Great Minds on Learning

Is the mind flatter than we thought? This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the ‘Performance Journey Goes Dutch’ conference in Ermelo, The Netherlands, organised by Xpertise Learning. Donald and John explore a group of theorists who are giving us a new picture of how we think and learn that is distinctively different from what came before. They’re the Connectionists, and they see the brain as flatter than was previously thought, constantly trying to predict what will happen next, and to improvise a response. But what are the implications for learning of this New Psychology? 00:00 - Intro 00:58 - Introducing The Connectionists 11:15 - Daniel Dennett (1942 - 2024) 19:15 - Geoffrey Hinton (1947–) 24:38 - Nick Chater (1965–) 35:17 - Karl Friston (1959–) 39:19 - Joshua Brett Tenenbaum (1972–) 43:49 - Andy Clark (1957–) 46:54 - Summing Up The Blog that started it all: https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer X: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: https://learninghackpodcast.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LearningHack/

Second of a two-part series on the invention of writing and the impact of literacy on learning. Last time, Donald and John discussed how writing was invented in the ancient world. This time the focus moves to the 20th Century, and thinkers such as Walter Ong and Eric Havelock who revived interest in the pre-literate world of oral culture. Their work raised themes that were to become ever more resonant with the rise of the internet and AI. 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:56 - Introducing Literacy & Orality 00:09:15 - Walter J. Ong (1912-2023) 00:22:44 - Eric Alfred Havelock (1903-1988) 00:33:08 - Jack Goody (1919–2015) & Ian Watt (1917–1999) 00:42:10 - Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) 00:59:04 - Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) 01:13:14 - Clay Shirky (1964–) 01:27:39 - Summing up   The Blog that started it all:  https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer X: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: https://learninghackpodcast.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LearningHack/

First of a two-part series on the invention of writing and the impact of literacy on learning. Our ability to learn from written texts is something we take for granted. But like every other technology that humans use, writing had to be invented. Notational signs used next to images of animals are seen in cave paintings from as early as 35,000 BCE. Actual writing is first recorded in Uruk (modern day Iraq), at the end of the 4th millennium BCE, but seems to have been independently invented in at least three other places; Egypt, China and Mesoamerica. It proved a pivotal moment in human history, marking the transition from prehistory to the historical record. In the centuries that followed, writing was to become central to learning. But the earliest uses to which it was put might be very different to what you would expect.   00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:06 - Introducing Scribes: The Invention of Writing 00:08:11 - Sumerians & Babylonians 00:23:09 - Egyptians 00:33:27 - Three Egyptian Scribes 00:51:39 - Chinese 01:01:18 - Summing up   The Blog that started it all: https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/   Contact John Helmer X: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: https://learninghackpodcast.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LearningHack/

Theories and critiques of leadership learning: the attribution problem and its consequences. This episode, the first of a new season, our sixth, focuses on leadership. Leadership, thought since ancient times to be critical to the destiny of nations, has long been a feature of military training and elite education. But its arrival as a staple of workplace training was relatively recent. Donald and John explore the work of the thinkers who, from the middle of the Twentieth Century onwards, developed theories and critiques of leadership learning.   00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:56 - Introducing Leadership 00:09:26 - James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014) 00:17:09 - Peter Drucker (1909-2005) 00:25:58 - Paul Hersey (1931-2012) & Ken Blanchard 00:36:19 - John Paul Kotter (1947–) 00:49:00 - Henry Mintzberg (1939–) 00:54:28 - Barbara Kellerman 01:10:07 - Jeffrey Pfeffer (1946–) 01:19:38 - Summing up   The Blog that started it all:  https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com Contact John Helmer X: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: https://learninghackpodcast.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LearningHack/

John and Donald preview the upcoming season of Great Mind on Learning. The sixth season of Great Minds on Learning begins on Monday 15th April 2024. Ahead of the first episode, John and Donald preview the treats in store! The Blog that started it all: https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer X: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: https://learninghackpodcast.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LearningHack/

Guest Donald Clark discusses the transformative potential of generative AI in learning, emphasizing its accessibility and benefits. The conversation explores the roots of AI in brain science and learning theory, the importance of dialogue and language, and the role of AI models like Chat GPT in education. The podcast delves into engagement, personalization, self-determination theory, Bloom and Mayer's contributions, and AI's impact on transformative learning experiences.

