximity to the actual exhibit in the museum scored higher on knowledge recall tests than those who handled the same objects in an empty conference room adjacent to the exhibit.

This seems to support what many us facilitators have felt to be true for many years (but found it difficult to prove to those paying for corporate ‘lecture’ training), that touch is important in the corporate training room – even better if we can take learners out of the training room and conduct training in a ‘real life’ environment with real ‘hands on’ experiences.  These findings support the learning value of relevance and meaningful context (2 core, brain friendly philosophies).

Additional background

Animal studies conducted by Peinado-Manzano (1990)2 found visual-tactile tasks influenced several parts of the brain.  The amygdala (regulator of emotional memories) and the hippocampus (responsible for the formation of memories).  We know that when an emotions is attached to new information then the learning is likely to be longer lasting.

What does this mean in the corporate learning environment?

  • Consider and utilise more ‘hands on’ touch elements into your training – better still take the learning into the real workplace.

  • Combine kinaesthetic activities and experiments with supplemental reading, presentation and discussion.

  • Build in ‘field trips’ into the workplace.

  • Share this research with learners prior to their workshop to prove the value in ‘touchy feely’ learning and share this with managers how ROI can be increased by incorporating these idea’s into everyday training.

1 Pomeroy-Huff, Marsha. 2000.  The role of physical context in elementary school children’s learning from touchable objects in a history museum.  Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: Humanities & Social Sciences.

2 Peinado-Manzano, Maria 1990.  The role of the amygdala and the hippocampus in working memory for spatial and non-spatial information.  Behavioural Brain Research.  38(2): 117-34

Why not increase your facilitation skills and improve learner retention and transfer by implementing the research findings from the world of neuroscience into all your workshops?

 
4 Myths about Adult Learning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Why should adult learning be any different from that of a child?  Ok so we don’t really want to run around and do the ‘rough and tumble’ of children and we would want the depth of content to be greater and a more specifically focused to the task in hand.  But otherwise, why should we go against everything we see as effective learning and offer ‘Death by PowerPoint’ to our corporate learners? (and we know that this leads to very poor retention – don’t we?)

So here are a few myths we may consider avoiding: 
Myth 1
If we tell our learners they will understand, remember and implement it, especially if we ask them to listen carefully.

I would like to dispel this myth with the an old Chinese proverb that still holds very true today

“What I hear, I forget;

What I see, I may remember;

But what I do, I understand”

Confucus 451 BC

In other words – If you want me to hear it tell me, but if you want me to understand and use it I need to get involved.

Myth 2
A quiet training room is a room where lots of serious learning is taking place.

To ensure as many pathways to new learning in the brain, it is essential that the learning utilises a multi-modality approach.  In other words, for good learning we need to map it verbally (we need to talk about it), we need to map it visually (see it), we need to map it kinaesthetically (touch and feel it) and we need to think about how it will help us in our everyday work.  This obviously does not happen in a sterile learning environment where learners always stay seated and never discuss the implications of new learning.

As Bob Pike from Creative Training Techniques says
‘Learning is proportional to the amount of fun you are having’

Myth 3
The person doing the most listening is doing the most learning.

In fact, as above, the person doing the most talking is probably doing the most learning.  We only remember around 10-20% of what we hear, but around 80% of what we say!  For effective learning it is necessary to constantly encourage learners to discuss (in small groups) what the new information means to them and how they might include this to improve their own performance.

Myth 4
Only the experts should talk and offer suggestions.

Learners arrive at our training events with a vast amount of prior knowledge and a huge background of experiences.  A good facilitator will tap into these as immediately and get learners sharing these experiences and drawing relevant conclusions for the topic in hand.

If I can leave you with a quote from Sharon Bowman – Author, Trainer and Keynote speaker
‘Don’t be the sage on the stage, be the guide on the side’