Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable tension one experiences from holding two conflicting thoughts at the same time. This is very important when learning. We are hard wired to learn through dissonance. If I touch something hot, I experience a painful dissonance between my expectations/desires/beliefs and my experienced emotions. One can hardly think of a better way to learn about hot stoves than to accidentally touch one. You only have to do that once to learn that you should be very careful in the future. Although it was uncomfortable, the pain/dissonance was an effective means of teaching me.

A similar mental dissonance is experienced when we are learning about things that are new and different from what we already think and believe. When I first teach my students to avoid algebra and instead use arithmetic to solve a problem, the students that are strong at algebra tend to resist at first. The contrast between my method and the student’s approach creates an uncomfortable dissonance in the students mind, and as humans we tend to avoid discomfort.

For some, the discomfort associated with having to ‘think’ when learning is enough to avoid the learning all together. We’ve all had the experience of our brain ‘hurting’ when we’re asked to think.

So, learning can involve discomfort of the mind and with it a resistance to learning.

It’s important to keep in mind that learning is about making mistakes and getting the answer wrong. It’s important to work past any discomfort that comes with making mistakes and being wrong. Instead, make the mistakes, accept a new view, let go your frustrations, and learn.

Recently, we’ve started the search for funding as we have some really cool ideas we want to develop at Grockit. We also want to expand into tests like the SAT, ACT, LSAT, GRE, MCAT and TOEFL and provide our current students an even better experience.

We’ve learned a lot in our travels through Venture Land and we’d like to share some of learnings with you.

So this is Part 1 of our series: Adventures In Ventures – An Entrepreneur’s Travels

Nobody Will Read Your Executive Summary - You MUST have an executive summary that is professional, developed and that answers 90% of questions a potential investor would ask. But, it can’t be so long that nobody would read it. That said, nobody will read your executive summary. You have to have one, it has to look good, it has to be good, so…you do it for you. It helps you answer questions you get from you pre-marketing. It helps you prepare for the pitches and flesh out your own business ideas. It’s a valuable step, but not because somebody will read it. That said, somebody might read it so it better look good and be great.

Almost nobody will read your short elevator pitch – You must be able to boil your pitch down to a few paragraphs you could spout off if you were in an elevator with a potential investor. This is what you put in the body of an email when you send it to a potential investor. You attach the exec sum as an attachment. The elevator pitch has to be great and short, less than 500 words. The goal is not to give everything about your business away in a paragraph, but rather leave the investor wanting more. Your goal is another meeting. That said, a lot of people won’t even read your elevator pitch. To say ‘almost nobody’ will read it is an exaggeration. I would say that most people WILL read it. The questions you get will make you wonder though.

That’s it for Part 1 in our series. Please share your experiences with us in the comments.

In over one hundred years of ‘mass’ education, we have yet to innovate a thing. We still have teachers at boards in front of students with textbooks.

One way we’re trying to change this is by having students and teachers work in the same space. By working in a common space and communicating in an open discussion, we gain a common focus. We are constantly trying to improve our pedagogy so that students are interacting, drawing, circling, computing, responding, asking, thinking and learning. We encourage students to answer each other’s questions and we mediate the interaction.

We think technology can help amplify learning.