As I described before, John Medina plans his lectures around four principles.
- Emotions get our attention.
- Meaning before details.
- The brain cannot multitask.
- The brain needs a break.
With these in mind, he plans each class meeting in ten minute segments. That is about the maximum amount of time that the brain can pay attention before it wanders off on its own. This ten minute segment covers one core concept. The core concept is chosen so that it can be fully explained in one minute. Then the other nine minutes in the segment may be used to explain how the detail relates to the core concept in simple, direct way.
Continue reading “Attention!”