We don't need no education?  This episode explores the transformative ideas of three influential late 20th-century educational theorists. Each began with a flourishing career in teaching but ultimately left the classroom behind, driven by a growing disenchantment with the educational system. Their collective experiences culminated in an incisive critique of conventional schooling, sparking calls in some quarters for comprehensive educational reform. But compelling as their arguments were, did they achieve any enduring impact on the landscape of education? 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:02 - Introducing Critics of Schools 00:09:09 - Ivan Illich (1926-2002) 00:28:47 - John Taylor Gatto (1935-2018) 00:42:59 - John Holt (1923-1985) 01:00:08 - Summing up The Blog that started it all: https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Illich bit.ly/2yacZKs Gatto bit.ly/34zStPx Holt bit.ly/3zzkHrp Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer X: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: https://learninghackpodcast.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LearningHack/

The pioneers of alternative education systems. This episode covers a group of 20th Century thinkers and educationalists in both Northern and Southern hemispheres who developed a variety of alternative visions for schools. Inspired by enlightenment figures like Rousseau, and the German Idealists who came after them, they nevertheless reacted against the strict and regimented so-called ‘Prussian’ system of education that had become the mainstream. They incorporated ideas from the burgeoning field of psychology, and also, in the case of Rudolph Steiner, a strong element of mysticism. 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:56 - Introducing Schools 00:11:30 - Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) 00:28:48 - Maria Montessori (1870-1952) 00:47:08 - Alexander Sutherland Neill (1883 – 1973) 01:00:50 - Vicky Colbert (1948/9 –) 01:13:44 - Martin Burt (1957 –) 01:20:39 - Summing up  The Blog that started it all: https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Montessori bit.ly/38s6CiM Steiner bit.ly/2uMqkaj Neill bit.ly/2SSEv5A Colbert bit.ly/2wgY4wO Burt bit.ly/39FAHLU Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Contact John Helmer X: @johnhelmer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer/ Website: https://learninghackpodcast.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LearningHack/

Marxism and education. This episode examines the impact on learning of a thinker, Karl Marx, who had a revolutionary effect on the world in general. In the name of Marx and his collaborator Engels, politicians of the 20th Century created regimes that were utopian in some cases, highly repressive and even murderous in others. Meanwhile, the heirs to Marx’s intellectual tradition fleshed out Marxism as a rich and powerful explanatory system. And though controversial to this day, Marxist thought has had an enduring effect on learning and education. 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:57 - Introducing The Marxists 00:05:28 - Karl Marx (1818-1883) 00:18:16 - Antonio Francesco Gramsci (1891-1937) 00:27:14 - Louis Pierre Althusser (1918-1990) 00:47:00 - Jürgen Habermas (1929 - ) 01:00:02 - Paulo Regius Neves Freire (1921-97) 01:09:38 - Summing up The Blog that started it all: https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Marx bit.ly/315AxKF Gramsci bit.ly/2REFkj6 Althusser bit.ly/2UihsUe Habermas bit.ly/46TpxAS Freire bit.ly/496gQF1 Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-clark-04553022/ Blog: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/

THE FULL EPISODE DROPS ON 30/10/23 To listen now, subscribe to the Learning Hack Pack on Patreon. As well as early access, you'll get Text summaries AI transcripts Ads-free listening and more https://www.patreon.com/posts/gmols5e27-with-91570118 Marxism and education. This episode examines the impact on learning of a thinker, Karl Marx, who had a revolutionary effect on the world in general. In the name of Marx and his collaborator Engels, politicians of the 20th Century created regimes that were utopian in some cases, highly repressive and even murderous in others. Meanwhile, the heirs to Marx’s intellectual tradition fleshed out Marxism as a rich and powerful explanatory system. And though controversial to this day, Marxist thought has had an enduring effect on learning and education.