Learning science tells us that building new skill sets requires certain specific activities to facilitate the learning. While we’re wired to learn some things almost effortlessly, others require considerable practice, including many important business skills. To accelerate the outcomes, it turns out that a core element is revisiting information over a period of time, which we call ‘lifts’. So, practicing what we preach, this is the first in a series of lifts about learning!

A familiar undertaking is behavior change. Nudges are the typical mechanism to shape new behaviors, focusing on changing the response to triggers. However, sustained skill shifts require a more sustained effort, in design and across time. If you’re looking to instill a new capability, you need a different approach.

Learning in the brain is, at core, the strengthening of the connections between patterns of activation across multitudes of neurons. Whether it’s motor patterns as in sports, or typical knowledge work, we activate patterns together, and the links between them strengthen, much like exercise builds strength over time. These links, however, can fade in effectiveness. With only one exposure, information can fade in hours! To make learning lead to a persistent change, we need to do more.

When we’re in a situation, our working memory is a particular pattern of activation that both represents that situation and awakens related knowledge. That related knowledge are patterns that have been learned in long-term memory. Our choices of action, our decisions to apply a skill, are chosen from what’s active in working memory. Thus, to develop a skill is to create meaningful patterns that are activated in appropriate circumstances. We link patterns to create appropriate reactions by learning.

To strengthen the connection between patterns in the brain – learning – we need to activate these patterns together. Only so much strengthening can happen at one time, however, and then we need to try again. It’s like drip irrigation versus flooding; the former is more effective! However, the strengthening function itself fatigues, and needs a rest before more strengthening can occur. This means that sleep and reactivation over time is needed to lead to learning that persists.

To get information into long term memory, we activate new information in conjunction with related, known information. This elaboration increases the likelihood of activation of the new information when triggered by the known information. Such connections can be with previous concepts or personal experience. Repeated activation to connect information to different, yet relevant, existing knowledge strengthens the pattern in long term memory.

To get information back out of long term memory, we need to reactivate it. This retrieval of knowledge works best when it’s done in settings like those the information will be used in, and actively applied as skills in the ways it will be needed. Repeated practice in retrieval, across different settings and different applications, increases the likelihood that it will be there when needed.

Newly established memory connections can fade rapidly without reactivation, and only so much strengthening can occur at any one time before the strengthening function needs rest. As a consequence, reactivating the connections needs to happen in a relatively short period of time. Initially, 1-2 days is the most time that can pass before reactivation is needed if a sustained skill shift is needed. That time can and should lengthen as the connections get stronger, but regular reactivation until the skills are sufficiently developed is key.

To facilitate our ability to apply knowledge, it helps to provide guidance about how the world works in this particular area of skill. To do so, conceptual causal explanations provide a basis to understand the consequences of different courses of action. These mental models provide a frame of reference for guiding choices. Initial ones are liable to be simple, and more complex ones can be introduced over time. They can guide our understanding of actions at appropriate points (such as “swing through the ball”) or create explanations of consequences to guide decisions (“if I apply pressure here, it will affect that over there”).

What goes here? From vid prose: best practices for creating a solid Foundation for Learning. In other words, A Basis to Begin. From watching vid - Reason for learning, needs strong foundation. Be intentional in how you’re designing, and how you begin. Reason, model, examples, array of them, offering ample practice. Through lens of context of their role. New solid foundation for learning - ok, about the event!

What goes here? From vid prose: best practices for creating a solid Foundation for Learning. In other words, A Basis to Begin. From watching vid - Reason for learning, needs strong foundation. Be intentional in how you’re designing, and how you begin. Reason, model, examples, array of them, offering ample practice. Through lens of context of their role. New solid foundation for learning - ok, about the event!

In many, if not most, cases, there are nuances that will help to elaborate an initial understanding. There may also be different ways to think about a skill, such as bringing in a metaphor of muscle building to illustrate the need for repeated practice. Presenting new models over time is one way to prompt the reactivating of relevant knowledge to strengthen the connections and develop learning. Such new models can expand upon the original to extend understanding, and create new patterns that can get triggered, supporting richer ways to recognize and respond to situations.

In addition to new concepts, new and different examples are another form of prompt for reactivating and strengthening connections to advance learning. As learners develop, they’re ready for new examples that support extending our understanding of nuances in situations and ways to respond, and develop new facets and areas of a skill. Thus, continuing to expand breadth and depth of examples are a valuable way to extend learning and lead to more effective outcomes.