101 Series: 7 Science-Based Tips for Learning and Improving Memory

This blog is the fourth of six installments in the “Learning and Memory” series that investigates the science behind learning. Each blog is a bite-sized version of articles written by Amplifire’s chief research officer, Charles Smith. To read the full article, follow the link to “7 Cognitive Triggers for Learning.”

Imagine you’re sitting down for a big test, having studied for hours the past several nights. You’re staring at a question and the content looks familiar, but you can’t quite figure out the right answer. You cannot remember crucial information in the middle of an important test — but you could recite all the words to a random song you liked years ago.

If only there was a way to ensure you’re committing information to memory. Well, as it turns out, there are seven neuroscientist-approved “hacks”! The Amplifire platform was developed based on these learning methods, researched by some of the world’s leading neuro- and cognitive scientists. We’re here to help you learn smarter, not harder. So, that’s why we’re sharing our tried-and-true techniques with you!

Tap into your three selves

Before we jump into the learning methods, it’s essential to understand where these techniques originate. These learning methods aren’t pulled out of thin air — they appeal to the core of human biology and nature.

The first concept of the three-part self was crafted long ago in 380 BCE. Plato is credited with first proposing that the complexity of human individuality can be described in three parts. In Plato’s best-known work, “The Republic”, Socrates discusses the nature of the soul as three integrated parts:

“The one with which a man reasons we call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the fluttering of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive soul…. And what of passion or spirit?… You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary, for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle.”
—Plato, “The Republic, Book IV”

In the 21st century, perhaps neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux expands Plato’s theory:

“The cognitive revolution brought the mind back to psychology, but thinking and related cognitive processes were emphasized (and for the most part still are) at the expense of emotion and motivation. Thinking cannot be fully comprehended if emotions and motivations are ignored.”—Joseph LeDoux, “The Synaptic Self”

The three pillars of selfhood describe who we are psychologically and can inform what we know about the how the brain works. Today, we understand the three parts of selfhood to be cognition, emotion, and motivation. In this blog, we’ll focus on cognition, which allows us to focus on information and circumstances so that we can then make decisions and act. Cognition both creates and pulls from memories while operating in the present.

How to learn better and remember more…

…or as we like to say at Amplifire, “how to make learning stick” — as Science Advisory Board member Henry Roediger writes in his book “Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning.” Among a number of other learning triggers, these seven cognitive triggers are derived from the way the brain codes and interprets incoming information. In this case, we’re talking about the prefrontal cortex region (PFC).

The PFC is like a general receiving information from commanders in the field. He thinks about their advice and then sends orders back for action. This flow of information from the PFC (general) to lower regions (commanders) is called top- down executive control. Try this example of how this works:

This task demonstrates information intake and the decisions your brain makes on the fly in the PFC. When you read the word red you automatically think of the color red. This is bottom-up processing at work, and it does not require active decision making. When you see the word red, it takes executive top-down control to override the signals coming up from regions lower down in the sensory hierarchy. You are forced to pay attention and resolve the conflict, drawing information from other regions of the brain to contribute. The flow looks like this:

We can now picture how the PFC integrates the information entering the brain in the present moment. And we can understand that it both sends information into long-term memory storage (LTM) and retrieves information from LTM. But how is that information organized? Is there some kind of structure that is optimal for long-term memory? The answer is yes!

The network model, as proposed by Loftus et al, shows that information in memory is stored as a network of highly associated units of information called nodes. Each node represents some aspect of a thing or idea.

So, with the learning and information intake and retrieval process in mind, as well as the visualization of how memory is stored, we have the framework to lay down our best memorization methods.

Maximize learning potential with these memory hacks:

1. Repetition

The rehearsal process is one of the most effective ways to create long term memory. Science has shown time and time again that repetition is an effective way to commit information to memory.

Psychologist Herrmann Ebbinghaus demonstrated that a first learning attempt creates a memory trace, but that trace is vulnerable to rapid forgetting. He also discovered that memory improves through repetition and flattens the rate at which we forget things.

In the 1950s, psychologist Donald Hebb postulated repetition is linked to the strength of the synaptic connections between neurons — memory formation. He pointed out that “neurons that fire together, wire together.” The more something is repeated, the stronger the memory pathway is forged.

2. Elaboration

The great American psychologist, William James, describes elaboration, “The one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other will be the one with the best memory.” In short, the more associations you can link to incoming information, the better chance it has of sticking in your brain.

For example, imagine a zebra. The PFC activates associated nodes with the meaning of the word — stripes, Africa, prey, horses, grasslands and so on. Elaboration is an active exchange between the PFC and long-term memory. The elaborative process strengthens the existing network of associated patterns that give meaning to the word zebra. When applied to new information, elaboration is a powerful learning technique.

3. Retrieval

Hear us out — assessment can be one of the most effective ways to learn. However, we’re not talking about the brain-freeze moment in the middle of an important test. We are referring to self-testing.

