Total Pageviews

Friday 8 June 2012

Guest Blog: Senior Learning: The Importance of Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

Senior Learning: The Importance of Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks




 New research links later-life education to improved intelligence and mental health. Image via US Army Africa



In 1905, Sir William Osler, the most highly regarded physician of his time and the ‘father of modern medicine’, declared that all of the best work of the world is done between the ages of 25 and 40 and that over the age of 40, men are rendered ‘useless’, with no real further benefit to society.

And, well, if a leading doctor says it then it must be true, right?

At least, that was the general consensus and for the next century or so most people accepted his beliefs as fact. Leading neurologists were convinced that our brain cells gradually die off throughout our lifetimes, without being replaced, and psychologists proclaimed that the ability to learn new things decreased as we aged.

Then something strange started to happen. Medicines continued to improve, people began to live for longer and longer, and suddenly doctors started noticing a flood of people well past retirement age who were mentally just as capable as their twenty year old counterparts.

 If what Sir William Osler has said was true, then how was this possible?

Recently, researchers have discovered something amazing – that learning quite literally keeps the brain active, prolonging memory, health and, yes, even life. [1]

Think of your brain as a muscle that needs regular exercise. Don’t use it, and it will slowly waste away, but even if it has been neglected for some time once you start to use it again it will gradually recover and become strong.




Join a class or take up a new hobby to keep your brain active and to meet new friends too! Image via Blackpit Shooting


 So it’s no excuse to say it’s too late in life to go back to education, or to learn a new skill. Research has proven that taking a college degree after middle age slows the brain’s ageing process down by as much as a decade.

When I studied my degree in my early twenties, I was sitting alongside students in their fifties, and one woman on a different course was even into her seventies, so perhaps now that the children have flown the nest and you have more free time on your hands it’s time to do that Art History degree you always dreamed of in your teens!

It’s not just intelligence that education in later life can help with – dementia is a serious illness that affects many older people, but new research has shown that education has the amazing ability of delaying the onset of dementia, even if you have a genetic predisposition. [2] [3]

Learning also has other non-medical but equally-important benefits. Giving the older generation the chance to learn new skills and to develop new hobbies is giving them the chance to keep on enjoying life, reducing the risk of depression.

 Plus, by running classes or groups for senior citizens, retirement homes and town halls give them a chance to expand their social network – it’s never too late to make new friends, after all!

Perhaps if Sir William Osler was here now he’d be horrified to find that our retirement age is well past sixty – more likely however, he’d be enjoying a spot of painting with the other retirees at his local adult learning centre!

 Author Bio:
Estelle Page writes for Optegra, eyecare specialists who offer cataract surgery to help improve your vision, so you can enjoy those activities you used to love again such as reading and painting!

References:
[1] A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond (2012) Patricia Cohen
[2] Low education is a genuine risk factor for accelerated memory decline and dementia. (1997) Ben Schmand, Jan Smit, Jaap Lindeboom, Carolien Smits, Chris Hooijer, Cees Jonker and Betto Deelman.
[3] Frequent Cognitive Activity Compensates for Education Differences in Episodic Memory (2011) Margie E. Lachman, Ph.D, Stefan Agrigoroaei, Ph.D , Chandra Murphy, B.A. and Patricia A. Tun, Ph.D.

Sunday 3 June 2012

Content is king, but remember it is all in the delivery!


