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Neuroscience-based eLearning Tips

By: Karla Gutirrez

Karla Gutirrez is the Head of Inbound

Marketing and Online Management at

Aura

Interactiva,

creators

of

SHIFT

eLearning. Shes focused on blogging

Connect with her in LinkedIn here.

and social media communications in the

eLearning industry.

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www.shiftelearning.com

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Table of Contents
About this eBook

Tip 1: Important stuff comes first

Tip 2: Encourage consistent practice

Tip 3: Introduce novelty

11

Tip 4: Create multi-sensory learning experiences

13

Tip 5: Favor recognition over recall

15

Tip 6: Break your content into bite-sized chunks

17

Tip 7: Help learners access previous knowledge

19

Tip 8: Try more contrast

21

Tip 9: Enhance the relevancy of learning

24

Tip 10: The spacing effect

26

Tip 11: Trigger the right emotion

29

Tip 12: Balance emotion and cognition

31
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About this eBook

The brain is our primary tool for learning. It's seat of thought, memory, consciousness

and emotion. So it only makes sense to match your eLearning design with how the
learners brain functions. By following this approach youll be able to create better
courses that work with the brain and not contradict it. Remember, you cannot argue
with your brain. It follows its own rules. You can force it to do things, say reading a
tedious book on a technical subject, but thats going to be a big challenge. For
optimal learning, what your learners need most is brain-friendly content.

The good news is, brain-friendly learning is no rocket science. Its made up of
building blocks that will help learners understand information deeply and retain it in
their long-term memory.

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This eBook will help you understand the essentials of how the adult brain learns. It
looks at key principles from neuroscience research paired with tips that will allow
course creators to achieve effective eLearning development.
Youll discover that when you design with the brain in mind youll are able to create
better learning experiences.

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Neuroscience-based
eLearning Tips

Tip 1

Important stuff comes first

Organization and sequencing of content is a key task in instructional planning. Why? Well,
because the sequence of the subjects students learn directly affects how they

process, store and recall information.

Readers ability to focus and retain information is lower in the middle. But their attention

and retention are highest in the beginning and end. People also tend to scan the first and
the last itemsinformation which are likely to stay in their short-term memory.

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In response to this, we highly

recommended using the funnel

Most important data

approach. A funnel is wide at the top,

narrow at the bottom. It's an apt
metaphor for an effective learning

Supporting details

approach, that is, from general to

specific. It helps students recall or

Related info

retrieve information more effectively by

logically presenting data in a less
intimidating and in a more friendly way.
The bottom-line: order content in such a way that the most important and general
concepts are shown first. Structure your screens placing important information at the top
(What's in for them?), then supporting it with the sentences that follow. John Medina,
author of the book Brain Rules, explains this clearly: You have to do the general idea
first. And then you will see a 40% increase in understanding.

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Tip 2

Encourage consistent practice

Cells that fire together, wire together. This phrase

explains the use-it-or-lose-it phenomenon. Or to put it
simply, if you want learners to retain new information,

they have to use it constantly or else theyll lose it.

When they stop practicing a new skill or a new
language, for instance, the brain will eventually prune
or eliminate certain pathways. Theyll eventually lose a

new skill unless they keep on practicing.

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To help students retain new information, let them understand that only practices makes
perfect. This means two things. One, that they need to practice constantly. And two,
that it has to be a perfect practice. Learners have to take practice seriously so that
they can build a stronger, more efficient and more hard-wired connections in the brain.

Recommended Read: Why

Actually Practices Makes Perfect
(A complete and very graphical
Explanation)

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Introduce novelty
Tip 3
every 10-15 minutes

The common assumption is that during any lecture or eLearning program, attention is
greatest in the first 10-15 minutes and then wanes as the learner becomes tired of
concentrating. Studies show, however, that attention is at its highest when the instructor
introduces something novel such as humor or a visual aid into the presentation, thus
breaking predicted behavior. This element of change, ideally involving some sort of

interactive feature, is essential in an eLearning environment.

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Introduce
novelty
attention to whats new or different. Thats because our brain is hardwired for it. It ignores
10-15
minutes
anything that'severy
predictable, repetitive,
old or just
plain boring

Experts in neuroscience strongly back this. They confirm that the brain pays more

Heres the tip: Introduce a novel element around every 10-15 minutes. Such novelty
works best if you appeal to all three learning modalities, namely auditory, visual, and

kinesthetic.
Employ this concept in eLearning design by:
Adding a fresh and clear example.
Presenting new data or shocking statistics.
Using games and simulations to learn a new concept rather than text.
Adding animation to explain a process instead of flow chart.
Providing space for online discussions and debates.