In a study (Roediger and Karpicke) where groups of students were asked to 1) read a passage four times, 2) read the passage three times and test memory once, and 3) read a passage once and test memory three separate times, the third group that prioritized memory testing rather than merely repetition retained 62% of the original information, whereas the first group retained only 39%. This demonstrates the power of activating the brain’s natural retrieval process to commit information strongly to memory.

4. Priming

Psychologists have discovered that pre-testing prior to study effectively primes the mind for information. A 2010 experiment conducted by psychologists demonstrated the potency of priming on memory:

Before studying the material, one group of students was pre-tested on a complicated passage involving the biology of vision. Since they weren’t familiar with the material, they had to guess the answers. Another group of students learned the material in the normal manner — they studied… a lot. When retention was tested three days later, the students who had pre-tested outperformed the students who spent a lot of time studying only. Priming tends to activate the network of memory nodes in our brain, like we saw above. This forms stronger associations than unintroduced new material.

5. Context

Speaking of associations, another effective memorization technique is context. Unexpectedly, context is very important when a student is learning material that will later be tested. In one experiment designed by Smith, Bjork, et al, subjects in either of two rooms were given 80 words to study and remember. The rooms differed in location, color, size, and smell. Subjects who were later tested in the same room could remember 49 words on average. Subjects tested in the different room remembered just 35 words. Context could improve memory by 40%.

This technique draws on the associated network in our brain, forging new material in a pathway that is already strong. There are many ways to retrieve that information other than simply trying to remember facts.

6. Feedback

The Darwinian point of view suggests that organisms that are better at applying learning towards life-sustaining activities and avoiding life-threatening situations will be more successful over time. While memory isn’t always a matter of life or death, tapping into that biological trigger can be useful, even when studying for a test or remembering a grocery list.

Studies have shown that feedback in the form of a correct answer and explanation can improve retention dramatically. We all know the feeling of getting something wrong but having no access to the correct answer — or worse, when the correct answer is given but we have no idea of why it is right. Feedback solidifies the correct answer by paving over misconceptions with confident, detailed, accurate answers.

7. Spacing

Many experiments have demonstrated that long-term memory is greatly enhanced by distributing the learning sessions over time. In psychology this is called either distributed practice or the spacing effect.

The spacing effect shows that “cramming” information in one massed setting is about the worst of all possible ways to learn anything for the long term — much to many students’ chagrin. Here’s how a spacing experiment sets up the gap between two study sessions and the interval before the test:

Research reveals that the optimal study gap to test interval is 10% to 20%. That breaks down in the following practical manner:

• If the time to the test is 1 week, the optimal study gap between initial study and restudy is 1 day.
• If the time to the test is 1 year, the optimal study gap is 3 weeks.

When restudy takes place too closely following the initial study session, there is little effect on memory. However, learners can achieve 300% memory gain if the proper study gap to test interval is used.

When we tap into the natural processes of the brain, we learn and remember so much better. Ditch the cramming and learn smarter, not harder!

Interested in diving deeper into this subject? Check out the full research article “7 Cognitive Triggers for Learning” for more cognitive science discoveries, theories, and scenarios. Next in the series, we’ll go even deeper into brain function by discussing emotional triggers as powerful conditions for learning.

From the beginning, Amplifire has relied on innovative brain science to guide its product development to create the most effective learning and training solution, perfectly tailored to the way the human brain works. Learn more about how Amplifire helps people learn better and faster by scheduling a demo.

101 Series: How the Brain Learns and Stores Memories

This blog is the second of six installments in the “Learning and Memory” series that investigates the science behind learning. Each blog is a bite-sized version of articles written by Amplifire’s chief research officer, Charles Smith. To read the full article, follow the link to “A Brain That Learns About the World.” 

Have you ever wondered how it is possible to convert and store information within the human body? Humans have understood the brain to be the center of knowledge for some time, yet understanding the intricacies of how the brain works has been a work in progress.  

By the 1950’s, psychologists and neurobiologists were beginning to work out where memories are stored in the brain. They considered how areas of the brain might be specialized for storage, as they were for processing. Dr. Brenda Milner is credited with making many discoveries about memories by studying an epilepsy patient named Henry Molaison. The unfortunate consequence of Molaison’s epilepsy relief surgery was the inability to create new memories, attributed to the removal of both temporal lobes. 

Research like Dr. Milner’s offers a window into our minds. By gaining a better understanding of the physical journey of information in the brain, we can better understand how memories stick. While many external and emotional factors affect what we do and do not learn, it is also the brain’s wiring and structure itself that affects the way we learn, too.  

How the brain is wired 

The mechanism of information processing has to do with extensively interconnected neurons — up to one thousand trillion connections, to put a number on it. By themselves, neurons don’t do much. The magic of a nervous system lies in the connections and most of the connections form integrated units called circuits. 

The process of circuit building begins during fetal development in the womb. DNA builds and directs neurons to spread out from discrete starting locations on pre-built scaffolds. Formed neurons seek out connections by sending axons to make synaptic contact with other neurons. The resulting neural pattern is the basic structure of the working brain — an assembly of circuits ready to experience the world and, in turn, be further shaped by that experience. 

