Expert Skills Program at Texas Tech
Neurobiology of Learning Study Guide
For TTUHSC SOM Students
by John Pelley, PhD
What To Expect
As with the SuccessTypes study guide, this study guide is designed to save you time and reduce
the guesswork in knowing what you should be learning. The overall approach is, likewise, short
answer questions that direct your attention to look for and listen for something in the video,
giving you certainty that you are getting the same message as everyone else.
Instructions for Completion of Self-Study


If you record your answers in the study guide, it will produce better learning.
- Please note that many questions do not ask for straight-forward answers. You will
need to read for interpretation.
- If this is initially uncomfortable for you, try to persist until you learn why this method
is important.
The guide will approximate the order of the slides and it’s OK if you want to add information
to your answers from other sources like the Deliberate Practice Primer or the SuccessTypes
book.
Slides 2-7
1. Why is it important to know how the brain works?
2. What do people with the Growth Mindset believe about their intelligence?
3. What do people with the Fixed Mindset believe about their intelligence?
4. Why do people with the Fixed Mindset fear failure? Do they trust their learning more than
the exam?
5. Why don’t people with the Growth Mindset fear failure? What is their attitude toward
learning? Do they trust their learning more than the exam?
6. Is mindset a permanent part of your personality? Why?
Slides 8-9
1. Why isn’t the statement “practice makes perfect” always true?
2. What specific type of practice produces experts? Does intelligence correlate with expert
performance?
3/6/2012
3. What type of practice is used by people with the Growth Mindset?
4. How does the Growth Mindset keep our behavior from becoming automated?
5. Why is self-awareness required to use Deliberate Practice?
6. What happens to your limitations as you use Deliberate Practice?
7. Who provides feedback during Deliberate Practice? When does the physician become their
own teacher?
8. Why isn’t Deliberate Practice fun? What is self-actualization and why is it a motivator for
Deliberate Practice?
9. What causes behavior, or the use of a skill, to become automated?
Slides 10-13
1. What is the function of the thalamus in sensory input?
2. What is a high gain thalamus?
3. What Myers-Briggs personality type has a high gain thalamus?
4. How do people with a low gain thalamus behave?
5. What type of evoked response does a high gain thalamus have?
6. Which type of thalamus needs to “talk it out” to do their best thinking?
7. How, in general, can Deliberate Practice be applied to learning skills?
8. Describe how an extravert can develop coping skills.
Slides 14-16
1. Is personality psychological or physiological? Why would personality type be considered a
starting point? For what?
2. Which brain skills are needed to maximize learning?
3. What makes the Myers-Briggs description of personality type unique among personality
measures in understanding brain function during learning?
3/6/2012
4. Why do some personality types excel on some performance measures and not on others? Is
one personality type smarter than the others?
5. When each personality type is compared against standardized test scores and/or GPA, how do
they compare?
Slides 17-19
1. What is a mental model?
2. Does the MBTI measure abnormal behavior? Is there a dumb personality type?
3. Does a personality type change over time?
4. How is personality type like a comfort zone? How can you demonstrate this by folding your
arms?
5. Why does thinking in your opposite preference takes so much energy?
6. List all four dimensions of MBTI personality type.
Slides 20-23
1. Why do sensing types give most of their attention to details and specifics when learning new
material? How do intuitive types view this type of information?
2. How do intuitive types know if their big picture is correct? Can intuitive types create more
than one big picture?
3. Can sensing types be taught to learn by forming big pictures from concepts? How would they
do this and why would it help them?
4. How would intuitive types develop their ability to remember details? Why would they want
to?
5. How do sensing types generally perform on standardized tests compared to intuitive types?
How do judging types compare to perceptive types in achieving a high GPA?
6. How does higher order thinking compare to memorization? What does memorization entail?
Which type prefers HOTS?
7. Which type prefers to read in linear fashion without skipping around? What does skipping
around accomplish?
Slide 24
3/6/2012
1. How do thinking types use new information to make decisions? Feeling types?
2. Are feeling types irrational because they use subjectivity in their judgments and decision
making?
3. Do thinking types have feelings?
Slide 25
1. What does the “joy of closure” mean? Which type prefers it?
2. What does the “joy of discovery” mean? Which type prefers it?
3. Which type show up early for scheduled events?
4. Which type prefers to keep their options open?
Slides 26-27
1. What do extraverts bring to a group that is trying to discuss a problem? How can extraverts
develop their introverting skills in a group?
