The old adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” has always bugged me.
I love to learn new things! Will I wake-up one day and have no desire to learn? Will my brain be too full!?!
After reading an excellent, in depth piece on increasing your own capacity to learn, I now understand why some may feel like old dogs can’t learn new tricks.
Here are the 5 principles to increase your capacity to learn (aka: How not to become like an old dog):
1. Seek Novelty
New activity opens your brain to new connections. The more new connections, the more you can build on with other connections, and this is the essence of learning. The science boils down to this:
Novel Activity—>triggers dopamine—>creates a higher motivational state—>which fuels engagement and primes neurons—>neurogenesis can take place + increase in synaptic plasticity (increase in new neural connections, or learning).
Double Rainbow (What does it mean?): Expand your horizons. Learn an instrument, learn a new language (verbal, mathematical, computer), take art lessons (analog or digital), visit a museum, and read about new ideas.
2. Challenge Yourself
Remember the “brain game” fad?
Well, they don’t make you smarter. They simply make you good at the specific brain game you’re playing.
Here’s an amazing piece of research using Tetris:
A few years ago, scientist Richard Haier wanted to see if you could increase your cognitive ability by intensely training on novel mental activities for a period of several weeks. They used the video game Tetris as the novel activity, and used people who had never played the game before as subjects (I know—can you believe they exist?!). What they found, was that after training for several weeks on the game Tetris, the subjects experienced an increase in cortical thickness, as well as an increase in cortical activity, as evidenced by the increase in how much glucose was used in that area of the brain. Basically, the brain used more energy during those training times, and bulked up in thickness—which means more neural connections, or new learned expertise—after this intense training. And they became experts at Tetris. Cool, right?
Here’s the thing: After that initial explosion of cognitive growth, they noticed a decline in both cortical thickness, as well as the amount of glucose used during that task. However, they remained just as good at Tetris; their skill did not decrease. The brain scans showed less brain activity during the game-playing, instead of more, as in the previous days. Why the drop? Their brains got more efficient. Once their brain figured out how to play Tetris, and got really good at it, it got lazy. It didn’t need to work as hard in order to play the game well, so the cognitive energy and the glucose went somewhere else instead.
Efficiency is not your friend when it comes to cognitive growth. In order to keep your brain making new connections and keeping them active, you need to keep moving on to another challenging activity as soon as you reach the point of mastery in the one you are engaging in. You want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do, as Einstein alluded to in his quote. This keeps your brain on its toes, so to speak. We’ll come back to this point later on.
Amazing, right!?!
3. Think Creatively
Creative thinking isn’t just about creativity. In fact, creative thinking is all about using both sides of your brain.
It isn’t enough to learn facts and figures; it’s the ability to apply the knowledge that is important.
A research study was conducted by Dr. Robert Sternberg in which students were taught using creative methods. So, instead of teaching to a test, it was done like so:
A creative test might be: ‘Here’s a cartoon. Caption it.’ A practical problem might be a movie of a student going into a party, looking around, not knowing anyone, and obviously feeling uncomfortable. What should the student do?
What were the results?
On average, the students in the test group (the ones taught using creative methods) received higher final grades in the college course than the control group (taught with traditional methods and assessments). But—just to make things fair— he also gave the test group the very same analytical-type exam that the regular students got (a multiple choice test), and they scored higher on that test as well. That means they were able to transfer the knowledge they gained using creative, multimodal teaching methods, and score higher on a completely different cognitive test of achievement on that same material.
Knowledge is worthless unless you know what to do with it!
4. Do Things the Hard Way
Our world is full of modern convenience, and although I’m not against them, just as driving a car instead of walking can make you fat, using GPS and auto correct in MS-Word can make your brain lazy.
5. Network
Connect with other people. You can do this online via social networking, but you also do this in the flesh, too! This will expose you to new situations, ideas and perspectives.
Conclusion
Never stop learning.
Here’s to new tricks 😉
[via Institiue for Ethics and Emerging Technologies | Image via Barb Watson & Dave McLean]
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