Brain “wiring” is formed by DNA instruction, as described above, but it is also influenced by external interactions through a process called Hebbian plasticity. As humans interact with the world, information forms pathways via neural circuits. Some pathways are used more than others. These grow strong. The pathways that are rarely used do not serve a purpose for us, and are subsequently “pruned,” or killed off by the body. The process is remarkably Darwinian and is called neural selection— only the strongest neurons and synapses are selected for survival. 

Brain geography 

Pierre Broca working in France in 1861 is the first researcher to show the localization of a function in the brain. Broca’s specialty was speech disorders, and he was determined to discover the areas of the brain that allow human beings to construct and understand language. This discovery excited the world of psychology, leading other researchers to expand upon his conclusions to unlock more information about brain function. 

As we now understand, the human cortex can be divided into four general regions, or lobes, that are each tasked with specific jobs: 

• The occipital lobe handles vision because the eye’s retina sends one million fibers from the optic nerve directly to it. 
• The parietal lobe keeps track of position via inputs from tactile and vision processing regions. It moderates spatial information perceived through the senses. 
• The frontal lobe is responsible for planning and decision making. Inputs from other brain regions enter this area, giving humans the ability to juggle multiple streams of data.
• The temporal lobe is involved in sensory processing and memory. Experiences, faces, places, and facts about the world are stored here for weeks to years before being transferred to other regions of the cortex for final storage. 

Every sensation flowing into the cortex passes through an array of regions that process the information in their own way – meaning the interaction between lobes is more intricate than it may appear.

A memory’s journey

When different types of information enter the brain through the senses, it is first processed by the sensory specialists in the cortex. For example, the lower cortical regions are responsible for vision processing. From there, sensory signals are brought together into the medial temporal lobe at the rhinal cortex. The information processed here is declarative memories and can be both episodic, concerning the events of one’s life, or they can be semantic, about facts.

The rhinal area blends components of events – sights, sounds, tastes, and textures – into a unified experience and passes it to the hippocampus for storage. If the brain didn’t have this capability, an experience would seem fragmented into different sensory components. The hippocampus then receives inputs from the convergence zones of the rhinal areas.

Based on neuro-anatomical tests, researchers have determined that the hippocampus is not a memory’s final destination. Rather, memories are dispersed throughout the brain, with traces often landing in the structures that initially processed them. For example, sights involved in an experience are ultimately stored in visual cortex, while sounds are encoded in auditory cortex.

Interested in diving deeper into this subject? Check out the full research article “A Brain That Learns About the World” for more cognitive science discoveries, theories, and scenarios. Next in the series, we’ll go even deeper into brain function by homing in on the neuron and how our wiring affects the way we perceive the world.

From the beginning, Amplifire has relied on innovative brain science to guide its product development to create the most effective learning and training solution, perfectly tailored to the way the human brain works. Learn more about how Amplifire helps people learn better and faster by scheduling a demo.

101 Series: The Psychology of Learning – How Do People Learn?

This blog is the first of six installments in the “Learning and Memory” series that investigates the science behind learning. Each blog is a bite-sized version of articles written by Amplifire’s chief research officer, Charles Smith. To read the full article, follow the link to “The Psychology of Learning.”

What if we could hack our learning process so that we could learn faster, remember better, and forget less? To achieve optimal brain function, we would first have to understand how learning works.

Immediately, one might imagine a pattern of neurons and firing synapses, but the process is not that matter of fact. Humans have evolved to learn in a selective way that specifically benefits our continued existence – and subsequent dominance. This relies on many external and behavioral influences that affect how information is stored in our brains.

Although we navigate our whole lives through our brain, we fail to totally understand how to maximize its potential. The research outlined in “The Psychology of Learning” – a collection of psychology and neuroscience principles – sheds light on the mysteries of the brain and can help to optimize the way we learn and remember.

How learning works

Let’s think of the brain as a filing cabinet. This extended visual metaphor will serve to explain why and how memories (or “files”) are organized, stored, used, or thrown away – or, in terms of brain operations: encoding, storage, retrieval, and forgetting.

Understanding encoding

Encoding is the process of converting sensory inputs from the world around us into a format that can be stored within the 100 billion neurons of the human brain. To do this, humans associate incoming information with similar, previously learned information. This forms a memory trace, or stored patterns of neurons bound by their synapses.

In filing cabinet terms, humans would file a document or information according to a system – such as, filing by last name, subject, year, etc. – that highlights relevant context that will make locating that file easy in the future.

Understanding storage

Storage is more intricate than we originally thought. It was first believed that memories were stored, in full, in a specific place in the brain. Scientists have since discovered that a memory is distributed over many sensory pathways at various locations. For example, if you remember you ate an orange for breakfast, the information about the color is stored in the vision region, the taste in the flavor processing region, and texture in tactile.

So, the filing cabinet just got a bit more complicated – but exponentially more effective due to the sheer amount of information that is recorded (that we can now pull from).