2. What do introverts bring to a group that is trying to discuss a problem? How can introverts
develop their extraverting skills in a group?
3. What do sensing types bring to a group that is trying to discuss a problem? How can they
apply Deliberate Practice to develop their intuitive skills?
4. What do intuitive types bring to a group that is trying to discuss a problem? What do the
sensing types provide that helps the intuitives apply Deliberate Practice to their learning skills?
5. What do thinking types bring to a group that is trying to discuss a problem? What group skill
do they most need to develop?
6. What do feeling types bring to a group that is trying to discuss a problem? What is the
Deliberate Practice challenge for feeling types?
7. What do judging types bring to a group that is trying to discuss a problem? What do they
have to pay attention to in reaching a consensus?
8. What do perceiving types bring to a group that is trying to discuss a problem? How do they
contribute to reaching a consensus?
Slides 28-32
1. What is the Experiential Learning Cycle?
3/6/2012
2. List the four steps in the Experiential Learning Cycle in order of their use.
3. Describe what happens in each step of the ELC?
4. Which parts of the cycle correspond to the learning approach, “what, so what, and now
what?”
5. What happens if you don’t act on a decision?
6. At what stage of the ELC is Deliberate Practice applied?
7. What are examples of sensory input during learning? How do we make sense of sensory
input?
8. How do we try to find meaning in what we experience? What kind of questions do we ask?
9. Why should you always be making a decision during your learning?
10. Which part of the brain organizes concrete experience?
11. Which part of the brain searches our long term memory to try to recognize what we
perceive?
12. Which part of our brain tries to make meaning out of what we see by making predictions
about it? Why is it important to create alternative possibilities?
13. Which part of the brain makes logical decisions about our predictions? Which part of our
brain is involved in our feelings about our predictions?
14. How do we find out if our predictions about new information are correct?
15. What does it mean that we think “back to the future?”
16. Compare what the temporal lobe processes and what the pre-frontal area processes. Which
one is used the most during premedical education?
17. Which MBTI type emphasizes the use of the temporal lobes? The pre-frontal lobes?
Slides 33-38
1. What is consolidation? Why is it needed? What determines “processing power” in the brain?
2. What does “long-term potentiation” mean? How is sleep involved in developing LTP
neurons?
3/6/2012
3. What is a dendritic tree? What happens to it during long-term potentiation? Does dendritic
growth only apply to long-term memory?
4. How is the hippocampus involved in long term memory? When is the hippocampus active in
consolidation?
5. Why is the brain designed to forget?
6. What is required to overcome forgetting? How is protein kinase A involved?
7. What happens to protein kinase A if the neuron continues to use the information it is trying to
learn?
8. What is the illusion of memory? What causes it?
9. What happens if you block protein synthesis in the neuron that is trying to “learn” something?
10. What types of proteins are made when a neuron remembers?
11. How does acting on a decision affect the growth of dendrites? Long term potentiation?
What are some examples of “acting on a decision?”
12. Which part of the brain is bypassed with sitting and reading and with reading and reciting?
13. If increased factual recall is a measure of dendritic growth in the temporal cortex, how do
you measure dendritic growth in the frontal cortex?
Slide 39
1. How is a fact represented in a concept map?
2. What do branch points represent?
3. What do cross-links in a concept map link together? What do they represent?
4. The maps of seizures used in the slides are drawn “top-down” while the maps of the rotator
cuff are drawn “center-out.” Which one tends to be preferred by sensing types and which one
tends to be preferred by intuitive types? Which type of map is best?
5. What does it mean that concept maps are living documents?
6. What problem is created if a concept map doesn’t include everything in a reading
assignment?
7. How could a concept map serve as study notes for an exam? Are there any advantages over
the course notes? Disadvantages?
3/6/2012
8. Is it useful to study someone else’s concept map instead of drawing your own?
9. How does a concept map affect your reading?
Slide 40
1. What types of learning do multiple choice questions test?
2. Why are the wrong answer choices called rational alternatives?
3. How should you study the answer choices for a multiple choice question?
4. How does it help you to analyze questions by this method?
5. How does question analysis help you test the effectiveness of your concept maps?
Slide 41
1. What affects the flow of information through the cortex of the brain?
2. What physical change in the brain underlies long term memory?
3. What two types of brain function does experiential learning develop?
4. How do concept mapping and question analysis foster Deliberate Practice? The Growth
Mindset?
3/6/2012