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Tip 4

Create a multi-sensory learning

experience

If you want to create a vivid and lasting memory, then make sure that memory is created
in a multi-faceted way. Many of us are visual learners but that doesnt mean that senses

other than our sight are less important. Its quite the opposite. Students learn best when
all their senses are engaged, when their imagination is most active. In fact, experts
confirm that presentation methods which use two or more senses are more
effective than using one sense only.

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Help learners create strong and lasting memories by making them imagine colors, hear

Support multi-sensory learning

sounds, and experience emotions. Describe a face or a place in detail instead of giving
them generalities.

Dont forget the hierarchy of how we learn best:

by reading (10%)
by hearing (20%)
by seeing (30%)
both by seeing and hearing (50%)
by discussing with others (70%)
by experiencing directly or personally (80%)
by teaching someone else (95%)

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Tip 5

Favor recognition over recall

There are two different types of memory: recognition and recall. Recall requires full
mental activity and is taxing on the memory, while recognition involves a much lower level

of conscious effort. Effective eLearning development is often achieved when designers

favor recall.

Humans aren't good at remembering things, so courses should be designed with this in
mind. Clarity, familiarity, and consistency should all be common goals as you design your
courses.

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There are certain design elements across an interface that should always stay the same.

Favor recognition over recall

This way, learners aren't spending more time trying to remember what an icon represents,

or how to navigate from one page or section of a course to another, than they do
engaging in learning the material.

Consistency can be achieved through a wide possible range of things such as:
Providing a menu in a prominent place
for easy access, guidance, and
navigation tips.
Providing visual cues and imagery to aid
memory.

Using headings, lists, and prompts to

assist the learner.
Using colors, positioning, size, shape,
labelling and language consistently.

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Break
your
content
into
Tip 6
Bite-sized chunks
Chunking is the term and the concept
to remember. A variety of research

could be summarized by saying that

short-term memory has a capacity of
about

"seven

plus-or-minus

two"

chunks. Just as trying to carry too many

things at one time can cause you to

drop something, requiring learners to
grasp too many concepts or attempt too
many tasks at one time can cause them
to "drop" that information.
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In short, the chunking technique makes learning more manageable and easier to integrate
into long-term memory. Once its in long-term memory learners can remember it and
transfer the knowledge to their daily tasks.

The takeaway is that you should pay attention to how much information the learner is
accessing at any one time. More specifically:

Keep your paragraphs short and your sentences simple (online readers tend to skip
large blocks of text.)
Organize content into a scannable and easily digestible form (use lists for example).
This discourages distraction and help readers make sense of your content quickly.
Stick to the 7+/- 2 rule in deciding the number of chunks per screen or module.

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Help learners access

Tip 7
previous knowledge
Learning is a process based on associations. Cognitive
scientists have shown that its all about connecting the

dots. Learners organize, store and retrieve content. And

they relate old data to new one.

Moreover, studies reveal that "creating associations

between concepts can increase our ability to remember
details by as much as 40%." All this explains why prior
knowledge is crucial to the learning process.

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As a course developer, you can help learners access their previous knowledge and use it
to draw new conclusions or patterns or combinations. Help them locate salient points, help
them understand information (not just consume it) and use it more flexibly. If learners can

connect new information to information they already have stored, then it will be easier for
content to stick.

The main takeaway for eLearning is this:

Move from the known to the unknown.

Always begin with what the learners already know. This means you first need to know
what your learner knows or doesn't know in order to shape your content.

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Tip 8

Try more contrast

Are there any elements here that are in contrast to things that came before? The human
brain asks this question on a regular basis. Its hardwired to look for contrast as if its

survival depends on it.

Also known as the isolation effect, the von Restorff effect explains how we remember
things that stand out. Humans, von Restorff tells us, pay more attention to things that are
noticeable unfamiliar, different or unusual. Something markedly odd, say a red-colored
word in a list of five items, will be more memorable.

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Let's say you're writing a shopping list of ten items. Nine items are written in blue and the
remaining one is written in red. If you're asked to memorize the list, which item do you
think you'll remember best? The red one definitely, that's no-brainer. That's contrast at
work.

In response to this, the psychologist-pediatrician von Restorff suggest to style elements in

the middle differently to make them memorable.

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Heres another tip: use contrast to organize elements on the screen. This will help you
pull the learners' eyes to the content and to enable learners to distinguish various types of
content. Start with color and size:
Use large fonts for headlines.
Use contrasting colors for headings to set them apart from black text.
Bold or italicize other content you want to stand out.
Use a different color for emphasis or content you wish to standout.

Other ideas:
Use images that stand apart from chunks of paragraphs or lines of texts. If images are
too common, try audio or video.
Challenge a traditional format and be creative. Something atypical yet wellimplemented works.
Also add spaces and shapes to contrast with blocks of text.