Understanding retrieval

Retrieval (or remembering) is tracing the information you need – like the elements that make up the whole memory of the orange – and reassembling it for use. When you need information from a file, you recall the criteria you stored it with and locate the information you need.

There are several understood methods of retrieval:

Cues: are when sensory information prompts a memory. For example, when you use landmarks to remember where you parked your car, you use cues. If you were in a rush and didn’t pay attention to your surroundings, you may have a tough time finding your car.

Signal strength: Sometimes, pathways to memories are stronger or weaker for one reason or another. The result is the phenomenon humans recognize as certainty or uncertainty. For stronger paths (highly associated memories), we feel more certain. For weaker paths (less associated memories), we feel unsure.

Dual-process: Dual-process model of memory is comprised of familiarity and recollection. The immediate sense of certainty or lack thereof is called familiarity. Recollection requires more effort and involves calling forth details to remember the particulars of an experience.

Understanding forgetting

Forgetting is like losing a file. Perhaps we get distracted while storing a file and label it incorrectly, or put it in the wrong place, or misplace the file altogether. Without effectively establishing a memory trace, that file is lost. Moreover, if we file too many things in one category, it can be hard to find a specific file among the many.

Trace decay: A memory trace decays as synapses weaken and disappear with disuse. If you never pull anything from a certain area of the filing cabinet, you might forget something is even there.

Interference: occurs when memory traces that have overlapping characteristics become confused with other traces. In a phenomenon known as cue-overload, too many traces are attached to a particular stimulus and the memory becomes saturated.

But, why does forgetting happen in the first place? Wouldn’t it be beneficial if we could remember everything? In the case of Solomon Shereshevsky, a man who was born with the remarkable ability to recall anything and everything, flawless memory was debilitating, according to his neurophysiologist. Shereshevsky was paralyzed by the constant flood of memories at the cue of even the most mundane stimuli.

Although the ability to remember everything is not the pinnacle of brain function, people still yearn for assurance that they’ll remember what they want to remember. While there is no way to guarantee you’ll remember all the information you studied for a test, there are ways to increase your chances.

So, what is the best way to learn?

The best ways to learn are extrapolated from the natural functions of cognition. These five psychological triggers are the best way to “hack” the learning process and make more information stick in the brain.

• Repetition – The process of repeatedly taking in the same information staves off forgetting by signaling that because this information is showing up again, it must be important.
• Elaboration – By building wider associations of incoming information with older information in the mind, or elaborating, the brain builds a bigger memory trace. Thus, one is more likely to be able to recall this information in the future.
• Emotion – Emotion attributes value to incoming information, thus making it more likely to stick in your mind. Psychologists have called feelings “judgements of learning,” which deepen the relevance of new memories.
• Attention – Heightened attention to incoming information reduces the possibility of interference and assigns value.
• Retrieval – Studies have shown that the mere act of remembering, or retrieving a memory, strengthens that memory trace. This is one of the more powerful methods of learning.

Later in the series, we’ll go into greater detail about these learning triggers and how employing them in learning situations can create memories that stick.

Interested in diving deeper into this subject? Check out the full research article “The Psychology of Learning” for more cognitive science discoveries, theories, and scenarios.

From the beginning, Amplifire has relied on innovative brain science to guide its product development to create the most effective learning and training solution, perfectly tailored to the way the human brain works. Learn more about how Amplifire helps people learn better and faster by checking out a demo.

Top 5 Talent Development Priorities to Modernize Your Organization

It’s an exciting, yet anxious time in the world of learning and development. Suddenly, it may seem like your organization is lagging behind the increasingly steep talent development curve. To keep up with the pace of business, L&D professionals, HR, and management are working to navigate best courses of action. It’s time to respond to the “Great Reprioritization” with improved talent development strategies and some new priorities of your own.

The marker of success in the new work world will be how well organizations can quickly adapt to rapidly changing environments. Additionally, organizations will rely on well-developed talent to execute these changes. Organizations are already recognizing this need. According to Brandon Hall Group research in 2021, “63% of organizations indicated they would invest moderately or heavily in improving the alignment between talent strategy and business goals.”

So, where do you start?  First, organizations must understand how to nurture and maximize employees’ potential. Next, organizations must set talent development priorities that best align the needs of employees and the business.

The Great Reprioritization

The “Great Reprioritization” movement is about employees rediscovering their values and recognizing their potential, underscored by a general gap between employee desires and career opportunities.  According to The University of Phoenix’s Annual Career Optimism Index 2022:

• 68 percent of workers say they would stay with their employer throughout their career if they had opportunities to upskill
• 65 percent of workers said they would stay throughout their career if their employer made an effort to reskill them.
• 49 percent of employees want to develop their skills but don’t know where to begin — this is up 6 percentage points compared to 2021 — and 66 percent of employers believe the same

The Great Reprioritization isn’t only about meeting employees’ needs – it’s about shifting business perspectives to support sustainable growth. By investing in talent development, organizations respond to this movement with finesse. Define priorities in the context of the new normal.

