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Dr. Berezin is right. There is no such thing as ADHD. ADHD is not a real disease.

So why do most people (including doctors) think that it is a real disease and not simply a matter of temperament or the result of childhood trauma as Dr. Berezin argues?

Here are some of the reasons that people think that ADHD is a real disease and not just a difference in temperament:

1. Stimulant medications like Ritalin and Adderall work. My child is a different person after starting to take medication. He is calmer and more focused at home and at school.

2. Most pediatricians and child psychiatrists say that ADHD is a real disease. We have every reason to trust our doctors who have had years of training and experience.

3. Research studies (even by researchers from Harvard Medical School) have shown that ADHD is a real disease caused by genes. That is why ADHD tends to run in families.

4. Brain scans show that ADHD kids' brains are not the same as other children's brains. ADHD is caused by a defect or chemical imbalance in the brain.

5. ADHD has been around for a long time. Playwrights like Moliere described children with ADHD hundreds of years ago.

If we take a closer look at each of these beliefs, we find that not a single one of them is based on truth. These beliefs are based on a fifty-year long PR campaign that has "sold" a disease called ADHD to parents, teachers, doctors and the general public.

1. Stimulant medications work.

This is the belief that I hear most often by parents in my office. They have been told that if stimulants work for their child then the child must have ADHD. Stimulants won't help a child focus if the child doesn't have ADHD. The truth is that stimulants work for everyone, both adults and children. Benzedrine, a stimulant that chemically resembles Adderall, was widely used in World War II to keep fighter pilots altert and focused. When the American military discovered that German bomber pilots used Benzedrine to keep their pilots alert during the blitzkriegs over Britain, they began to include the drug in the kits of American bomber pilots. Certainly not all bomber pilots in World War II had ADHD!

A 1978 study, directed by a NIMH researcher and published in the respected journal Science found that stimulant drugs improved attention and focus in "normal" boys as well as in boys diagnosed with ADHD. This study challenges the view that if a child has a positive reaction to stimulants, the child must have ADHD.

Moreover, 35 percent of college students take stimulants to improve their focus. Few of them have been diagnosed with ADHD.

2. Doctors believe that ADHD is real.

For more than four decades, pharmaceutical companies that make stimulant drugs have "sold" doctors on the idea that ADHD is real. Articles in respected medical journals were ghostwritten by marketing departments of drug companies. Drug companies sponsored medical conferences, and hired speakers to convince doctors that ADHD was a real disease that could be helped by their products. Pediatricians and child psychiatrists were paid handsomely to become consultants for drug companies. Researchers with financial ties to pharmaceutical companies were paid handsomely to conduct studies that found the results that would help sell the company's drugs. The PR campaign by Pharma was more successful than they could have dreamed. Today, stimulants for children are a multi billion dollar industry.

3. Research studies show that ADHD has genetic causes.

A major study that promotes a genetic factor in ADHD was directed by Nigel Williams and published in the prestigious Lancet in 2010. The researchers found that rare chromosomal deletions and duplications were associated with ADHD. However, the study merely showed that 78 percent of the kids diagnosed with ADHD did not have the genetic anomaly. Compare this with a real genetic disease like Down Syndrome where 100 percent of children diagnosed have the genetic anomaly. As of today, there is no consensus among scientists worldwide that there is a genetic biomarker for ADHD.

4. Brain scans show that ADHD kids have brain defects.

Most of the activity in the brain is at the neuron level, not in the larger brain regions that we see with today's scans. Vast arrays of individual neurons interact in complex ways, but brain scans cannot show us how these neurons interact.

5. ADHD has been around for a long time.

Children, especially boys, with active temperaments have been around for a long time. Here is where Dr. Berzerin's description of the "active, externalizing, narcissistic, and participatory child" is particularly useful. This kind of children exists now and there is no reason to think that they didn't exist before. Childhood trauma like abuse or molestation, which can exacerbate these traits of temperament, have also been around for a long time and have been observed by authors, playwrights and scientists. Parents who do not provide a calm structured environment for their children have existed for a long time.

