Great Minds on Learning

Jul 14 2024 41 ep. 64 mins 20

Great Minds on Learning Podcast artwork

Internationally respected author, blogger and learning expert, Donald Clark joins John Helmer of the Learning Hack podcast to discuss the history of thought and theorising about learning. The inspired, the enduring, the wacked-out weird and the just plain wrong, from Aristotle to the present day. © John Helmer 2021

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GMoLS6E36 Continental Theorists with Donald Clark

Jul 14 2024 87 mins

Deconstructing Continental Philosophy's Impact on Modern Education. At the end of the 19th Century, a split in Philosophy emerged that persists today. The Analytic tradition, led by Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, emphasized clarity, logical rigour, and formal methods in language analysis. By contrast, Continental theorists such as Husserl and Heidegger went to a very different p

GMoLS6E35 Psychoanalysts with Donald Clark

Jun 30 2024 75 mins

Learning in the post-Freudian age At the beginning of the 20th Century, fundamental assumptions about the nature of the mind and how it learns were completely overturned by a new set of ideas. Pre-eminent among the thinkers and practitioners who spearheaded a new field of study called psychoanalysis was the Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud. Following his death in 1939, Freud’s

GMoLS6E34 Connectionists with Donald Clark

Jun 16 2024 55 mins

Is the mind flatter than we thought? This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the ‘Performance Journey Goes Dutch’ conference in Ermelo, The Netherlands, organised by Xpertise Learning. Donald and John explore a group of theorists who are giving us a new picture of how we think and learn that is distinctively different from what came before. They’re the Connec

GMoLS6E33 Scribes 2: Literacy and Orality, with Donald Clark

May 27 2024 98 mins

Second of a two-part series on the invention of writing and the impact of literacy on learning. Last time, Donald and John discussed how writing was invented in the ancient world. This time the focus moves to the 20th Century, and thinkers such as Walter Ong and Eric Havelock who revived interest in the pre-literate world of oral culture. Their work raised themes that were to beco

GMoLS6E32 Scribes: The Invention of Writing with Donald Clark

May 06 2024 72 mins

First of a two-part series on the invention of writing and the impact of literacy on learning. Our ability to learn from written texts is something we take for granted. But like every other technology that humans use, writing had to be invented. Notational signs used next to images of animals are seen in cave paintings from as early as 35,000 BCE. Actual writing is first recorded

GMoLS6E31 Leadership with Donald Clark

Apr 14 2024 90 mins

Theories and critiques of leadership learning: the attribution problem and its consequences. This episode, the first of a new season, our sixth, focuses on leadership. Leadership, thought since ancient times to be critical to the destiny of nations, has long been a feature of military training and elite education. But its arrival as a staple of workplace training was relatively re

GMoLS6E0 - Private View of Season 6 with Donald Clark

Apr 10 2024 25 mins

John and Donald preview the upcoming season of Great Mind on Learning. The sixth season of Great Minds on Learning begins on Monday 15th April 2024. Ahead of the first episode, John and Donald preview the treats in store! The Blog that started it all: https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2021/09/these-were-written-as-quick-readable.html Contact Donald X: @DonaldClark LinkedIn:

GMoLS5E30 Generative AI with Donald Clark

Dec 10 2023 67 mins

The theory behind generative AI as a transformational tool for learning. This episode, the last in the current season, was recorded at the Online Educa conference in Berlin and focuses on Generative AI. Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the learning world has been mesmerized by the potential benefits and dangers of this new form of AI. Unlike other forms, it can be ac

GMoLS5E29 Critics of Schools with Donald Clark

Dec 03 2023 75 mins

We don't need no education? This episode explores the transformative ideas of three influential late 20th-century educational theorists. Each began with a flourishing career in teaching but ultimately left the classroom behind, driven by a growing disenchantment with the educational system. Their collective experiences culminated in an incisive critique of conventional schooling,

GMoLS5E28 Schools with Donald Clark

Nov 12 2023 92 mins

The pioneers of alternative education systems. This episode covers a group of 20th Century thinkers and educationalists in both Northern and Southern hemispheres who developed a variety of alternative visions for schools. Inspired by enlightenment figures like Rousseau, and the German Idealists who came after them, they nevertheless reacted against the strict and regimented so-cal