Talent development planning/strategy

The hardest part of change is change management. Companies are facing barriers in their efforts to skill their employees, but with the help of L&D professionals and the guidance of a unified plan, organizations can eliminate some of these challenges. By narrowing focus and setting goals, change becomes less daunting. Here are some actionable priorities to guide your talent development plan and set your organization on track.

Your top talent development priorities:

1. Make onboarding seamless and effective
Employee turnover and ineffective onboarding is time consuming and costly. By implementing an effective onboarding solution, companies can set the tone for seamless workflow and promote organizational values.

For example, in this Amplifire case study, a call center invested in improving their onboarding process and found that an effective eLearning solution transformed their employee performance and morale. Well-trained employees were more confident and had higher job performance metrics than their previous onboarding strategy.

2. Create a learning culture with a growth mindset
There is a strong link between learning culture and success, which is why it is so important to create a learning culture and growth mindset among your people. Benefits include attracting and retaining top talent, competitive advantage, increased productivity and more.

3. Determine development needs related to business goals
The first part of this is identifying employee knowledge gaps to measure employee competencies. These gaps can inform the baseline for training.

The second part is identifying the gap between competency and where you want to be. This gap will inform the training and/or teaching that will empower your organization to reach its goals.

The third part of this equation is to align development needs with employee aspirations. Harness your people’s desire to level up and grow.

4. Embed learning in workflow
Incorporate learning opportunities in the workflow. Continuous learning boosts employee engagement. Engaged employees are happier and more productive – and more likely to stay. As much of the workforce is leaning virtual, a technical solution is necessary to power continuous learning. With an adaptive learning solution that can support virtual and hybrid instruction, employers can better engage their people.

5. Offer training aimed at inclusion
As reported by the Society for Human Resource Management, senior vice president of people strategy at Hired, Samantha Lawrence, predicts, “Companies that will double down on their DE&I efforts and successfully leverage best practices to expand their talent pipeline will not only deliver on the public DE&I commitments they made in 2019 and 2020, but also attract and retain top talent.” Offering comprehensive training to eliminate bias and misinformation is a great way to tackle this initiative.

A note on leveraging technology

It goes without saying that many of these priorities are made possible by leveraging technology. With effective tools, such as eLearning solutions, L&D professionals can harness data and insights into the effectiveness of these priorities. They can also refine and optimize talent development processes as time goes on. Aligning with the new work world will require ongoing effort – and leveraging tech makes it manageable.

Amplifire’s goal is to support businesses looking to gain an edge in the modern age by offering an adaptive learning solution that supports employee learning, training, and growth. Learn more about how we can enrich talent development at your organization.

Amplifire Recognized as Software Advice FrontRunner in Employee Training

In exciting news from Software Advice’s (of Gartner Digital Markets) February 2022 FrontRunner Guide to Top Employee Training Software, Amplifire was recognized as a top-five product for the category. Software Advice uses reviews from real software users to highlight the top-rated Employee Training Software products in North America. Inclusion for the list is determined by verified unique user reviews, required functionality, and product relevance across industries or sectors.

Amplifire was scored based on functionality, ease-of-use, value for money, likelihood to recommend, and customer support. It ranks in the top quadrant as a result of customer satisfaction and usability scores, landing it among the top five-recommended products in the category. View the full report here.

As an adaptive learning solution, we know that personalized learning based on brain science is the best way to help individuals learn what they need and help organizations reach their goals. That’s why Amplifire is thrilled to be recognized as a leader in the employee training category based on end-user ratings.

Learn more about how Amplifire is helping organizations put the power of brain science to work.

FrontRunners constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Software Advice or its affiliates.

Why Creating a Learning Culture is So Important for an Organization’s Success

It is becoming difficult to keep up with the nuances of workforce trends, from “The Great Resignation” to “The Great Reshuffling.” The point, however, is that workers are demanding attention to an underserved aspect of their professional lives: employee experience.  

This is where the concept of “learning culture” can save the day. According to the Work Institute, the #1 reason employees left their job was due to a lack of professional development opportunities and support – costing businesses revenue and productive time. The solution to this enormous employment debacle is to put in the work to create and build a learning culture for your organization.  

What is a “learning culture”? 

You may hear the terms “reskill” and upskill” a lot these days, as the shifting constitution of the labor market is a hot topic. However, “learning culture” is more than simply the act of acquiring new skills – it’s more personal than that. A learning culture is an environment where employees are encouraged to seek, share, and apply new knowledge for the sake of personal and professional development.  

But isn’t every culture a “learning culture” in a way? Not necessarily. To establish and maintain a learning culture, employees must have the support of their organization to pursue their goals. Learning & Development professionals understand the work that is involved to implement a unified culture at scale – from C-suite support to employee buy-in. We’ll cover some culture creation tips next. 

How to create a learning culture 

Research shows that employees yearn for opportunities to develop their skills – 94% of employees said that they would stay at a company longer if that company invested in their learning. That is why it is important to get leadership onboard and make the transition easy for employees. 