So today, I wanted to finally start cracking on my review of some of the research, hints and tips on teaching and in particular, teaching seniors. Why is this important?  They are our clients and the more we can adapt our teaching styles to suit them the better and lets face it, there is no point re-inventing the wheel after all, if someone else has already done the research lets see if we can build from there. Furthermore, we have to remember that while we are educators, we are providing education for people who are learning for the simple pleasure of learning. Thus, unlike students in high school who are forced there or University students in awe of all the degrees after your name, our clients are exceptionally discerning and rightly demand a very high quality of teaching from our facilitators.
So, I have spent the last couple of months compiling a lot of the research that has been done in this field and hopefully over the next couple of blog entries I will be able to dissimilate this into a working form that can assist myself and Hale & Fun’s growing community of facilitators in better providing educational opportunities for the seniors in our society.
To get the ball rolling the first aspect I would like to discuss is the presentation material, in particular the Presentation material. Power point (and similar programs) are amazing teaching tools and allow us to develop very visual orientated programs. However, their simplicity belies a number of potential pitfalls that a person can fall into, particularly when preparing presentations for the more mature audience. Make no mistake, badly designed slides can distract or worse, irritate the audience.
The first and foremost is content. As the saying goes, Content is king (or Queen or democratically elected leader), but what to include? This really comes to the crux of the matter. You could be forgiven to think, if content is the leader, then logically the more material the better. After all, the audience does want to get their money worth right?
Wrong- Dead Wrong.
The rule of thumb is be concise with your text. The important thing when putting together a presentation is to remember that the actual material up on the screen is meant to be an “aid”.  A very important aid that is true but still only an aid. Many people make the mistake of including pretty much every possible aspect of their class on each slide. Ask yourself this “Do you really want the audience to be sitting there reading what is up on the screen or listening to what you have to say?” and make no mistake, people will read it, it is an instinctive thing, no matter how loud, excited or creative you try to be- if there is a page of words on the screen behind you they will try to read it. I personally like to limit the material I put on the screen to the bare minimum. Use it like a scaffolding- 4 or 5 key points at the most, with maybe 6-7 words in each. Then build up from there using the handouts and your own wonderful personality and speech.  Content is the entire package, the presentation, the handouts, your knowledge and your presentation. The material you cover should be spread throughout all these aspects not just up on the screen.
This does bring another important point about presentations, waay back when I was but a young lad eager to learn the skills of teaching there was this great theory about the cognitive load limits that students are under when learning. Bare with me because I will in no way do justice in my description to this field of research, but fear not, I will be coming back to this topic in a later blog. The main aspect of it was that students have a cognitive limit to how much they can “absorb”. Fair enough, however, the trick for a teacher or facilitator is to maximise this. Now this is important when deciding what should be put on the screen behind you because the last thing you want to do is waste some of this cognitive skill on repeating what is being said in written form as well.  
Which brings us to the second point. The Font. Some important rules are: Use large font size – minimum of 18 or 24 points screen (Although I have been known to ignore this suggestion, however you should consider the size of the audience, the screen on which the presentation is going and how long you will be staying on each slide to decided on how big the font should be). But the important thing is Make it big. Cant fit it all on a single screen, then either cut down how much you have put on or use more than one slide.

In addition,  limit use of boldface, italics, and underlining; Don’t write in all upper case letters; Use common fonts (Times New Roman, Arial, etc,) and no more than two fonts on a screen. These may look  good to you but to the audience they can just be annoying and confusing. In the same way, limit your use of animation and special effects. Once again, it comes back to the idea of whether you want the audience to be looking at you or the screen. Having said that, my main reason for not getting too arty with all of the fonts, special effects etc is because they  just increase the likelihood of something going screwy..and spending the first five minutes of a presentation trying to figure out why the hell all your slides are now in Wingdin really doesn’t convey a sense of professionalism to those watching you.

Having said that- I do really like having video clips, particularly for courses such as animal behaviour where it is really benefit to actually let people see the things being described. All the tools available have their place just remember to not get arty for the sake of arty!


Now what colours to use. Colour is an exceptionally strong influence in the observer. The colours you use can help to convey important meanings and influences the attitudes of the people you are addressing. So it is important to get it right. Now, there is whole fields of vision research on colour perception, on what is best and what works well. In fact and rather surprisingly, Microsoft has an impressively understandable short information sheet on it-have a look if you want to be that person at the party..yeah you know who I am talking about  (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/choose-the-right-colors-for-your-powerpoint-presentation-HA001012072.aspx). http://www.slideshare.net/gdimock/color-theory-power-point-presentation also gives some interesting overview of the whole history of colour theory and aspects of the study.
Now one of the key things to remember (And boy has this happened to me a few times) how something looks on the computer screen may not be the same as how it looks once projected up on the big screen, if possible it is a good idea to test out before hand for this very reason. Nothing makes you lose impact than having a graph that appeared perfectly comprehensible on the computer show up as a solid brown block in front of all your professional colleagues….
But that isn’t always possible- so here are some combinations that do in general work: green on purple, white on black, violet on yellow, blue-green on red. Which is all well and good but to be honest, I personally stick with the tried and true Black or dark Blue. Comes out well on almost any background, is dark enough to be seen even in reasonable light and saves a lot of mucking around (green on purple is just wrong, I don’t care if it works it is just wrong). But it does obviously rely on the background. In this regard remember that patterned backgrounds can make it difficult to read some of the text, particularly if it is really complicated patterns. Personally, I like to stick with the simple coloured ones- maybe a very subtle line pattern or something. Remember the purpose is for the screen to have information, not to be a form of contemporary art.

So to summarise, the first of Daniels Golden rules:
1.       Be concise- don’t not include everything in the presentation written up on the screen
2.       Make it big- particularly, for mature audiences smaller fonts are just annoying
3.       Don’t mess around too much with fonts, special effects and so forth. Remember you are meant to be the focus of the course, not what is on the screen!
4.       Colours- keep it simple but make sure that you have the right contrast combination so that the writing shows up. When in doubt, stick with the classics such as black or dark blue. It is always better for the writing to be seen than for it to look pretty.

For more excellent and easy to read advice- check out http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-tips-for-preparing-a-professional-presentation/
Till next time,
Cheers
Daniel