Ger's Learning notes #26 - Learning Techniques

“Never play when you practice and never practice when you play”
- Thomas Lang

Ger DriesenNovember 29, 2018Learning Notes

Ger’s Learning notes #26
Learning Techniques

‘Never play when you practice and never practice when you play’. These are the words of a man who likes to hit things (and is very good at it!). No, he’s not a philosopher, nor a scientist, nor a boxer. He’s a drummer: the top drummer, Thomas Lang, who started his professional career with the Austrian band Falco.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to meet him in Switzerland. I accompanied my son who joined a masterclass ‘The Big Drum Bonanza’ by Mr. Lang. When you see him playing drums in an uber-human way, you want to know: how did he learn this?

Just like he said: ‘never play when you practice and never practice when you play’. Practice is hard; it’s about trying to achieve something you haven’t mastered yet. That’s a frustrating process and for a bit of relief, we tend to stop practicing for a few minutes of play: applying something we have already mastered because that is satisfying. Don’t. Stick with your practice until you reach your goal. That’s what is called ‘deliberate practice’. It’s one of the learning techniques of this edition of the learning notes.
But there’s also ‘reinforcement’ (teaching pigeons how to play ping pong!), ‘chunking’ and ‘pruning’ as interesting learning techniques that you can apply to design great learning.

Now, it’s your turn to apply all these techniques to design great learning journeys!

(1) The Beginner’s Guide to Deliberate Practice

by Jamer Clear

What’s it about?

Well, that is as straightforward as this title: The Beginner’s Guide to Deliberate Practice!

Why read it?

Clear explains the concept of deliberate practice very clearly via some very nice examples from the fields of sports, politics, cooking and martial arts.
Learn the difference between deliberate practice and habits, the role of feedback and why they matter for learning
Dive deeper via the 12 links to additional resources integrated in this article.

Where to find it?

The Beginner’s Guide to Deliberate Practice

(2) Pruning: Your Brain Has A “Delete” Button–Here’s How To Use It

by Fast Company

What’s it about?

In general, the central idea of learning is that the number of connections in our brain increases. But getting rid of (pruning) uneffective connections is also important.

Why read it?

The article starts with a very clear explanation of how brain connections (learning) happens and how we can support that.
Via the great ‘garden metaphor’, the concept of ‘synaptic pruning’ will be explained–getting rid of uneffective neural pathways. Watch the video!
It all ends with three tips on how to make use of these processes in the best way. I like the first one most: sleep!

Where to find it?

Your Brain Has A “Delete” Button–Here’s How To Use It

(3) What Research Tells Us About Chunking Content

by Patti Shank

What’s it about?

The way learning designers structure content for learners can be of big influence on learning effectivity. Good chunking pays off.

Why read it?

The article shows some very clear and practical insights on how chunking works and the elements that are important.
Find great and easy-to-use ‘how-to’ tips for good chunking.
Because you, as a true pro, want to read all the great evidence-informed materials that Patti Shank writes

Where to find it?

What Research Tells Us About Chunking Content

(4) Pigeons Playing Ping Pong

by B.F. Skinner

What’s it about?

You might have heard of the concept of ‘reinforcement’ as a learning strategy, which can be used to learn pigeons play ping pong!

Why read it?

It’s a classic learning theory of reinforcement by B.F. Skinner
You might have heard of the possibility of learning pigeons how to play ping pong, but have you ever seen it?
B.F. Skinner himself explains what is happening in the video.

Where to find it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGazyH6fQQ4

About the author

Ger Driesen

Loves to connect people, ideas and inspiration in the global learning community.

On the wish-list to learn: Forging (yes, as forging steel)

Are you hooked on learning?
Get my irregular dose of learning inspiration.

I bundle the best reads and share my summary.

Forms and chat

We use Hubspot to safely collect, save and use your personal data and contact preferences; an example of this is our online chat or forms that you complete in our site.

View details

Have questions or comments?

Feel free to drop me an email or tweet (@GerDriesen).

