7 TED Talks on Learning Transfer Everyone Should Watch this 2022

Emma Weber

TED Talks are a great source of inspiration. Here is a list of 7 TED Talks on Learning Transfer that everyone should watch that link to the principles of behavioural change.

1) Jacob Barnett – Forget what you know

Diagnosed with autism from birth and on the precipice of teenagehood, Jacob eloquently talks about quantum mechanics and physics, but his message from the TEDx stage is applicable to all areas of learning. Jacob totally believes in the power of learning but thinks that it is even more powerful to stop learning every so often so you can transition from learning to thinking, to creating. Jacob argues that only by immersing yourself in thinking about what you’ve learnt and applying what you’ve learnt can you create. Music to our ears of course! We immediately leapt to interpret ‘thinking’ as reflection – which regular readers will know we believe to be absolutely crucial to any transfer of learning process. It is confronting to hear him say “stop learning”. But listen on, and we’re encouraged by his argument to “stop being a student of that field. BE the field. Then maybe you can create something.”

2) Angela Lee Duckworth – Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

With a background in consulting and teaching, Angela Lee Duckworth went on to pursue psychology after observing that IQ was not the single best predictor for success in her classroom. Her extensive research has found that in fact there is one other characteristic that is a significant predictor of success, and that characteristic is “grit”. By “grit” she means passion and perseverance for long-term goals, having stamina, and sticking with your future not just for the week, but for years. She talks about how there are many intelligent, talented individuals in the world who simply do not follow through on commitments. In ourselves and for our children we must build grit, persevere with learning, be willing to fail, and start over again with lesson learnt if need be. This rings very true in the Learning & Development world – with a transfer of learning support process in place after learning we can support learners to build their grit and persevere with turning their learning into action.

3) Brené Brown – The Power Of Vulnerability

Emma saw Brené Brown speaking at an ATD Conference and she was awesome. Her TED talk is a favorite of many around the globe. She talks about how we must learn to embrace vulnerability, and that we should not be embarrassed about making mistakes. This is so applicable to effective learning transfer conversations as allowing yourself to be vulnerable and reflect on your vulnerabilities is the key to transformation.

4) Ramsey Musallam – 3 Rules to Spark Learning

Chemistry teacher Rasmey Musallam talks about how a life-threatening condition led him to understand the true role of an educator. His 3 rules to spark learning were inspired by the surgeon who saved his life. Ramsey urges us to embrace curiosity, not fear the messy process of trial and error, and to practice reflection. Whilst his talk is primarily aimed at school education, his message rings true for workplace learning professionals. We must move forward from being decimators of content to embracing a new paradigm as cultivators of curiosity.

That point of curiosity reminded me of our model of learning transfer – often we find ineffective transfer is concentrating on Compliance, Control and Content. Our preference is to tackle learning transfer is with Curiosity, Creativity and Context for sustained behavioural change. And need we highlight the mention of reflection again?! Bingo.

5) Diana Nyad – Never, ever give up

Now this one is a little bit of a stretch but Diana’s story is just so compelling. With four failed attempts to swim the extreme 100-mile crossing between Cuba and Florida behind her, and despite the jellyfish stings and the hallucinations, she finally managed to achieve her lifetime goal at age 64. Her story is a reminder to think big, set goals, and accept failure on the journey. No matter what minefields get in your way, with a strong plan in place, and accountability and commitment to achieve them, your goals can become a reality. We always encourage learning and development professionals to make time for a robust action planning process to set up learners for success with their transfer of learning. Specific learning transfer follow-up after the learning will help individuals reflect and hold themselves accountable for their goals. For an example of the action plan, we use with our clients take a look here. Watch Diana’s full talk here.

6. Mark Rober – The Super Mario Effect – Tricking Your Brain into Learning More

The Super Mario effect has a fascinating study in it showing the importance of reducing judgment around the idea of failing and that if people feel they’re failing, they are less likely to continue to persevere. This is one of the absolute keys to learning transfer that there’s no judgment, and we’re not making people wrong. Frequently within our Learning Transfer conversations and indeed within our Coach M we say there’s no right or wrong answers. We encourage people to celebrate steps forward in the journey even if the outcome isn’t what they anticipated. Steps forward either create awareness around a path not to go down or awareness of the path to move forward on. I really love this session by Mark. It’s entertaining as well as educational and it really can help us think a lot about what motivates people to learn and to keep pursuing and moving forward with their goal.

7. Barbara Oakley – Learning how to learn

Learning how to learn with Barbara Oakley TedX Oakland University is a fascinating story about Barbara as a low achiever student who went on through life to achieve remarkable college grades and educational outcomes. She talks about her passion and perseverance and what propelled her to learn later in life. As well as her research into science and recall which many of us will probably be familiar with, I love the way Barbara shares it was things that she was  passionate and curious about that propelled her forward. Again we use this principle in learning transfer with getting each individual to specify their own goals.

“What is important to them?”
“What do they think it’s going to give them the biggest win?” “
“What are they most interested in?”

The more an individual chooses specifically what they want to pursue, whether that’s in terms of goals or learning transfer commitments, the more ownership they will have and the more they will be propelled forward. So enjoy learning from Barbara in this TEDx session.

I hope you enjoy these new additions as well as the original ones which were included here. Brené Brown of course also now has a fabulous podcast which we enjoy on a regular basis and has deepened her research about leaders, leadership, and what makes people tick.

Enjoy learning from TED and spend time exploring for yourself. We would be keen to hear what your favorites about learnings are. And one of the keys to learning as we know is to make it easy so we’ve created a playlist of these favorite Ted talks here.

 

Editor’s Note: Originally published in 2017 with Ted talks being curated by the fabulous Jess, I decided now was a good time to add to our selection. TED talks never grow old and increasingly, TED talks are being supplemented by TEDx talks with TEDx being a local and independently organized event. Two (2) of my recent favorites which I’m adding to our previous list are The Super Mario Effect by Marc Rober from TEDxPenn and Learning How To Learn by Barbara Oakley from TEDxOaklandUniversity.