Brain Matters Newsletter - Vol. 2, No. 21 - July 22, 2016 
Are you voting with your lizard brain?
Are you voting with your lizard brain_
With a national election getting closer and closer, I find myself thinking about our political system and the increasingly divisive tone of policy debate today. As I recall, there was a time when Americans could have different political views and still enjoy a cordial, even friendly relationship. Sadly, even our elected representatives seem to be increasingly incapable of being civil to each other, setting a poor example for the rest of us.
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Proud to be a Certified ATD Education Facilitator Proud to be a Certified ATD Education Facilitator

I've just received my ATD Education Facilitator, in recognition of my performance delivering the popular Essentials of Brain-Based Learning online certificate. In order to earn this recognition, I had to complete 12 hours of facilitator training and achieve a high feedback score from the students in my Essentials class.
 
Click here for more information. 
Featured Infographic
The Neuroscience of Learning Engagement
 
This infographic supports many of the best practices I cover in my Neuroscience of Instructional Design workshop. Notice the fun and engaging images, a pleasing color scheme and ample references at the bottom of the document. Nice job!

 The Neuroscience of Learner Engagement
Informal Learning_ Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance

Buy it now!
What's on Margie's Bookshelf
Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance
by Jay Cross

Why I like it
The late Jay Cross was one of the first learning experts to recognize the value of informal learning in our digital world. This book offers advice on how to support, nurture, and leverage informal learning and provides practical tips for maximizing the learning that happens outside of the classroom every single day.

See all the books on Margie's Bookshelf! 
Thanks to the ATD San Diego Chapter for a Great Workshop!

Thanks to the ATD San Diego Chapter for a Great Workshop_

On July 19, I had the privilege of speaking before a group of passionate learning professionals in San Diego, California. The workshop drew more attendees than any previous event and underscores the great interest in practical application of brain science and learning. My hosts were delightful and I learned as much from the folks in my class as I hope they did from me. Most attendees received a discount because they are ATD members. If you're not a member of ATD at the national and local level, I strongly urge you to look into it and invest in your own development as a learning professional. Read more...
Bring a Brain-Aware Workshop to Your Team!
The members of the San Diego ATD Chapter had this to say about their learning experience:


Past Event _ Using Neuroscience to Enhance your Instructional Design

"I want to thank you again for the workshop you provided to us yesterday.I found the information very interesting and helpful."

 

"Loved your T/F statements at the start of class.  Good way to draw us in and engage us."

 

"Some content was new to me, like the plasticity concept and others were a refresher like the Forgetting Curve and Gagne's 9 Events (but so helpful to bring to top of mind)."

 

"Thanks so much for all you did."

 

"Great to meet you yesterday. I'm going to: 
  • Start: Sharing the value of mirror neurons.
  • Stop: Considering repetition a bore.
  • Continue: Valuing emotions as a tool for learning."

"It was a very productive workshop for our members. BRAVO!!!

 

Upcoming Events
Essentials of Brain-Based Learning


If you could understand what was happening in the brains of your target audience, would you be a more effective trainer, designer, consultant, or leader?

Thanks to recent advances in neuroscience, learning and talent development professionals now have an opportunity to alter their approaches to change management, leadership development, training, and instructional design.

Learn how the brain receives, encodes, and retrieves information to construct knowledge, and use these insights to improve your learning programs.

Visit the ATD site for full details.

 

Register here!

In order to build a smarter organization you need to start with smarter brains. The pace of change today demands that your team become nimble, ready to respond to new threats and capitalize on new opportunities with utmost speed and mental agility. However, the human brain evolved over centuries to keep us alive, so it is still responding to our current work environment as though we are hunting for food - and trying to avoid being hunted - on a daily basis. Within this framework we can train the brain to learn new skills, process information in new ways and develop a mindset that is open to new possibilities. We have only recently begun to understand the inner workings of the brain, thanks to neuroscience. Sadly, most of what is written on the subject is either too theoretical to be practical or so over-hyped as to be meaningless.

In this workshop, you will learn how to leverage the survival imperative to boost employee engagement, enhance performance and accelerate learning by speaking to the brain in its own language. You will come away with specific actions you can take right away to make your organization "smarter" - in ways that will get you ready for the challenges ahead. The tools and templates provided in the workshop will give you a head start to mapping out the transformation of your team into a smarter, continuously learning organization, one brain at a time.