Win C-suite support 

Culture is not always a top priority for C-suite and leadership – much to the chagrin of L&D professionals. However, statistics support the need for continued learning opportunities for employees as part of an organization’s baseline. Employee turnover is costly. Moreover, a study by MIT Sloan School of Management revealed a 250% ROI after implementing a training program focused on soft skills in eight months. Present leadership with these facts. Support is more feasible with a healthy ROI. 

Organizations that invest most heavily in culture/employee experience are found:  

• 11.5x as often in Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work
• 4.4x as often in LinkedIn’s list of North America’s Most In-Demand Employers 
• 2.1x as often on the Forbes list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies
• 2x as often in the American Customer Satisfaction Index  

*Source: Jacob Morgan 

Get employee buy-in 

While employees crave learning and development opportunities, they also want it to be uncomplicated. Moreover, in a world where much of the workforce is still virtual or at least hybrid, a technical solution is necessary to power learning. With an adaptive learning solution that can support virtual and hybrid instruction, employees can easily embrace development. 

5 Benefits of learning culture 

Industry leaders recognize the benefits of learning culture as the fundamental ingredients for success: 

• Attract and retain top talent – According to this survey, the top reason employees look elsewhere is due to the “inability to learn and grow” where they are. This same LinkedIn survey reveals learners at work are 48% more fulfilled in their role. 
• Gain competitive advantage – In MIT and Deloitte’s most recent study, the most successful, fast-growing, digitally enabled companies have invested in the way individuals and organizations learn. 
• Foster growth mindset – Continuous learning goes hand in hand with growth.  
• Increase customer satisfaction – Happy, well-informed employees result in better served, more satisfied customers. 
• Boost productivity – Satisfied workers are up to 20% more productive at work. 

Again, these benefits are not just for the sake of it – they are essential for organizations’ survival and prosperity in the modern age. 

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Amplifire’s goal is to support businesses looking to gain an edge in the modern age by offering an adaptive learning solution that supports employee learning, training, and growth. Learn more about how we can power learning culture at your organization.

Applying the Science of Learning Principles in the Classroom & Beyond

Cognitive science has ushered in a new era of training that has proven to accelerate learning and build longer-lasting memory. With so many learners struggling to keep up with the wealth of information coming at them, you may be wondering how to implement these latest principles that make learning stick and improve human performance.

Below, we’ve addressed three of the most significant challenges learners face and how you can apply the new principles of learning to overcome them. Whether you’re in the education, corporate, or healthcare industry, these tips will help you transform training into learning and understanding.

1. Flattening the Forgetting Curve: Start with Metacognition

Research shows that relying on reading assignments results in poor memory for the material—as little as 10% retention in many cases. The forgetting curve is to blame, and, unfortunately, It is steepest during the first 24 hours after learning something new.

Studies have shown that thinking about your learning, known as metacognition, is vital for retention. Contemplating what you think you know versus what might actually be true activates the parts of your brain tasked with memory formation. Metacognition sets learners up for success. Their brains will be firing for connected events, related objects, or familiar experiences that help them tie concepts together.

So ask learners if they are sure about their knowledge. Have them rate their certainty, uncertainty, and gaps on the topics you want them to remember for the long term.

2.Confidently Held Misinformation: Find It—Fix It

Confidence compels us into action—asking someone on a date, deciding on a new hire, or changing a patient’s central line. Our conviction about those decisions can result in some rather incredible outcomes, but only if we are actually correct. When our confidence is misplaced, it can be devastating. This is true for every environment where people use their knowledge to get things done—from agents in call centers to clinicians in hospitals to students in college.

Too often, learners feel confident in their knowledge after studying the material or re-reading their notes several times merely because it is familiar to them. In psychology, this is called familiarity bias. Unfortunately, learners who rely on traditional study methods are subject to familiarity bias, resulting in overconfidence in their knowledge. It seems counter-intuitive but studying, taking notes, and re-reading don’t overcome misinformation all that well, as it’s a strongly felt pattern of neurons in the brain.

So how can you remedy overconfidence? By first assessing your learner’s confidence in what they think they know and then remediating the confidently-held misinformation. Ask them how sure they are in their knowledge.  Misinformation is emotional, and when learners are alerted to it, they have a strong desire to eradicate it. This is a psychological process known as hypercorrection, and it makes the correct information much more memorable and, hence, retrievable in the future.

3. Information Overload: Create a Culture of Learning

These days, learners are bombarded with information. When stressed or overwhelmed, it is natural for them to tune out. Stress, however, disrupts memory retrieval. That is why it is essential to create a culture of learning where learners feel safe to say they “don’t know” or to answer a question incorrectly.

Brain researchers discovered that the best learning occurs when classroom experiences are motivating and engaging. Learners experience these sorts of mental feelings with the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which occurs in the presence of a potential reward. Dopamine  controls “seeking and wanting,” and focuses a learner on the activity that may deliver that reward in the future. Successful learning is just such a reward. For example, overcoming misinformation or closing a knowledge gap feels good. So give learners low-stakes quizzes, which will let them feel a reward in the form of correct answers. And people love status, so use public praise as an additional reward, being careful to not leave anyone out.