Having treated hundreds of children diagnosed with ADHD over the years, I have found that environmental stress on a child can produce symptoms that look like what is commonly believed to be ADHD. Temperament is of course a factor as well. Some kids are simply more active, fidgety, and challenging than others.

Children who have been abused, neglected, exposed to domestic violence or to ongoing parent bickering, not provided with appropriate limits and consequences, and a host of other environmental stressors, present with behaviors that look like what has been sold to the public as ADHD. Over-exposure to electronic screens--like TV, tablets, game devices and smart phones--can also stress a child's brain. The solution to these children's problems is not stimulant medication, but removing the source of the stress.

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Dr. Berezin is right. There is no such thing as ADHD. ADHD is not a real disease. So why do most people (including doctors) think that it is a real disease and not simply a matter of temperament or the result of childhood trauma as Dr. Berezin argues?

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What's the experimental learning system?

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What's the experimental learning system?

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Experiential learning may sound like a super jargony L&D term and that's because it is! Broken down, the experiential learning cycle simply explains how we learn best through experience and reflection.

So, this type of informal learning is all about trial and error. It's about going through the process of actually doing the stuff we want to learn, and reflecting on the experience.

In this article, we're jargon-busting to get to the gooey sweet stuff at the heart of successful learning! Yes, we've turned cake connoisseur and philosopher to crack experiential learning... Any excuse to eat cake!

Learning From Experience

So, how do we effectively learn new skills? You could watch hours of The Great British Bake Off (who wouldn't want to do that?!) but soggy bottom or no soggy bottom, you won't know if you like cake until you taste it.

Why? Because we learn from experience! Whatever you're trying to master...a baking showstopper, your day job or setting up your own business... your success will be down to Experiential Learning.

Experience-based learning is so effective because it helps establish lasting behaviour change. How? Rather than simply understanding a new subject or gaining a skill, we develop new habits and behaviours.

In fact, according to the 70:20:10 model, 70% of what we know comes from experience and trying new things. Yet, the real learning happens when we reflect on those experiences! Research confirms that quality reflection time helps us learn.

Kolb's Theory of Experiential Learning

Professor D.A. Kolb is the person most associated with experiential learning theory and said: "knowledge results from the combination of grasping experience and transforming it."

His research shows mastering expertise is a continuous process of experience, reflection, conceptualisation and experimentation. These elements make up Kolb's experiential learning cycle which shows the relationship between each phase.

The Experiential Learning Cycle

Kolb's experiential learning cycle has four phases. These can be seen in the diagram below. Learning is like the changing of the seasons. Experience turns to reflection, which turns to conceptualisation and then experimentation. Following this, the cycle begins again.

Concrete Experience

Concrete experience describes the hands-on personal experiences that we learn from. It's where we try new things, get stuck in and step out of our comfort zone. These experiences could be anything in our personal or professional lives... trying a new recipe, performing a daily task at work or simply missing a tpyo (well spotted!).

Through experience, we can learn from our successes and failures. It's what happens next that creates real behaviour change!

Reflective Observation

Next, we need to reflect to successfully learn from our experiences. This is what the 'reflective observation' phase of the experiential learning cycle is all about. It's during this stage that we consider and ponder experiences. What went right and what could be improved? It's also a chance to observe how it could have been done differently and to learn from others.

So, this is a stage of analysis, observing alternatives and drawing up pros and cons. Whatever works for you! Why did you burn the cakes? Where was the typo? Who is top of the company learner leaderboard and why?

Abstract Conceptualisation

Once we have identified and we understand the defining characteristics of an experience, we can decide what we will do differently next time, if anything. This is a time for planning and brainstorming strategies for success.

You could set the oven timer to avoid a baking mishap, use spell check and practise that challenging task at work when you have some spare time. Through experiential learning, you'll be top of the learner leaderboard in no time!

