AFACCT
January 13, 2006
Kim Donnelly
kimdon@csmd.edu
Reenergizing a Course
Using the Natural Human Learning Process
Rita Smilkstein’s book We’re Born to Learn proposes an instructional method, the
Natural Human Learning Process (NHLP), to make use of students’ natural ability to
learn. She researches how people learn skills they want to learn outside of school
and summarizes current brain research about learning. Her process can be applied
to any discipline, and she focuses on helping students want to learn. More
information about the book and her work is at http://www.borntolearn.net/.
Smilkstein’s Research Activity
Adapted from We’re Born to Learn pages 33-38
Day One
(approx. 30- 40 minutes)
1. SAY: We are going to think about how people learn.
Individual Work
2. SAY: Think of one thing you’re good at that you learned to do outside
school. It could be a sport, a hobby, an art, a people skill, something around
the house. It could be something you used to do or you do now. It could be
anything. I know that everybody’s good at something, so if you can’t think of
anything, raise your hand and I’ll come over and help you.
3. ASSIST: Everyone must have something in order to participate in the
next part!
4. SAY: Think back to before you knew how to do it. Write down how you
started learning it and then how you got from not knowing how to do it to
being good at it. These aren’t to hand in. They’re just notes to help you
remember.
5. ASSIST: If some finish faster, tell them to go back and see if there
is anything they can add.
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AFACCT
January 13, 2006
Kim Donnelly
kimdon@csmd.edu
Small Group Work
6. SAY:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Get together with 2 or 3 others
Introduce yourselves
Say what you’re good at
Tell each other how you got to be good at it
See whether there is anything similar in how you all got to be good at
your different specialties
7. ASSIST: Mingle and visit with groups. Ask about similarities/differences
Whole Class Work
8. ASK students (not groups) to report: What happened at the beginning of
your learning your new skill?
9. WRITE contributions verbatim on the board.
10. ASK: anything else at the beginning?
a. If someone calls out a later stage, ASK: Does that go here or later?
11. SAY: OK, we’ll call this stage one.
12. ASK: then what happened next?
13. Continue until no more stages and no more responses.
14. SAY: Now I’m going to read all this. Let me know if you want to add,
subtract, or change anything so it is closer to the learning process that you
went through. Then I’m going to ask whether you learned your thing more or
less this way—not every word in this exact order—but generally…more
rather than less.
a. Add question mark by any item that has disagreement
b. Draw a line to indicate items shared by different stages
15. SAY: Raise your hand if you learned your thing more or less this way – not
exactly – but mostly this way.
16. SAY: Raise your hand if you didn’t learn your thing at all this way.
a. Ask each person how they did it.
b. Point out that some people do have a natural talent
c. Again say more or less like this, not exactly like this
17. SAY: You are all natural-born learners. You were born with a brain that
knows how to learn. You are all very smart.
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AFACCT
January 13, 2006
Kim Donnelly
kimdon@csmd.edu
18. SAY: It will be my responsibility to provide the same kind of naturallearning opportunities in class that helped you learn outside school. Then you
will be able to learn as successfully in this course as you learned outside
school.
19. GO AROUND ROOM: Have each person say what he or she is good at and
name so I can check attendance!
20. SAY: And you all learned your different things pretty much by this same
process? This research has been done with more than 7,000 people, and
they have all come up with the same 4-6 stages. So we might say this is the
natural human learning process.
Mini-lecture
21. DRAW Y-AXIS ON TRANSPARENCY or BOARD. DIVIDE AXIS INTO 1
THROUGH 6 STAGES. DRAW X-AXIS WITH NO DIVISIONS.
22. SAY: I’ve listed six stages (Y-axis) because those are the most people
usually come up with.
23. ASK: What are two or three words that tell how you got from not knowing
how to do your thing up to being good at it?
24. WRITE students’ answers (typically time, practice, mistakes) below x-axis.
Divide x-axis into 5 or 6 stages.
25. DRAW: Ceiling level arrows up the middle of the diagram and ASK students
to tell ability stage related to that amount of practice.
26. EXPLAIN: Natural talent is why some shoot up the y axis faster, but the
only way to learn the skill is through practice and time.
27. End for day; copy down the stages students created. Make handout before
next class.
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AFACCT
January 13, 2006
Kim Donnelly
kimdon@csmd.edu
Smilkstein’s Research Activity
Day Two
We’re Born to Learn pages 50-84
(approx. 20 minutes)
Mini-lecture
1. REVIEW our stages using new, customized handout, with Smilkstein’s 6
stages on the back.
2. ASK: How important are mistakes in this process?
3. REVIEW our ceiling level grid.
4. ADD: Ceiling levels using different colors (FIGURE 2.3 on 37 and 2.4 on 38)
5. REFER to syllabus handout, especially the picture of neurons.
6. EXPLAIN: Dendrites are the information you know. Every time you learn
something, new dendrites grow. This is like weight-lifting. After you work
out, you can see the new muscle on your body. If we could look inside your
head after you learn, we would see more dendrites.
7. EXPLAIN: Synapses are connections among the info you know. Have you
ever had a situation where you are sure you know something, but you can’t
remember it? This is because a synapse is missing. When you remember the
thing a day or hour later it is because your brain found another way to get to
that dendrite through other synapses. Synapses are created when you
connect new information to things you already know.
8. EXPLAIN: Emotions affect neurons. When you are scared, your brain
activates the fight-or-flight response and brain chemicals prevent you from
thinking. You truly can’t remember anything. Relaxing deactivates those
chemicals and gives you back access to dendrites and synapses.
9. EXPLAIN: Negative self-talk builds dendrites for negativity. If you don’t
use those “bad” dendrites, they will deteriorate.
10. CONNECT: What do time and practice actually do? They create new
dendrites to store information and new synapses to connect the info so you
can retrieve it when you need it.
11. ASK: Questions? Comments? Reactions?
12. DO a one-minute paper or one-sentence summary to see if students are
getting it.
13. LINK to syllabus, homework, first test, and so on today and throughout the
rest of the semester.
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