Ever wonder why some things stick – like the topic of your last blog post – while other facts fade faster, such as names, details or directions for an IT fix?
Steve Job’s Typical Synapses
Your brain’s hundred thousand miles of network fibers comes equipped to expand and benefit from learning at its synapses. So why does genius rarely happen at the peaks like it did for Steve Jobs?
Top-shelf-learning occurs when the brain synapses. When it fires new connections and integrates new facts with familiar ideas. When you link what you already know or use with what you expect to learn.
Google Reader Application
Think of it this way. Recently I was trying to add Google Reader to my Word Press blog. My brain needed to form an association between a complex visual image of this icon at my blog and its roots in widgets and pluggins foreign to my skills. I needed to program different groups of neurons across both sides of the brain to integrate with what I already know about this process.
Doodads – Pluggins – Perplexity
Every time I add a new widget or pluggin to my blog, I hold my breath that related neurons for this task will fire simultaneously. That electrical circuitry strengthens new neuron pathways to help me upgrade my blog with Google Reader directions I read on the Internet.
Learning, is the brains way of expanding its capacity and changing its very structure. Dendrite spines grow as protrusions onto synapses, in your motor cortex – the region that allows you to plan and execute new skills. This rewiring of the brain builds the strongest case for active engagement is so critical.
Increase synapse’s strengths and learning increases as:
1). Emotional connection fortifies the link between neurons. For example you learn more if you design an innovation – such as my Google Reader extension that allows further interactions with people at my blog. Learning integrates rational and emotional brainpower. It’s similar to the brain’s ability to integrate and store emotional and reasoned responses in its amygdala.
2). Curiosity cultivation creates a robust opportunity for learning fueled by passion. When you question with two feet, by asking What if…? or Where to from here…? you draw wonder from diverse insights, and you build new neuron pathways across both sides of the brain. In so doing, your setting generates further curiosity for innovative improvements, and less tolerance for tired traditions generated for a past era.
3). Motivation’s interplay between effort, talent and progress through change that reboots brainpower. New IT concepts all seem daunting at first, so that overwhelming sense can easily slip in and shut down growth opportunities – with cortisol. If I can locate doable tasks, simply stated in one-step-at-a-time- approaches, I can create solutions while enjoying the process. . Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwartz found people become more willing to follow and apply instructions tasks broken down into simple steps. Have you noticed that too?
4). Visualization’s images that open additional dimensions into advance learning. I’d like to develop and use my spatial intelligence to improve the blog’s outward appearance as much as make it a more functional platform, by the way it positions user-friendly tools.
5). Hooked links from what you know to what you hope to learn strengthen neuron pathways to new skills. My two-bit facts about Google Reader, Word Press pluggins and Word Press widgets still await a learning synapse opportunity when readable directions come along. Soon after I locate a simply stated and complete set of directions – I plan to Google Reader to this WP blog!
Excited that my brain will run at that time – to create yet another new neuron pathway toward technology’s use. In the meantime, my chemical and electrical circuitry stand fully charged – ready to bolt out of the gates. When directions appear I plan to pack the best horse to race my blog into a new win. Have you seen it happen?
Human brains come equipped to latch and link what you already know and do to new opportunities that come from apply new discoveries.
Rather than engage in blame games or vent about confusing IT directions, it’s far better to focus on hooking talents onto IT tools. Rejuvenate your trouble spots and increase synapse strengths while your brain grows multiple intelligences through use.
Seem like a logical choice for tackling your next technology problem? Still searching for directions that will fly this Google Reader baby out of the gates with breakneck speed. You?
YOUR TURN! Join our Brain Based Circles! Would love to meet you at any of the following!
Brain Leaders and Learners Blog
Mita Brain Center Facebook
efweber on Pinterest
@ellenfweber on Twitter
ellenfweber on Instagram
Ellen Weber on Google+
Ellen Weber on LinkedIn
Created by Ellen Weber, Brain Based Tasks for Growth Mindset
What a positive way to reframe the frustration of troublesome technology.
Thanks for adding to my knowledge base, enabling me to apply better “mechanics” to that domain that involves the workings of my website, blogs and photo editors.