Why Instructional Designers Should Care About the Brain’s Learning Process

Many discoveries in neuroscience are giving us insights into how people learn and how to engage students in the learning process. Instructional Designers (IDs) should be interested in how people learn. Knowing how someone gains knowledge and retains it long term can guide us in our selection of learning objectives and methods for creating effective instruction. Also, having a concrete understanding of learning theories and cognitive sciences can help IDs to apply proven strategies in creating instruction for a variety of audiences, content, and delivery methods.

One important thing for IDs to understand is how the brain processes information and retains it in memory for later retrieval. In an article on Information.com, Gregory Schraw and Matthew McCrudden give a great overview of how the brain processes information, how memories are formed, and what are the related implications for improving learning and instruction. To gain this important understanding see the article here: http://www.education.com/reference/article/information-processing-theory/

Another key element for IDs is knowing how to use the design process to help learners improve and use metacognitive learning strategies to increase their performance, learning and thinking. Metacognition involves actively thinking about what you know, what you don’t know, and how you can get better at knowing and applying what you know. To learn more about the metacognitive process and strategies for applying it in curriculum design, read this excellent article by Nancy Chick, Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University provided here: http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/metacognition/

Instructional Designers with a greater understanding of how people learn are better able to select learning strategies that improve the retention and retrieval of learning, making their instructional material more effective for their students. And we must also love learning!