Pooja Agarwal, an expert in cognitive science and founder of RetrievalPractice.org, shares valuable insights on enhancing teaching effectiveness. She emphasizes the importance of retrieval over mere information encoding, highlighting strategies that lead to long-term retention. Pooja challenges the myth of learning styles, advocating for varied teaching methods. She also discusses the significance of creating a supportive learning environment that embraces mistakes as growth opportunities. Her research-backed advice is essential for leaders aiming to develop talent more successfully.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Leaders as Teachers
Leaders must develop others' skills, acting as teachers.
Invest in training for effective teaching strategies.
insights INSIGHT
Three Stages of Learning
Learning involves encoding, storage, and retrieval stages.
Retrieval, the act of recalling information, is crucial but often neglected.
question_answer ANECDOTE
The Coffee Shop
Pooja Agarwal forgot a coffee shop's name despite encoding it.
This highlights the importance of retrieval in learning.
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Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
Michael Bungay Stanier
In 'The Coaching Habit,' Michael Bungay Stanier provides a straightforward and effective approach to coaching. Drawing on his extensive experience training managers worldwide, he introduces seven essential coaching questions designed to help managers unlock their team's potential. These questions include the Kickstart Question, the AWE Question, the Lazy Question, the Strategic Question, the Focus Question, the Foundation Question, and the Learning Question. The book emphasizes the importance of saying less and asking more, fostering a collaborative and empowering work environment. It combines practical advice with research in neuroscience and behavioral economics, making coaching a daily, informal part of managerial work rather than a formal event.
Turn The Ship Around!
L. David Marquet
In 'Turn the Ship Around!', Captain L. David Marquet recounts his experience as the commander of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine. Initially trained in the traditional 'know all–tell all' leadership model, Marquet faced significant challenges when he took command of the Santa Fe, which was then one of the worst-performing submarines in the fleet. He realized that the traditional leader-follower approach was ineffective and decided to implement a leader-leader model, where every crew member was empowered to take responsibility and make decisions. This approach led to a dramatic improvement in morale, performance, and retention, transforming the Santa Fe into one of the best submarines in the fleet. The book provides practical insights and strategies for implementing this leadership model in various organizational settings.
Powerful Teaching
Pooja Agarwal
Patrice Bain
Pooja Agarwal: Powerful Teaching
Pooja Agarwal is an expert in the field of cognitive science and is passionate about bridging gaps between education and the science of learning. She is the founder of RetrievalPractice.org and Assistant Professor at the Berklee College of Music, teaching psychological science to exceptional undergraduate musicians.
She also serves as a consultant and facilitates professional development workshops on the science of learning around the world. Pooja is the author with Patrice Bain of the book Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning*.
In this conversation, Pooja and I discuss the key strategies that leaders can use in order to maximize their effectiveness as teachers. Since almost every leader is responsible for talent development in some capacity, becoming a more powerful teacher will help you develop others more successfully.
Key Points
The three stages of the learning process are encoding, storage, and retrieval. We tend to focus too much on getting information into peoples’ heads (encoding) and not enough on getting it out (retrieval).
Stop reviewing past discussions and meetings. Instead, invite people to recall and articulate prior interactions.
Cramming works, but only in the short-term. For long-term retention, spacing is much more effective.
There is no significant evidence that visual, auditory, and kinetic preferences correlate to actual learning. Instead, effective learning combines all these methods.
Bonus Audio
Why struggling is a good thing for learning
Resources Mentioned
RetrievalPractice.org
PowerfulTeaching.org
Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning*
Are You a Visual or an Auditory Learner? It Doesn’t Matter
Book Notes
Download my highlights from Powerful Teaching in PDF format (free membership required).
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The Best Way to Do On-the-Job Training (episode 32)
These Coaching Questions Get Results, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 237)
Essentials of Adult Development, with Mindy Danna (episode 273)
Develop Leaders Before You Leave, with David Marquet (episode 405)
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