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I’ve just been reading a really great post by Kathy Sierra entitled Crash Course In Learning Theory. Essential reading for anyone who is responsible for training or teaching, although it primarily does have a bias towards giving pointers for writing a learning blog. I know if I had to run a training session on anything at all, I’d be reading this before, during and after creating an outline.

I really liked the section about “chunking” to reduce cognitive overhead. I won’t bother rehashing it all here - go read it for yourself. It is fairly lengthy, but definitely worth reading.

Heading off on a related tangent, one of the points Kathy raised (using stories to help people learn) reminded me of a part from a Stephen Fry novel called Making History. The main character’s name (I think) was Michael Young, and he was a history scholar at Cambridge University. In one section is lamenting his inability to remember anything to do with mathematics or science. He can remember all sorts of facts to do with scientists, mathemeticians and the moments and circumstances surrounding their moments of discovery, but he is incapable of remembering the science or mathematics invovled. He has a wonderful knack for rembering stories, but not cold, seemingly isolated facts.

I find it interesting how different people are in the their preference for learning. It makes me wonder how many people over the centuries that have been judged to have little ability for learning, when all they needed was a chance to learn a different way.