MARGE and in Charge: Whole-Brain Learning with Nimish Lad

This episode is the season two premiere of Mind the Gap, and Tom Sherrington and Emma Turner are pleased to welcome Nimish Lad as this season’s first guest. Nimish is a Curriculum and Research Lead at the Creative Education Trust, a Vice Principal, and the author of the new book Shimamura’s MARGE Model of Learning in Action, published by John Catt. 

Early in the episode (2:48), Nimish explains why he likes to engage with educational research and participate in the education research community through researchED. He explains the benefits of hearing many different perspectives to find evidence in favor of practices that may not have worked for himself yet, but have proven valuable to others, and also to become aware of brand new practices. 

Nimish next discusses Shimamura’s MARGE (Motivate, Attend, Relate, Generate and Evaluate) Model (4:58), which he writes about in detail in his new book. The model is a whole-brain learning approach for teachers and students that links neuroscience and cognitive science. One of the ideas that impressed Nimish the most is the way MARGE can provide a framework to refine the quality of learning aids that educators use. 

Tom, Emma, and Nimish also describe why teachers are like museum curators in the way they need to carefully and strategically select the artifacts that will illustrate the necessary story; the things teachers should we wary of when implementing new ideas; the power of the use of “non-examples” (“it is this, but it isn’t that…”); and much more. 

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