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Enhance the relevancy of

Tip 9
learning
The relevancy of a course should become obvious within the first five minutes by showing
learners that it will address their concerns. The reason for this is that relevance plays a

crucial role in cognition. When information is perceived as relevant, cognitive efforts

significantly decrease, leading to much higher cognitive effects. In contrast, when
facts and data have no relevance to a learners life, it makes it more difficult to form a
connection in the mind. Caine and Caine (1991) explained it clearly: "the greater the

extent to which what we learn is tied to personal, meaningful experiences, the greater and
deeper our learning will be.

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 It is not that people

remember meaningful
material better, the
forgetting function is
the same; rather,
people remember more
meaningful material
because they learn
more of it initially

-- Unkown

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Tip 10

The Spacing Effect

In 1885, psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus found that people forget a whopping 80% of
material they recently learned within 24 hours. This discovery led him to the so-called
"Forgetting Curve." Ebbinghaus' remarkable body of research on learning and forgetting,
which is still applicable today, showed us that:
It's much harder to retain meaningless information.
It's much easier to re-learn material than the first time.
Learners will experience great success by spreading out their study sessions over time,
not by engaging in one-night cram sessions.

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In contrast to crammed learning, spaced learning takes place over an

extended period of time. The latter is definitely superior to crammed
learning because the brain needs ample time to take in and fully
understand new facts before it can accept the next group of
information.
Space learning, without a doubt, helps learners retain new material
longer. At the core of it is the belief that real learning doesn't usually

happen in one-time eventsthat it takes place over time.

Here's how you can put it in practice:
Focus on Longer Spacings: The spacing effect doesn't merely advocate repetitions
of the same concept. It actually talks about spaced repetitions over time. And studies
have found that longer spacings are more effective in terms of long-term retention.

Longer means long enough to allow students to rest and absorb informationbut not
too long for them to forget their lessons completely.

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 Vary Your Repetitions: Contrary to what you may think, repetition doesn't need to be
tedious. You can review information through knowledge checks as a form of
repetition. Using the theory, going over the same information or set of ideas, at spaced
intervals, can help you create strong firing patterns in the brain and thus allow them to
be saved in the student's long-term memory.

This way, you don't have to adhere to the same type of learning activity. That will only
bore students. Repetitions can be presented through different learning media (text,
audio, video, images, charts, etc).

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Tip 11

Trigger the right emotion

Learning isnt merely cerebral. Its emotional, too. In fact, emotion is the brains secret

language. When you trigger an emotion, the brain decides, the body follows.
Researchers, have confirmed how emotions affect mental processes. They
even encourage instructional designers to include positive emotions as an important
learning factor.
Its simple, really. Students learn if they care. They pay attention if they feel
encouraged. They engage with others if they feel welcomed. Emotions, therefore, are
too entrenched in the learning processes that you cant ignore them and pretend
theyre not important. Basically, where emotion is involved, the effect upon learning is
drastically intensified.
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John Medina, in his book Brain Rules talks about the role of emotion on the human

brain: "Emotionally charged events persist much longer in our memories and are
recalled with greater accuracy than neutral memories.

So trigger the right emotion and use it to help students learn better and complete the
eLearning course. Heres how.
Typography: Typography, especially clean clear and simple fonts, projects certain
emotions such as consistency, trust and confidence. Besides typography, consider the
size and color of texts. These also affect the emotional and psychological response of
your learners.

Choose colors wisely: The right colors can help students improve their learning by as
much as 75 percent, and their participation by as much as 80 percent.
Use powerful images: You have to be careful in selecting the right image to fuel a
particular mood. Images, then, make people feel something about your content. They
can either discourage or motivate them, distract them or help them focus.

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Tip 12

Balance Emotion and Cognition

As the brain is both rational and emotional, it is important for course designers to
create

balance

between

the

two elements

for

effective

eLearning

development. Neurological studies have found that the limbic system, which is
central for processing emotional reactions, shuts down when emotions run too high.
In addition, a person whose rational center of emotional input is damaged, such as
through trauma or injury, will struggle to make rational decisions; therefore, too little
emotion also affects reasoning. These two examples demonstrate why a balance is
so important to enable the brain to function properly and therefore allow knowledge to
pass into long-term memory.

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References: Want to study brain-based learning even further? Check all our
sources here:
Novelty and testing: When the brain learns and why it forgets

Media characteristics and online learning technology

Winning the battle for students attention 10 minutes at a time
Why practice actually makes perfect: How to rewire your brain for better
performance
Does practice make perfect?
Reporting what students are learning: How emotions affect learning
Affective neuroscience of the emotional BrainMind: Evolutionary perspectives and
implications for understanding depression

The forgetting curve and its implications for training delivery

Memory Recall / Retrieval
The Funnel Writing Method
Emotions an their effect on adult learning: A constructivist perspective
Brain based learning
How can research on the brain inform education?
The science of learning: Best approaches for your brain
Science shows making lessons relevant really matters

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