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ACCELERATED LEARNING |
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WHY DO WE USE IT? |
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Do you ever ask yourself.....
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Why can’t education recapture something of the exploratory excitement of
the young child when the young child is seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and
quite often tasting, the great uncharted world in which she finds herself—the
critical time when she is trying to make sense of it all?
The good news is it can...........In our view the conditions for effective
learning include a childlike (notice childlike not childish), supportive and
playful environment.
One reason children learn so well is that they haven’t developed
preconceptions of how they are supposed to learn. Also, they have not developed
the notion that play and work are mutually exclusive activities. Play is an
important part of the learning experience. When we enjoy learning, we learn
better.
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How do Really Creative Training make learning successful and enjoyable? |
- Creating a low-stress environment—one where it is safe to make mistakes,
yet expectation of success is high.
- Ensuring the subject is relevant—you want to learn when you see the point
of it.
- Ensuring the learning is emotionally positive—it generally is when you work
with others, when there is humour and encouragement, regular breaks and
enthusiastic support.
- By consciously involving all the senses as well as left-brain and right-brain
thinking.
- By challenging your brain to think through and explore what is being learned
with as many intelligences as relevant in order to make personal sense of it.
- And by consolidating what is learned—by revising in quiet periods of
relaxed alertness.
All of the above are included in our Accelerated Learning program. But no
matter how much fun or how stimulating the learning process becomes, it’s also
vital to work to a cohesive, step-by-step plan.
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The ‘structure’ of our Accelerated Learning method falls into six basic
steps. They can easily be remembered through the use of the acronym
M•A•S•T•E•R — a
mnemonic created by noted Accelerated Learning trainer, Jayne Nicholl, author of
Open Sesame.
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MIND
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You need to be in a "resourceful" state of mind. That means being
relaxed, confident and motivated. If you are feeling stressed or lack belief in
yourself or cannot see the point of what you are learning, you won’t learn
well.
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Having the right attitude towards learning anything is an absolute prerequisite. You must want to acquire the new knowledge or skill. You must have the inner confidence that you are fully capable of learning—and that the information you acquire is going to have a meaningful impact on your life. In other words: you need to see the personal benefit from your investment in time and energy. It’s what we describe as your WIIFM—"What’s In It For Me." The three most
important factors in learning are motivation, motivation, and motivation.
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ACQUIRING THE INFORMATION |
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You need to acquire and absorb the basic facts of the subject in the way best
suited to your sensory learning preferences. Although there are learning strategies everyone should implement, there are
also key differences in the extent to which we individually need to see, hear or
get physically involved in the learning process.
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By identifying your Visual,
Auditory and Kinesthetic strengths you will be able to bring various strategies
into play to make the acquisition of information easier than ever before.
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SEARCHING OUT THE MEANING
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To commit information to permanent memory requires that you search out
the
implications and significance—the full meaning—by thoroughly exploring the
subject material. There’s a big difference between knowing about something and
truly understanding it. Turning mere facts into personal meaning is the central
element in learning.
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All too often we attempt to memorize information so it can be regurgitated to
pass a test without any real attempt to understand what it really means. Facts
don’t require much interpretation.
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That’s why multiple choice testing is such a weak method. It only tests the
acquisition of facts (i.e.: what we cover in Stage Two of our Learning Model.)
But it doesn’t test whether you’ve created your own personal meaning from
those facts.
You don’t, for instance, have to understand that Paris is the capital of
France—you just have to remember it. It’s a comparatively low level of
learning performance.
No-one will pay you very much for having ‘mastered’ this type of skill.
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In the same way, knowing that the date of the French Revolution is 1789 is
factual. But understanding why the French Revolution was important and how it
influenced European and American history requires interpretation.
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It requires
you to respond to a jungle of information and make sense of it. That’s a skill
for which the world pays handsomely.
The distinction between fact finding and ‘meaning making’ is what
distinguishes shallow from deep learning.
Turning facts into meaning is where your eight intelligences come into play.
Each is a resource upon which you can draw as you explore and interpret the
facts of the subject
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TRIGGERING THE MEMORY
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Very often there is a large amount to remember in a subject. You now need to
make sure that the subject matter is locked into your long-term memory. |
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Conscientiously apply all of the previous steps and you will have truly
learned the subject because you understand it. But you also have to be sure to
"lock it down" so that you can recall it on demand.
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There are numerous memory techniques - the kind of
strategies used most effectively by the professional ‘memory men’ who astound
audiences around the world on TV and stage. They include the use of
association, categorization, story-telling, acronyms, flash cards, learning
maps, music and review. |
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EXHIBITING WHAT WE KNOW
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How do you know you’ve really understood what you’ve learned? First of
all, you can test yourself—prove to yourself that you fully know the subject,
that you have a deep not surface knowledge.
Better still, try sharing the information with a learning partner. Rehearse a
presentation in your mind, or on paper, and then try teaching it. It’s easy to
think you’ve understood something, only to find you can’t explain it to someone
else.
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If you can ‘teach’ it, you’re really showing that you fully comprehend it.
You don’t just know it—you ‘own’ it. Using these five steps should become a matter of habit. But to make that
happen you need to practice them over and over again. You need to actively seek
situations in which you can implement them and test yourself. |
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REVIEWING HOW WE HAVE LEARNED
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You need to reflect on the learning experience. Not upon what you learned,
but how you learned it. What lessons can you draw for the next time?
In this step you are examining the process of your own learning and reaching
conclusions on what techniques and ideas work best for you. Gradually, you
evolve an approach to learning that’s custom-made for your own unique brain.
And you’re in control —you’ve become a self-managed learner.
The final step in your learning plan is to stop and reflect and ask yourself:
- How is the learning task going
- How could it have gone better
- What’s the significance of this for me
This is, in reality, the final step of a "learning loop." Reviewing
the learning experience can help you convert any stumbling block into a stepping
stone. You’ll be able to drop ideas that don’t work and experiment with new
ones. You can begin the next learning undertaking with the benefit of your
self-analysis.
As a result you will have discovered the customized method of learning which
works best for the unique individual that is you. Think of your true potential
like a combination lock. Once you’ve learned your personal combination of
intelligences and learning preferences your learning potential truly springs
open.
Most people do not use more than a tiny fraction of their brain’s capacity,
not because the capacity is not there, but simply because they have not been
taught how to use what they already have.
Carole
Hewer-Irving
Managing Director, Really Creative Training
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