How Do YOU Learn?

NCRAlighthouse-smaller-1002Browsing the North Carolina Reading Association website the other day, I stopped to check out Lois Huffman’s post, “Watch and Learn More about Literacy,”where she shares six of her favorite TED talks.

I love the talks she chose (and just FYI, there’s a good chance I’m going to be ordering a blue whale), but I wanted to add one of my favorites to the list. It’s called Doodlers, unite! Take a listen as Sunni Brown explains—with lots of doodles to help—the many reasons to re-evaluate our opinions of the lowly doodle. (Here in Silicon Valley, the doodle is much revered, but only if composed on the back of a napkin.)

As Ms. Brown suggests, doodling is often mistaken for a lack of attention on the part of the doodlee. As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth. One of the important things about doodling is that it employs all four styles of learning—visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic—which leads to greater retention (29% more) and a greater ability to process information. This, posits Ms. Brown, translates into a higher level of visual literacy. (I remember all of this because I was doodling while watching her talk.)

Doodling and learningConsidering the amount of information our kids are expected to absorb in a single day, we should definitely be encouraging anything that make it easier for them to process that  data—including doodling. And maybe we should take a page from their binder.

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