On 21st March I spent lovely day with the Brain Friendly Learning Group at their meeting in Basingstoke, where I ran a workshop called
Multi-Sensory Magic. We looked at why it's so important to use all the
senses in training, explored the different ways in which we can do this,
and generated loads of great ideas for creative ways to engage all the
senses.
I decided to try a little experiment with the
group, and divided them into 3 groups. Each group was asked to list as
many facts about oranges as they could think of. One group had a blank
piece of paper to write their list on, the second had a template with a
photo of an orange on it, and the third group had real oranges which
they could cut up, hold, see, touch, smell and eat, and I put orange oil
in the oil burner in the room that this group worked in. When we
compared the lists of facts from each group, and how these had been
generated, there were some fascinating differences. The groups without
the oranges ran out of facts fairly quickly, whilst the group who had
the picture of the oranges moved on to generating random associations
with oranges. Meanwhile, the group who had the actual oranges generated a
lot more facts and ideas, many of which were based on the memories that
they associated with oranges (such as having oranges at half-time in
netball matches!)
A couple of hours later, at the end
of the workshop, I gave the groups 5 minutes to recall as many of the
orange facts that they had generated earlier. The groups which didn't
have the multi-sensory orange experience recalled 17 facts each, but the
group who had had all their senses stimulated recalled 33 facts in the
time available. In fact they were remembering the facts so quickly that
all members of the group had to write them down in order to keep up!
Now
I'm not a scientist and this may not be the most scientific experiment
ever, but I like to think that it clearly illustrated the point that
when all the senses are engaged, people are able to generate
ideas and information more quickly, locate memories and experiences
more easily, and remember and recall information more effectively, all
of which create better learning.
As well as
experimenting, we explored the different ways in which we can use the
senses to improve learning. We did this using Human PowerPoint, where
volunteers mime the information rather than having Powerpoint slides
(if you haven't come across Human PowerPoint, see the "5 Ways to Have More Fun at Work - and still get the job done!" resource on our free resources page).As trainers we can use visuals, textures, sounds, tastes and smells to: Influence the mood or create a particular state among learners (for example relaxed and calm, or creative and energised).Increase learners’ concentration and heighten or maintain their alertness.Increase learners’ awareness of the surroundings and their experiences.Anchor
learning (by associating different smells, sights, tastes, sounds,
touch sensations or movements with different facts or learning points).Improve memory and recall by using more areas of the brain simultaneously.Recreate or simulate real situations so that learners can connect the learning to real experiences.With
this in mind, we went on to generate lots of ideas for different ways
to engage all the senses when delivering training. Huge thanks to the
Brain Friendly Learning Group for making me so welcome and for coming up
with so many ideas. I've used these, plus a whole load of ideas and
tips of my own to create a new free resource: 72 Ways to Make Learning Multi-Sensory. You can download this from our Free Resources
pages (in the Learning and Training Resources section), so do help
yourself, try out some of the ideas, share them with your fellow
trainers, and let us know how it went. Please share your own ideas and
suggestions with us too - we'd love to hear them. |