Active Experimentation

The active experimentation phase of the learning cycle is where we get to experiment with our ideas. It's time to put your plan of action to the test in the real world! After all, if we don't try something we won't know if it works.

Whatever you're seeking to master, however lofty or detailed your plans, at some point you have to put away the textbooks and do it for real. However many times you have to go back to the drawing board, the taste of success is worth it!

How Can Online Learning Help with Experiential Learning?

You might think online learning is all about formal training, so where does the experiential learning come in? Here are just a few ways learning technologies can help us learn from experience and reflection.

1. Experiential Learning Activities

Simulate concrete experiences! Online learning provides an awesome platform for recreating real-world tasks, all within the safety of virtual reality. These experiences can take many forms within online training, such as learning games or game-based learning.

The training scenarios can be built around meaningful game templates that reflect reality. These virtual experiences can recreate what happens in learners' day jobs, giving them the chance to practise their skills. For example, customer service officers could come face-to-face with an unhappy virtual customer and be asked to process a refund.

2. Provide Opportunities for Reflection

Provide ample opportunity within the training for reflection. Following a piece of learning or simulated experience, you could include open-ended quiz questions that invite learners to consider and evaluate their experience.

How did the customer service officers feel when faced by the customer's demands? What went well and what could be improved about their interaction with the customer? What was the outcome?

3. Experiment!

Don't forget to give learners the chance to try, try again! Through simulated experiences, reflective questions and social learning, everyone will be eager to try out their new skills. Encourage people to head back into the training and take on the challenges again! This time they may be able to create very happy customers - no cake needed!

You can encourage learners to keep improving and experimenting with their abilities by introducing engaging gamification features, such as points and learner leaderboards. As learners improve and succeed they will rack up experience points and climb the learner leaderboard.

4. Learn From Each Other through Social Learning

Another important factor in the reflective observation stage of experiential learning is observing and learning from the experiences of others. How do people's reactions to an experience differ from our own? Why did someone succeed in a certain task? What did they do that I can learn from?

Social learning can help employees learn from each other by providing opportunities for learners to share their experiences on an LMS message board and Chat features. Encourage learners to share videos of their experiences and examples of what works for them.

You could set meaningful challenges within the LMS to engage staff and get the conversations going! For example, "share a photo example of brilliant visual merchandising."
Want to learn more about how you can build an organisational culture in which experiential learning is not only valued but shared as well? If so, our Social is Super guidebook is a brilliant place to start. It explores the 70:20:10 theory and provides practical tips to help you apply it today! Click here to grab your copy!

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What is Experiential Learning + Tips on Making it Work for Your Team

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Experiential learning may sound like a super jargony L&D term and that's because it is! Broken down, the experiential learning cycle simply explains how we learn best through experience and reflection. So, this type of informal learning is all about trial and error.

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When surveying the current technology landscape, the state of affairs seems almost surreal. Growth, commerce, and innovation are moving at such unprecedented rates that even veteran IT professionals are left scratching their heads. Indeed, what was considered science fiction a few years ago is today's reality or at least on the cusp of becoming so. Smartwatches, augmented reality glasses, virtual assistants that can understand speech, driverless cars, delivery drones, and retail robots that greet you at the front of the store are happening now, today, as we speak!

The tremendous burst of innovation is primarily a result of the convergence of mobile, cloud, collaboration, and Big Data in recent years. Instant access to data, phones that give you real-time information, brands that are customized to your needs . . . are all signs of a consumer driven era of innovation, which is fundamentally different than anything we've seen before. In an interview last February PBS NewsHour's Making Sense talked to authors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of "The Second Machine Age" about what is distinct about this latest wave of technological growth. Their response was as follows:

"We are at an inflection point. The first big inflection point in human history was about 200 years ago, when the steam engine started the industrial revolution. That was a period that saw a whole set of new machines come along that could automate muscle power, physical work. In recent years, we are seeing a wave of technologies that can augment, automate all sorts of cognitive tasks and we think, ultimately, those will have as big, or an even bigger effect on humanity as the first industrial revolution."

