This episode was transcribed by SONIX AI. It has been doing remedial work and is slowly improving. My belief is that it is suffering from not learning phonics in its early years.
Phil Dye: Hello everyone and welcome to Marking the Role. My name is Phil Dye. We're coming to you from Thirroul on the south coast of New South Wales in Australia.
I'm sorry that this episode has been a bit late. I've gone deaf in my right ear, so if you're only hearing this out of your left speaker, you'll know that it's digitally contagious and you must run to the doctor immediately.
Last episode was on Generation Alpha, and if you're teaching anyone below the age of year ten in Australia, you're teaching Generation Alpha and what they're like. And there was some interesting feedback about that episode. And mainly the feedback revolved around the comment that we can't constantly change the way we teach every 15 years as a new generation comes on board, and perhaps that generation needs to adapt. And I can certainly see that point. I can see that point for sure.
But it's also true that that in order to educate them, we have to look at what will get into their brain more. And don't forget, these kids are not just a product of their environment, they're a product of their biology and their genetic inheritance from their parents, who have become also become addicted to devices. So it's it's an interesting conundrum for teachers. But yes, I can see the point that they have to adapt, and we can't always change the way we teach. For every generation, one interesting comment came from a science teacher, and I've got to agree with this comment, really? And he said that the human brain consists of 100 billion neurones, which it does little brain cells which all need to link together.
Phil Dye: And the human brain is capable of linking in all sorts of ways. And just because it may have a default requirement, which might be generation alpha, it doesn't mean they can't change. And the neurons can link up in different ways. And perhaps they need to have all sorts of different teaching styles in order to assist that linking course.
The old adage is the neurones that fire together, wire together. Now that's a good segue to our topic for today, which is the first in a series on the neuroscience of learning. Now the series won't go one after the other. They'll be intermittent. But this first one looks at cognitive load theory. Now, don't turn off now because it's not going to be delving into the the heavy science of it all. But all you've got to think about is cognitive load. Cognitive is thinking or understanding learning. And it's the load of learning. So you could look at at learning load theory. In other words, how much can a student or an adult or anyone tolerate?