Great Minds on Learning

About Great Minds on Learning

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

Publisher

John Helmer

Category

education · history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 Aug 2021

Latest episode

1 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

53 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   1 Sept 2026

   GMoL47 Learning in a Post-Literate World

   Schools, universities and training departments took shape in the age of mass printing initiated by Guttenberg and others in the Sixteenth Century CE. Jeff Jarvis, In The Gutenberg Parenthesis (2023), argues that this development opened a parenthesis (or bracket) which closed with the rapid spread of internet technologies in or around the year 2000. We are now in a post-text, perhaps post-literate age, which in many respects looks more like what preceded the parenthesis. The phrase, The Gutenberg Parenthesis was coined by Lars Ole Sauerberg at the University of Southern Denmark and the idea was developed by Thomas Pettitt. It argues that the age of print — roughly 1600 to 2000 — was an interruption in the normal run of human communication. Great Minds has been on this ground before: two episodes in May 2024 covered the invention of writing, and literacy and orality. This is a sequel, which addresses the impact on learning of low-cost publishing without gatekeepers, social media and AI. If the bracket really has closed, the consequence is not a curriculum change: it's structural. In this episode: What you would actually see in a medieval university Chaucer, Dante and Petrarch: authorship before print The riot of forms — broadside ballads, pamphlets, corantos, newspapers, the essay, the novel, etc. The arrival of silent reading Post-literate or post-print? The reading statistics, and the middle-class moral panic Why text-based assessment is the wrong test for a world of doing Is an LLM the most Gutenbergian object ever built? Derrida, tokens and decoders Links and resources: Jeff Jarvis — The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023) Walter Ong — Orality and Literacy; and his doctoral work on Ramus John Amos Comenius — Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658) Michel de Montaigne — Essais (1580) · Miguel de Cervantes — Don Quixote (1605) George Thomason — the Thomason Tracts, British Library David Goodhart — Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century (Allen Lane, 2020) Donald Clark — Learning Experience Design, second edition Donald Clark — AI and Productivity (Kogan Page) Previously on Great Minds on Learning: the two Scribes episodes, May 2024 — the invention of writing, and literacy and orality CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer YouTube: www.youtube.com/@JohnHelmerConsulting X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

2. 

   17 Aug 2026

   GMoL46 How Creative People Learn

   Nobody is born into the world already able to design a brochure, cut a dress, light a photoshoot or shred on the guitar. All of it has to be learned. The question this episode asks is how, and whether the answer has anything to teach the rest of us. In this episode, Donald Clark and John Helmer focus on the people who make things: artists, designers, film crews, painters, musicians. Both of them have history in different parts of this territory. John has been a working musician and songwriter, and worked in advertising and arts PR. Donald sat on the board of Skillset and spent ten years as deputy chair of the Brighton Dome and Festival. They take us on a journey, from Ruskin's drawing classes to punk's screen-printed sleeves, art schools, the golden section ... and what a skill is worth once the machine has copied the homework. In this episode: Introducing Creators and Learning Four Thinkers: Ruskin to Robinson Applied Arts and Design Screen and Audiovisual Arts Visual Arts and the Art School Performing Arts and the Grassroots AI and the Means of Production Summing Up Links and resources: John Ruskin — The Elements of Drawing (1857): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30325/30325-h/30325-h.htm Herbert Read — Education Through Art (1943) Elliot Eisner — The Arts and the Creation of Mind (Yale, 2002) Ken Robinson — "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" (TED, 2006): https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity Ken Robinson — All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (1999) John Carey — The Intellectuals and the Masses (1992) Bert Weedon — Play in a Day Andy Clark — on the predictive brain Tomorrow's Warriors — grassroots jazz development New Generation Jazz Brighton & Hove Music Service Donald Clark — AI and Productivity (Kogan Page): https://www.koganpage.com/hr-learning-development/ai-and-productivity-9781398623316 (https://www.koganpage.com/hr-learning-development/ai-and-productivity-9781398623316) CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer YouTube: www.youtube.com/@JohnHelmerConsulting X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

3. 

   3 Aug 2026

   GMoL45 Sport and Learning with Donald Clark

   What education and workplace learning can take from sports coaching. Modern sports coaching has abandoned the drilling of isolated techniques in favour of practice that is variable, contextual and informed by data. Opening Season 8, John Helmer and Donald Clark ask what education and workplace learning can learn from sport. From constraints-led practice and Moneyball analytics to AI tutors, coaching and performance support. In this episode: Practice, Constraints and Variability Deliberate Practice and Autonomy Gadgets, AI and Analytics Scenarios, Simulations and Coaching Desirable Difficulty and the AI Tutor Multimodal Learning and Performance Support Links and resources: Donald Clark — Learning Experience Design (second edition in preparation) Donald Clark — AI and Productivity (Kogan Page): https://www.koganpage.com/hr-learning-development/ai-and-productivity-9781398623316 Nick Shackleton-Jones — How People Learn (Kogan Page) Jeff Jarvis — The Gutenberg Parenthesis Johan Huizinga — Homo Ludens (1938) — see also GMoL16, Gamification Michael Lewis — Moneyball (2003) Jabbr — boxing and combat sports analytics Jamestown Analytics — Tony Bloom's recruitment analytics company STUDI Blog post https://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ Website: https://studi.ie/ Books How to Win the Premier League: The Inside Story of Football's Data Revolution by Ian Graham AI for Sports by Chris Brady CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer YouTube: www.youtube.com/@JohnHelmerConsulting X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

33,971

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

14 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 72 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

79

Social presence

0

YouTube

76

Engagement

85

Contact Great Minds on Learning

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Shows with a similar audience

• 

  The Learning Hack podcast

• 

  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast

• 

  The Perception & Action Podcast

• 

  Rethinking Education

• 

  The Learning Scientists Podcast

• 

  Philosophy For Our Times

Questions about Great Minds on Learning