Self-testing is another technique proven to increase memory recall. Self-testing, also referred to as the testing effect, active recall, or retrieval practice—all use the same mechanism: asking your brain to retrieve stored information on cue. It has a powerful impact on long-term retention because when we forget, it’s not information storage that has weakened. The problem is really that the retrieval pathway to the stored information has weakened. Self-testing strengthens the retrieval pathway better than any other technique from cognitive psychology. So encourage self-testing with your students.

Measure training outcomes

Whatever training modality you use, traditional, hybrid, or online, make sure you measure effectiveness. Not just completion rates and scores—but whether it has had an impact on behavior and outcomes. You will see a measurable return on your training investment if you use these recently discovered principles to address three of the biggest challenges your learners face.

A Bad Employee Or A Bad Week

Matthew J. Hays, PhD
Senior Director of Research and Analytics

What’s Going On When A Learner Refuses To Learn?

On a humid summer evening, George Williams was clocked at 78 mph in a 35 mph zone. He ran four red lights as the police followed him. He finally stopped, leaped out of his car, and ran into a building.

What do you think of George so far?

A few steps into the building, he collapsed. Nurses swarmed him, applying compresses to the wounds they could see. After four hours of surgery and three months of physical therapy, George made a full recovery.

Now, what do you think of George?

What is The Fundamental Attribution Error?

The fundamental attribution error (FAE) is when you assume that someone’s behavior is due to their nature rather than their circumstances. We all fall prey to it. The numbskull who cuts you off in traffic is clearly a terrible person.

Of course, when you’ve cut someone off in traffic, it’s been for a good reason. You were about to be late for a meeting, or someone was hurt, or one of your kids had a restroom emergency-type situation going on. You can excuse your own behavior, but there are no excuses for others. If someone’s acting like a jerk, they must be a jerk.

Full disclosure: I made this error for years. I run research and analytics for an online eLearning platform (Amplifire). In many other systems, you can just put a stapler on the spacebar, go get a coffee, and your training is done when you come back. But in ours, you have to actually master the material. We’ve developed sophisticated behavior analysis algorithms that try to identify when someone attempts to rush through Amplifire without learning. For the longest time, I have been referring to people who do this—who interact with the system in a disengaged or disingenuous manner—as “goofballs.”An example of goofballery: Responding “I don’t know yet” in less time than it could possibly take to read a question, over and over and over again. (We even have messaging that pops up and makes it clear that their strategy won’t work. One of the messages concludes by telling them, “Look, you might as well just learn.”)

But what I need to keep in mind is that someone who engages in goofballery isn’t necessarily a goofball. I learned this lesson quite acutely from one of our clients. Let’s call them Acme. They were using Amplifire in a several-week-long onboarding program for new call center agents.

Even before we had algorithmic behavior categorization, we had some idea of what a goofball looked like in our standard reports. A couple of Acme learners fit the bill perfectly. They rushed through questions but took longer to learn than average and struggled mightily to grasp even basic concepts…it was clear that something other than normal, engaged learning behavior was going on.

I’ve been a big fan of naming reports after the question they answer. Sometimes a report user wants a Learner Progress report, sure. But sometimes, they just want to know who isn’t done. So we ought to give them a “Who Isn’t Done?” report.

The goofballs at Acme made me want to make a “Who Should I Reprimand?” or “Who’s Screwing Around?” report. Maybe even a “Who Should I Fire?” report. It’s exactly the kind of insight that call center clients are looking for. The success metrics almost calculate themselves: cost savings from reducing training class size, plus improved call performance once the trainees become agents (since you’ve filtered out the ones who appeared not to care about the company or how to do well at it).

Cooler heads prevailed, and we instead went to Acme with a couple of names and a curious tone. We asked what they thought might be going on and let them follow up with the trainees. They came back to us with awe and thanks…but not for the reasons the FAE had led me to expect. Instead, one trainee was living in his car in the training center parking lot. You can imagine that that kind of stress would make you disengage from parts of your job you couldn’t tell were important. The other trainee’s father had just died. He was in no shape for a training program that week…but was able to pull it together the following week.

Who Needs Your Help?

My new name for the goofball report is “Who needs YOUR help?” These trainees needed the opposite of getting fired; they needed support. Our data identified that, but I fell victim to the fundamental attribution error. They weren’t bad employees. They were employees going through a bad time.

My team and I are trying to avoid the FAE in our report labels and data interpretations. I’m also adopting this in my personal life. When someone cuts me off in traffic, I wish them good luck.

Well, I try to, anyway. I’m working on it.

Want to get better at something? Practice something else.

Matthew J. Hays, PhD
Senior Director of Research and Analytics

In Game 5 of the NBA playoffs, the Milwaukee Bucks narrowly defeated the Phoenix Suns, 123-119. After the loss, the Suns’ Chris Paul took a shot of his own at Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks’ MVP. Paul claimed that the Suns would have won if they had rebounded better on Giannis’s many, many missed free throws.

