Several people have asked if I’ve fallen off the face of the earth recently, well not quite. However along with being busy with client work I’ve been preparing my two Agile 2010 sessions with Roger Brown:
Wednesday, August 11, 1:30 – 3:00pm
Learning Best Approaches for your Brain
Do you mentor, coach, teach or just help other people? Do you wonder why, after what feels like your greatest teaching moments, some people still don’t get it? Neuroscience has started to provide us with insights into what happens in the learner’s brain when we’re teaching. Learning is really about building and reinforcing existing neural networks. Instead of providing a lot of new ideas out of the blue, we need to understand the learners existing context and work with that. Instead of focusing on mistakes and errors, we need to focus on what good solutions look, sound and feel like.
See the recent article on InfoQ: The Science of Learning: Best Approaches for Your Brain, for a taste of the session. Since its after lunch again, please consider avoiding High Fructose Corn Syrup (i.e. most desserts in North America). See: Diet-induced insulin resistance impairs hippocampal synaptic plasticity and cognition in middle-aged rats.
Thursday, August 12, 9:00 – 10:30am
Continuous Creativity for Agile Teams
Creativity can manifest in several ways including creation of something new, refinement of something that exists and problem solving. How do we support, enable and enhance the creative abilities of Agile teams? There are many ways to shape the work environment for greater creativity. We will present a summary of the literature that describes how creativity can be enhanced by providing a safe, nurturing environment, enhancing group interactions, pacing activities that utilize different sensory modes and trusting in the power of subconscious integration.
I know this will be a tough morning after the Wednesday night parties (i.e. Rally, VersionOne and Cyrus Innovations), I promise this will be worth waking up for.
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