Digital technologies are steadily redefining and reinventing our lives and economy, along with our very notions of work, progress, and prosperity. And society has welcomed this change with open arms because at a fundamental level we think of technology as adding to our overall well-being.

But there's another side to the technology coin, which is potentially worrisome. We've heard a lot in the news recently about the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. One of the biggest buzz words right now are "smart machines." Smart machines are systems trained to employ artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms that are able to make decisions and solve problems without human intervention, or that can "sense, predict, infer and, in some ways, think." Examples of these systems are increasingly evident: contextually aware devices (smartphones that use information to influence computer behavior), intelligent personal assistants (think Google Now and Apple's Siri), smart advisors (such as IBM Watson), advanced global industrial systems, and autonomous vehicles (driverless cars and Amazon's proposed fleet of delivery drones called Prime Air).

All of this technology has transformed some of our basic assumptions about what computers can and cannot do. It's like what Dorothy says to her pet dog in Wizard of Oz, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." Likewise, many folks are starting to sense that we've begun to enter uncharted territory, and many are raising concerns about the impacts of this enormous technological progress on the future of jobs.

The number of articles appearing on this topic are becoming more frequent and the statistics being floated are rather staggering. One study suggests that nearly half of U.S. jobs may be automated in the next 20 years. This squares with the rate of change estimated by Garter. During its annual Symposium/Itxpo conference in Orlando at the beginning of October, Peter Sondergaard, SVP and Global Head of Research, made the following startling claim during his keynote:

"Gartner predicts one in three jobs will be converted to software, robots and smart machines by 2025. New digital businesses require less labor; machines will make sense of data faster than humans can."

What's more, research shows that many CEOs are underestimating the systemic and deep impact that smart machines will have through 2020, as well as the potential for them to replace millions of middle-class jobs in the decades to come. Again, to quote Gartner: "the smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT." The view from Silicon Valley seems to be evenly split on the question, between the utopian "techno-optimists" who see job displacements consistently followed by job creations, and the dystopians who focus more on technology's overriding impact on jobs and the economy.

Technology historically has been a major disruptor of jobs, even as it has created new opportunities in its wake. But there are certain signs to suggest that the rapid changes imposed by the digital era are faster, more impactful, and widespread than anything we've seen before . . . for all the reasons mentioned above and more.

In the years ahead business professionals will need to become more attuned than ever to the importance of keeping their jobs skills relevant and updated. This will require ongoing training and development in higher order skills such as coding, statistics, visualization, linguistics, information management, and Big Data. It will become increasingly incumbent for digital workers to pursue competencies and cognitive tasks that machines can't touch.

In order to meet the innovation challenges of the digital age, business leaders will need to put in extra time understanding the impacts of 'smart machines' on their verticals and industries. Not only will they need to keep their skills updated and relevant, but they'll need to be able to manage the increasingly sophisticated digital landscape even as mobile, cloud, Internet of Things, and collaboration technologies continue to push us in new directions around how we liv and work and think.

The best way for business leaders to prepare for the future is to stay up on current emerging and disruptive trends and be ready to quickly adapt as ubiquitous computing, automation, and 'smart' digital technologies continue to transform the workplace. Both within and outside of your organization, volunteer to become an early adopter of the latest tech and look for opportunities to beta-test as well. Get outside the office and examine how the customer expectations are changing. Make periodic assessments of your innovation best practices, recognize the latest tech trends throughout your industry, and do whatever it takes to stay ahead of the competition.

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Advances in Technology Impacting the Future Of Jobs

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When surveying the current technology landscape, the state of affairs seems almost surreal. Growth, commerce, and innovation are moving at such unprecedented rates that even veteran IT professionals are left scratching their heads. Indeed, what was considered science fiction a few years ago is today's reality or at least on the cusp of becoming so.

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Washington U

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Research has demonstrated that engaging students in the learning process increases their attention and focus, motivates them to practice higher-level critical thinking skills and promotes meaningful learning experiences. Instructors who adopt a student-centered approach to instruction increase opportunities for student engagement, which then helps everyone more successfully achieve the course's learning objectives.