In Game 6, Giannis hit 17 of his 19 free-throw attempts, and the Bucks won the national title. “I made my free throws tonight!” he said. This – and the 50 total points he scored – cemented Giannis’s status as a legend at the age of 26, and denied Chris Paul (age 36) perhaps his last opportunity to win his first-ever championship.

Giannis 1, Paul 0.

But Giannis is going to play again next year, and his overall free-throw percentage could, if we’re honest, use some work. How can he get reliably better at free throw shooting? How can anyone? How can you increase your mastery of any skill or concept? How can you improve your brain’s ability to get your memory or body to do what you want?

Let’s stick with free throws for now, but the principle applies much more broadly.

You might think that the prescription would be to practice shooting a bunch of free throws. Let’s compare that to an obviously silly alternative, like…oh, say, never practicing a single free throw. Here’s how you might set up a 100-shot practice under these two conditions:

Option A: 100 shots from 15 feet. This is a regulation free throw. You would shoot 100 of these 15-foot shots.

Option B: One shot from 12 feet, one shot from 14 feet, one from 16, one from 18 – and repeat that 25 times. You would never shoot a regulation free throw.

I’m here to tell you that Option B is better. In other words, practicing no free throws at all has a good chance of being better than practicing exclusively free throws.

How can this be?

A critical element of practice is what your brain is actually processing. A big part of that comes from how errors are corrected. If you miss a little to the left on your fourteenth attempt in Option A, your brain on the next attempt is saying “Do what I just did, but a little to the right.” But that’s not worthwhile learning. Tomorrow, what you just did on attempt 14 will have faded away. There’s almost no value to that correction.

But if you miss a little to the left in Option B, your next attempt can’t use the previous attempt as a crutch. You can’t try to learn from small corrections to things you’ll quickly forget. Instead, you have to learn how to throw the basketball into the hoop. Tomorrow, that’ll help you with free throws.

Here’s why it’s tricky: During practice, Option A will look better. People who try both options will report that Option A feels better. They mistakenly interpret performance during training as an indicator of learning from training. They think that if it feels better, it is better.

It isn’t.

There are two takeaways. First, variation of practice is beneficial for learning – whether it’s free throws or any other skill you want to develop. Mix up your study strategies, locations, exercises, everything. Take away as many brain-shortcuts as you can.

The second takeaway is that learning can be counterintuitive. Professor Robert Bjork at UCLA uses the term “desirable difficulties” to refer to conditions of learning that feel worse but wind up being better. Recognizing that challenges during learning don’t necessarily indicate that someone is struggling – and can instead indicate the exact opposite – is essential for doing what’s best for your brain, yourself, and any learners whose training you oversee.

If you’d like to know more about desirable difficulties, check out our science page. And if you’d like to know more about how Amplifire harnesses several desirable difficulties and a bunch of other brain science, reach out here.

Using True-False Questions to Promote Learning

Matthew J. Hays, PhD
Senior Director of Research and Analytics

Tests don’t just evaluate what you know. The act of being tested actually makes your memory stronger. Think about it. You want to improve your ability to retrieve information from your brain. What could be better practice than…retrieving information from your brain?

Unfortunately, tests get a bad rap – but some are perceived to be even worse than others. It seems like the harder it is to make a test and evaluate its responses, the better its reputation. Essay tests are supposedly the best, while everyone looks down on multiple-choice tests (even though they shouldn’t). True-false tests are at the very bottom of the heap.

But they don’t have to be.

In a series of studies published in July of 2020, researchers in the Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab at UCLA have revealed how to construct true-false questions in a way that enhances learning beyond what previous true-false questions have been able to achieve.

For example, suppose you wanted someone to learn that Steamboat Geyser is the tallest geyser in Yellowstone Park. After having them read about geysers, you could use a true-false test to reinforce what they read. On that memory-enhancing test, you could use a true item: “Steamboat Geyser is the tallest geyser in Yellowstone Park, true or false?” You could also use a false item: “Castle Geyser is the tallest geyser in Yellowstone Park, true or false?”

These questions are somewhat limited in their instructional value. When an item is true, it helps people learn only about the topic of the true-false statement. For example, the Steamboat question above only reinforces that Steamboat is the tallest. When an item is false, however, it helps people learn only about information related to the true-false statement. For example, the Castle question above only reinforces that Steamboat is the tallest – but does nothing to enhance learning about Castle Geyser itself.

The Bjork lab’s discovery: Inserting a contrasting clause into the question activates more concepts in your brain. For example, you could make a true item with a contrasting clause like this: “Steamboat Geyser (not Castle Geyser) is the tallest geyser in Yellowstone Park, true or false?” You could also make a false contrasted item like this: “Castle Geyser (not Steamboat Geyser) is the tallest geyser in Yellowstone Park, true or false?” Both questions help reinforce information about both geysers.

We are building these findings into the Amplifire platform, our authoring system, and our content analytics. If you’d like to know more about the science or the software, reach out here!