WORKING INSIDE OUT: MAKING SENSE OF HOW WE LEARN

An Introduction to our Thinking/Learning Preferences and Strategies - and their Classroom Applications

This day will provide some new models, information and opportunities to explore how we personally handle information inside our mind,
and how we can then apply this knowledge to the teaching and learning processes.

Teachers and lecturers realise that each of us has an optimum way of learning new information, and they understand that some students need to be taught in ways that vary from standard teaching methods. We know that the key factors to effective learning are:

Learning Outcomes	- knowing what we want to achieve through our learning - incl: our motivation , our beliefs, our resources and what we will do
Learning Preferences	- our unconscious internal thinking preferences that dramatically influence how we take in the world around us
Learning Strategies	- the unconscious strategies/processes we utilise inside our minds when we are undertaking any task
Learning States	- how we manage our own emotional state – and influence the emotional state of others - in our own unique way
Learning Relationships	- how we relate to ourselves as a learner (our self-esteem), significant others (peers, teachers) and the curriculum

This one-day course will focus on two of these factors –

Ø Learning Preferences (often referred to as ‘styles’) - how we perceive, take in and make sense of information

Ø Learning Strategies – how we organise and process information and then act on this

Appreciating our Preferences - which includes Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic (both physical touch and emotions) - educators can reach all of their students by presenting information in a variety of ways. Understanding Strategies can help add a new dimension to how we process information inside our heads and then act on this. When we are familiar with these aspects of our own learning, we can take important steps to help ourselves learn faster and more easily. Plus, learning how to decipher the learning preferences and strategies of others - like your students, colleagues, parents - can help strengthen your rapport and influence with them.

AIMS OF THE COURSE: To help educators -

1. reach an appreciation about how we filter the information we receive and thereby create our own, unique model/map of the world

2. understand and detect their own thinking, learning and teaching preferences

3. elicit pupils' thinking/learning preferences using heightened sensory acuity – eg awareness of the clues offered by language, eye movements and how we use our bodies

4. appreciate the nature of Thinking/Learning Strategies – the procedures we go through in our mind as we process what we know and then act on this – eg retrieve (recall) and reproduce information, make a decision, be creative, etc

5. how to apply this knowledge to their teaching and -

Ø plan and deliver lessons for more effective learning

Ø develop and strengthen specific learning styles

COURSE LEADER

Jeff Lewis is passionate about helping people in all kinds of contexts (individuals, groups and organisations) on their journey to recognising, achieving and living their potential. He has spent over thirty years working in and for education in a wide range of roles - including Headteacher, Advisor, Assistant Education Officer and Director of a Teachers’ Professional Development Centre. He is a Master Practitioner of NLP, Director of The NLP Education Network and New Oceans Training and Education (providing training and consultancy services in education) and is dedicated to empowering people to fulfil their potential.

COMPONENTS OF THE PROGRAMME

THINKING AND LEARNING PREFERENCES 1: Filtering and the Influence of Language

1. How appropriate words and questions can draw out some significant thinking preferences – for instance how we might ‘match’ or ‘mismatch’ new information with what we already know or how different people respond to different forms of feedback.

2. An Interpretive Model: It has been estimated that through the nerve receptors in our bodies we receive around 2 million bits of sensory information each second! The NLP Communications Model will be introduced to illustrate how we filter the sensory information we receive (through deleting, distorting and generalising) and then create our own internal ‘map’ of the world (our reality)

THINKING AND LEARNING PREFERENCES 2: Filtering what we receive through our 5 Senses

3. We will explore how we filter sensory information, and then how we express our preferences through many aspects of our behaviour (eg in the words we habitually use, in our body postures and eye movements, how we dress, and in our working preferences – eg towards action, procedures or relationships). We will also show how the qualities/attributes of our internal pictures (eg colour or black & white), sounds and feelings provides the basis from which we interpret an event – eg as happy, constructive, frightening, etc

THINKING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES: A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE - SPELLING

We will elicit the thinking processes we each go through when spelling – and through this begin to understand some of the differences between ‘good’ and ‘poor’ spellers. This will lead on to advice and discussion on how best to help ‘poor’ spellers develop better strategies and how to model those who are excellent spellers.

CLASSROOM AND CURRICULAR APPLICATIONS

This session will focus on ideas for developing our teaching – considering planning, resources, the language we use and how to ‘deliver’ the curriculum in a variety of ways to appeal to a variety of preferences and also to develop specific ones.