Wednesday 19 January 2011

Gagne's nine levels of learning

It;s a while since I visited the theory about learning in a way that fundmaentally changed the way I delivered a workshop or series of lectures. Gagne's work is not new but it is, I think, forgotten by many.

  1. gain attention 
  2. inform the learners of the objective (expectancy)
  3. stimulate recall of prior learning (retrieval)
  4. present the stimulus for current learning
  5. provide learning guidance
  6. elicit performance
  7. provide feedback
  8. assess performance
  9. enhance retention and transfer
to read more about this you can Google "Gagne" or read the short summary at Mindtools.

2 comments:

Mike Davies said...

Learning fundamentially means reminding people of information needed to help to solve a problem at hand. It is "connecting the synapses." While Gange's "nine levels" are excellent, an important contextual element in my view is balance and engagement. The balance is around the amount of material - not too little and not too much. If audiences are not engaged, the entire experience is wasted time. Providing a good workshop is indeed a dance and artform! - Mike Davies

Sarah Fraser said...

Good points Mike. I could think of workshops where people are very engaged yet when they leave they are unable to explain what they have learnt.
I suppose I am less concerned about amount of content and more about process as I believe an excellent process can help those with differing learning styles (one small group may have a number of different learning style requirements).