It seems that taking on new information is relatively easy for anyone to do. Retaining and recalling information however seems to be a bigger challenge. Trust me, I know. I have a sieve for a memory at times!
Traditionally, we've used notepads and pens to jot down things that we need to remember. That works really well for me and always has. Regardless of whether I refer back to those notes just the process of jotting them down seems to aid the old grey matter.
In today's digital world, with so many tools at our fingertips, I wonder what other methods, beyond the written notepad, are available to our learners to help them catch their learning? What other tools, techniques and methods can you think of?
Here's a starter. When on my Level 5 course with DPG, our facilitator took photos of flip chart activities and shared them with the group using the community. I have to confess, I'd never considered using this method to capture the workings of a group in a learning setting. What a brilliant idea and one that's certainly helped me since.
So what else is out there? What other tools, techniques and methods can you think of to help learners catch their learning?
I'd love to hear.
Replies
I'm still a big believer in using Evernote to 'catch' things
Reminded me of this great post from a while back Evernote
There are also some good tools to capture things across the web which could be useful for CPD here
HI Helen,
Thanks for your replying. The process of writing does make it stick. I'm a huge fan of brainstorming on paper too and writing mind maps. I've planned out many missions by doing that. I often have them stuck up on the wall. Each one probably looks like a complete mess to anyone else, but makes perfect sense to me! I also found an app, called Simple Mind that I've found really useful when I'm on the move that works well for me.
In the same way the process of writing things down seems to jog the memory, I've found the same with audio notes too. The process of me recording things and "talking out loud" seems to work better than just thinking things through. Perhaps the same principle?
Hi Ady, I'm with you on the writing notes to help things stick - even better if I take notes in the session and then write them up with different colours later - I used to be able to remember things for school exams based on where that section was on the page and what colour heading / underlining it had! There's research now that's shown using ipads / laptops to capture notes aren't as effective as old fashioned writing because it's a different way for our brains to process what we're hearing. I've not tried this much myself but I know some people like to capture content using doodles / drawing and mind maps. I'd imagine these also have the benefit of hand-written notes in that your brain has to process it first to be able to turn the words into something more abstract.