How to train an aging brain

Researchers are looking into new ways to improve adult learning:

Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, [Dr. Kathleen Taylor] says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.

This critical approach to learning makes sense, but is it really new? To me, it follows the natural progression of learning that one utilizes when entering middle age: assimilating the facts you accumulated over your life into meaningful observations and analysis. Moreover, any adult who uses the Internet--which is pretty much all of them nowadays--is constantly challenged by a framework of knowledge they did not have when growing up, and are thus re-learning how to integrate loads of information into their pre-existing conceptions of critical thinking. For this generation, simple Web-browsing provides the ultimate relief from stagnant neuroplasticity.