Promoting student engagement through active learning

Active learning requires students to participate in class, as opposed to sitting and listening quietly. Strategies include, but are not limited to, brief question-and-answer sessions, discussion integrated into the lecture, impromptu writing assignments, hands-on activities and experiential learning events. As you think of integrating active learning strategies into your course, consider ways to set clear expectations, design effective evaluation strategies and provide helpful feedback.

Flipping the classroom

A pedagogy-first approach to teaching in which in-class time is re-purposed for inquiry, application and assessment in order to better meet the needs of the individual learners.

Leading dynamic discussions

While "good" discussions can be a powerful tool for encouraging student learning, successful discussions rarely happen spontaneously. Preparing ahead of time will help you delineate a clear focus for the discussion and set well-defined parameters. This will enable the class to address important topics from multiple perspectives, thus increasing students' curiosity for, and engagement with, course content.

Responding to disruptions in the classroom

Passionate disagreement can become disrespectful. That's when discussion sheds more heat than light, impairing the ability to make arguments based on fact or to listen past preconceptions.

Student Writing

As an instructor you might work with student writing in a number of ways: short-answer exams, essays, journals, blog posts, research assignments and so on. You may also take your students through the writing process by assigning drafts, encouraging peer response through structure or informal exercises, and using writing to facilitate active learning.
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Teaching with technology

In-classroom technologies - podium-based computers, wireless, real-time response systems (e.g., clickers) and web-based tools (e.g., blogs, online forums, wikis, podcasts, etc.) - continue to change rapidly. These tools have a high potential for supporting student learning in creative and innovative ways when properly aligned with the instructor's learning objectives and course content.

Large lecture instruction

Large classes (100+ students) should not be limited exclusively to lecture-based teaching. In a large class participation can be designed to get students actively solving problems, interacting with one another and the instructor and processing course material.

Office hours

Office hours give students the opportunity to ask in-depth questions and to explore points of confusion or interest that cannot be fully addressed in class. It is important for UW instructors to encourage their students to come to office hours and to use that time effectively. We have two guides to help you: Face-to-face office hours and Virtual office hours.

Service learning

Service-learning refers to learning that actively involves students in a wide range of experiences, which often benefit others and the community, while also advancing the goals of a given curriculum.

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Research has demonstrated that engaging students in the learning process increases their attention and focus, motivates them to practice higher-level critical thinking skills and promotes meaningful learning experiences. Instructors who adopt a student-centered approach to instruction increase opportunities for student engagement, which then helps everyone more successfully achieve the course's learning objectives.

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RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms

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The White House Student Film Festival: Technology in Classrooms

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Technology is beneficial in the classroom because it opens up new possibilities for all different learning types.  Every person has their own preferred style of learning.  Some are visual learners, while others are hands-on, or auditory.  It is important for teachers to take into consideration each individual’s needs because that is the only way to keep them engaged.  However, this is no easy task.  Managing each student's individual needs and preferences can get tough and just too much at a certain point.  That is not to say, however, that it is impossible; with the introduction of technology into schools, students of all types can explore their learning and the material in their own, self-managed way.

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A common theme among high-schoolers is the lack of drive in school.  With all the distractions constantly surrounding them, this isn’t very surprising.  In order to capture teenagers’ attention, educators need to attract them with something that they are already familiar with.  This, of course, is technology.  Teenagers these days have grown up with technology in their lives and have learned to rely heavily on it.  Tying it into the school environment will blend the physical work with what they already know and are comfortable with.

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In the future, career options are going to drastically change.  Because of this, the education system needs to change in order to meet the needs of its students.  Students need to be exposed to new fields that will have a new relevance in the upcoming years.  Without these essentially fundamental skills, students will not be able to perform to the best of their ability in adulthood.

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Promoting Student Engagement in the Classroom

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Education researcher Matthew Bundick discusses his co-authored TC Record article . #TheVoice