Brain-Based Training Sequences

There are two primary ways to go about teaching and training. Neither is consistently better than the other. In fact, it’s more a case of, “It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.”

#1. INDUCTIVE – specific to general… “what, how, why, if”

1) pre-exposure to the topic

a.  mention what we’ll be doing & why…days, hours and minutes ahead of time

2)  hands-on, real-life experiences

a.  could be field trip, guest speaker or physical game, presentations, etc.

3) debrief with partner/personal experiences

a.  could be “stand and find someone 10 steps away,” it’s best if outside the team

4) whole group discussion/links to brain research

a.  find out what others talked about, elicit ideas, tie in research

5)  personal applications & goal-setting

a.  participants decide which strategies they’ll personally commit to using

#2 DEDUCTIVE – general to specific… “why, what, how, if”

1)  pre-exposure to the topic

a.  mention what we’ll be doing & why…days, hours and minutes ahead of time

2)  relevancy–use pers. experiences 1st, professional 2nd

a.  “How many of you have had this happen to you…..?”

3)  links to brain research–the science side is presented a.  Give names, locations, history, books, results

4)  participants generate applications of the research

a.  best done within the context of the team (can also form temporary group)

5)  sharing (with partners, jigsaw or group discussion)

a.  whatever grouping you used, now regroup for fresh, different ideas

6)  personal decision–create & share “next step”

a.  participant narrow options and choose the most viable ones, then share them

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