Check out more content like this

Back to blog overview »

Receive our fresh insights and inspiration
within the world of learning in your mailbox

Forms and chat

We use Hubspot to safely collect, save and use your personal data and contact preferences; an example of this is our online chat or forms that you complete in our site.

View details

Well, you wanted to sign up or get in touch, but it doesn’t seem to work (yet). Maybe a bit annoying, but we want to do this the right way; by getting your permission. Click here to see which cookie-setting you need to accept to fix this.

About us

The learning platform

Learning methods

You know the drill…

We all love to hate or hate to love cookies, the yummy, edible ones and the internetty, online ones. We also use them (the latter) to make our website prettier, faster and better tailored to you. Click ‘Accept all’ if you’re alright with that or make a well informed choice by checking out and adjusting all the specifics under ‘Cookie options’. Mmm, cookie options...

You can find more information on this in our Privacy Statement. | Close

Cookie options

Take a moment...

Your privacy is very important to A New Spring BV. Find below the mandatory and optional approvals you can give us to allow us to process your personal data.

You can find more information on this in our Privacy Statement.

If you wish to withdraw these approvals, please click on ‘forget my approvals’ at the bottom of this page.

Forms and chat

We use Hubspot to safely collect, save and use your personal data and contact preferences; an example of this is our online chat or forms that you complete in our site.

View details

Watch YouTube

Videos on this website are provided from the YouTube or Vimeo streaming video service. YouTube may show you personalised adverts preceding the actual video you want to watch. This consent is optional, but required if you wish to view videos directly on this website.You may wonder, why can I watch vimeo without this consent? Vimeo has an anonymous function which allows us to display the videos without cookies.

View details

Personalised advertising

You probably use Facebook or LinkedIn and also, you probably use Google from time to time to search for stuff. Then, you’ll know that they have advertisements on there. To make those less annoying (i.e. more personalised), we use a number of services on our website.

View details

Website statistics

Feedback is valuable. When it comes to how well our website works for you, feedback is formed by numbers and statistics. That’s why we use Google Analytics and Hotjar to learn how visitors move, click and act on our website. To make it less scary, we anonymise this data before we save it by masking the last few numbers of your IP-address. And we do not allow Google or other parties to use this information for any other purposes.

View details

Functional technologies

You want a pretty and quick website, right? Our (WordPress) website uses a cookie during your visit to our website to check if your browser supports cookies. We kind of need those cookies, because it makes your visit much nicer by remembering personal preferences, quicker performance and loading the correct fonts from Google to properly represent our branding (which we hope you think is pretty, too).

View details

Forget my settings Removed!

“Never play when you practice and never practice when you play”
- Thomas Lang

Ger’s Learning notes #26
Learning Techniques

(1) The Beginner’s Guide to Deliberate Practice

(2) Pruning: Your Brain Has A “Delete” Button–Here’s How To Use It

(3) What Research Tells Us About Chunking Content

(4) Pigeons Playing Ping Pong

Ger Driesen

Are you hooked on learning?
Get my irregular dose of learning inspiration.

Check out more content like this

Improve learning design with Jobs-to-be-Done: Three reasons why

Ger’s Learning Notes #54: Content curation

Ger’s Learning Notes #53: Learning Podcasts

About us

The learning platform

Learning methods

“Never play when you practice and never practice when you play” - Thomas Lang

Ger’s Learning notes #26 Learning Techniques

(1) The Beginner’s Guide to Deliberate Practice

(2) Pruning: Your Brain Has A “Delete” Button–Here’s How To Use It

(3) What Research Tells Us About Chunking Content

(4) Pigeons Playing Ping Pong

Are you hooked on learning? Get my irregular dose of learning inspiration.

Check out more content like this

You know the drill…

Take a moment...

“Never play when you practice and never practice when you play”
- Thomas Lang

Ger’s Learning notes #26
Learning Techniques

Are you hooked on learning?
Get my irregular dose of learning inspiration.