New White Paper from Talent Management Leader Helps Organizations Enhance Learning and Development Practices

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – March 8th, 2011 – Leading Talent Management solutions provider, PageUp People, today announced the availability of its latest complimentary white paper, The Neuroscience of Learning and Development: Crystalizing Potential. The paper explains the neuro-scientific underpinnings of the learning process, including an exploration of the factors that hinder learning and the ways to optimize life-long learning.

Gaining a better understanding of the key criteria for effective learning can help organizations improve their learning and development practices. By creating comprehensive learning practices, organizations can equip their talent with the requisite skills for high individual and business performance.

“The brain’s job is to learn – from infancy, it acquires knowledge, information, feelings and behaviors that combine over the years to shape who we are”, stated Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith, General Manager of Integrated Talent Management at PageUp People and author of the insightful white paper. “We already know that we have the capacity to learn. Neuroscience now has cast light on how the brain acquires, stores and uses information and what factors can limit us from optimizing this learning process.”

Providing an overview of the components of how people learn, the white paper gives details about how perceptions change over time as new information is acquired. These changes demonstrate the plasticity, or adaptability, of the brain’s neural connections, which embed and store what is learned. Vorhauser-Smith explains how each person’s selectively placed attention determines how memories are formed, stored and recalled.

In addition to exploring the biological processes that embed learning, the complimentary white paper also outlines the conditions that optimize learning outcomes, including the importance of holistic learning, which addresses the critical physical, cognitive and emotional elements of the learning environment. A good night’s sleep, self-directed learning, emotional cues and social interaction all are key principles of learning for adults.

Organizations can benefit from the white paper’s explanation of the potential barriers to the learning process. From engaging and holding the attention of the learner to aligning the learner’s motivation to stimulate and reinforce learning and providing a supportive learning environment, the white paper illustrates how organizations can overcome and mitigate these barriers to enhance learning.

“Across all industries, the importance of building leadership bench strength, developing high potential employees and teaching core competencies such as strategic thinking and how to inspire others remain at the top of all organizations’ employee development wish lists,” added Vorhauser-Smith. “The field of neuroscience is providing both insights and pragmatic guidelines for the enhancement of learning and development practices. In fact, the AGES – Attention, Generation, Emotion and Spacing – acronym, which was coined by Lila Davachi at New York University and is explained in the white paper, highlights the four key criteria for effective learning. Learning program designers can take note of these components to create programs that tap into the immense learning capacities of the brain and drive greater organizational success.”

Other components of the white paper include an exploration of the connection between stress and learning, as well as an assessment of the importance of informal and collaborative learning. Technology’s role in learning also is explored, with a particular look at how e-learning’s move toward mobile learning will alleviate some of the impediments to accessing learning content.

Access PageUp People’s complimentary white paper, “The Neuroscience of Learning and Development: Crystalizing Potential,” here.