Open Views on Learning And E - Learning - Jean - Philippe lachaux, inserm

We have already seen a generation grow up with computers and video games. I get the impression that learning methods have had to adjust to that generation to some extent. What strikes me about this generation that has grown up in this environment is that it is so thirsty for information. This demand, more and more, is coming from people themselves. People are the ones generating demand. So they are necessarily more motivated, more focused on the information and integrate the information they receive with the information they already have. I think that's very positive. I think people learn well that way. How is new technology helping learning? What I find very interesting is that it is adapting more and more to the way our brain works. It is all about taking action, about choosing the right course of action in a given situation. With developments such as serious games, people are really immersed in situations and learn to instantly make the smart decision and choose the right course of action in that situation. I can think of an analogy: language. If you read a beautifully written award-winning book, you will notice that the words themselves are not very elaborate words. They are words you know and could use yourself. That is what great writers do: they always choose the right word in the right situation. In everyday life, for example, there are specific situations where we are expected to know what to do. It's the same thing. We may know how to do things because we have learnt to do them, but the problem is doing them at the right moment in that situation. Learning to do things automatically, out of touch with the situation, does not necessarily work very well. The interesting thing is precisely to learn to blend it into the right situation. Now we can create virtual environments where people are in specific situations and need to do the right thing. I think that's extremely interesting for learning. It is closer and closer to the way our brain likes to work and likes to learn. Before learning knowledge, we need to learn to focus, to stabilise our focus on something. More receptive people learn faster. There are several advantages to focusing and selecting the relevant information. The first one is that we learn better. We are conducting a survey that shows that even in very short 2-minute period our focus falters several times. Our concentration is never completely constant during those 2 minutes. We skip lots of things. The interesting thing is to work out how to focus at the right time, learn to breathe, take breaks, and relax when we have to. That means working in short sprints. Joggers talk about 'splitting' rather than jogging half-heartedly all day long. There are ways to boost efficiency in that area. Focus endurance, how long out attention span lasts, depends a lot on what we are doing. We can see this with kids who can spend 2 hours playing a fun video game or even 2 hours in the cinema. They have no problem paying attention there. But sit them in a classroom for 10 minutes and they can't stand it. It really depends on what you are doing. Some factors hinge on how interesting tasks are. But we have little control over that so we can forget about that for now. The interesting thing is to work on the other side: how individuals can adjust to stay focused when they have to, even when the task itself is not necessarily interesting. We also need to deliver the information when people need it in the situation they need it for. We also know that they will integrate it best when that happens. Because that is when focus peaks. That is when they will find the most connections with all the other information they already have in their minds. As focus is peaking, they will necessarily remember more. The knowledge will be easier to remember. I think that's a good thing, in a way. Then, of course, we need discipline. We need self-discipline if we don't want to drown in that constant flow of information. That is something we also need to learn. I often talk to people at the Education Ministry. They are always struggling to answer this question: do we adapt content to learners or adapt learners to content? If you teach that way, on demand, you will have a problem when you have a big class with very different demands. So how can teachers adapt to all that? Maybe by transfering some of that knowledge into the electronic realm (the Internet, for example), where learners will seek the information when they need it, at their own pace, not at someone else's. We need to keep lectures, which teachers deliver, and are the same for everyone. But the people at the Education Ministry have a point: Is it right to adapt, and how far? We are talking a lot about distress at work, multitasking, and constant conflicting demands. That causes mental confusion and hampers efficiency. Here again, if we look at research into cognitive neuroscience, we can see there are ways to put people at ease, to focus on what they are doing, at that point in time, instead of trying to do everything at once. Greater comfort, greater flexibility to switch from one thing to another, meaning greater efficiency and simply enjoying work. In a company, you will see people who work better, are more efficient, and finish jobs sooner because they can work faster, who are more rested, and have fewer conflicts to deal with between the things they need to do at the same time. So, basically, more efficient companies where people feel better: And that's important.