At a meeting at my daughter’s school, parents were told that
gifted children’s largest challenge is learning how to learn, as typically
subjects in earlier grades came easily to them, and such may not be the case in
high school and beyond. In the last year of my doctoral degree, I thought I
should just brush up on a few things to help my daughters – little did I know
that this Coursera course would be so helpful for me!
Our thinking – the learning brain
For those who are aware of different cognitive states of
Type I/Type II thinking or fast/slow brain, this is a related concept. When deeply concentrating on something, we
are in the Focussed mode. This mode helps enforce thoughts in neural
networks. These neural networks may
associate different concepts together to enable a complex thought to be
recalled more easily – this is called a chunk. In fact, engaging in this type of high
intensity thinking can help build new myelin sheath (the coating of neurons),
which can help facilitate thinking. All
this gives rise to the new adage: Practice
makes permanent.
However, this above describes but one mode of thinking. The diffuse
mode is when we need to think new thoughts, to figure out a new
pattern. This mode is often entered when
not in the focussed mode – when daydreaming, almost drifting off to sleep, even
when going for a walk. The well-known
Eureka moment often follows a period of diffuse mode thinking.
Other related concepts deal with memory. Our working memory, in which we do our
focussed mode work – is likened to a small, poor quality blackboard. That is, there are essentially 4 spaces in
our working memories, and if not reinforced by practice, the thoughts in the working
memories can become easily erased.
Contrast this with our long term
memory, likened to a storage warehouse.
The more retrieved something is, the easier it will be to find – but the
less something is retrieved, to more likely it will get lost behind other more
frequently retrieved “boxes”.
All of the above hinges upon sleep – while sleeping, brain cells shrink and allow the cerebral
spinal fluid to wash out the toxins produced over a day’s worth of thinking,
and this cerebral bath is critical in allowing the brain to function at its
maximum.
This course went through a number of tips and tricks – I will
focus only on two main themes, and hopefully highlight a number of helpful
nuggets as I do so. My scaffold is the trustworthy
5Ws and 1H. The overarching theme is
process over product – the mechanics of learning is highly valued, and
transferrable.
Theme 1: Chunking
5 W and 1H
|
Concept
|
Tools
|
Caveats
|
Who
|
You – individually
|
-
Ensure some solitary study time
|
-
Studying with friends can be tricky if trying to
form chunks
|
What
|
Practice while in the focussed mode
|
-
Recall
-
Self-testing
-
Actively doing problems
-
Forming wildly visual memory palaces, acronyms
and mnemonics
|
-
Only reading and excessive highlighting
-
Reading solutions to worked out problems
-
Rote memorization
|
Where
|
Disassociating learning from environment
|
-
Minimal distraction (e.g. noise cancelling headphones)
-
Have multiple learning environments (e.g. home,
library, study hall)
|
-
Having one place only where studying is done (risking
the surroundings forming part of the chunk)
|
When
|
Building the scaffold of the chunk
|
-
Segment the learning over time at peak performance times (when one is best
able to enter the focussed mode – mid-morning for many people)
|
-
Learning a concept in only one blitz study
session
-
Pulling all nighters
|
Why
|
To form solid chunks of complex concepts that become intrinsic
knowledge
|
-
Valuing the study process, not only the product
of studying
-
Practice begets better performance
|
-
Sacrificing understanding during studying
|
How
|
Forming a chunk and allowing connections between chunks
|
-
Interleaving: forcing a non-sequential, non-linear
approach to learning (do a few questions on one subject, followed by the same
in another, etc.), which also enhances transferability between disciplines
-
Pomodoro : a timer that forces 25 mins of
focussed time with progressively longer breaks to enable both rewards and
entering the diffuse mode
|
- Einstellung: the fixation on a certain thought
pattern to the exclusion of different thought patterns. A VERY IMPORTANT CONCEPT – has been known
as anchoring, and is related to confirmation bias. Very easy trap to fall in – must be aware
of this state.
|
Theme 2: Procrastination
5Ws and 1H
|
Concept
|
Tools
|
Caveats
|
Who
|
You
|
-
Perhaps having a friend to keep you
accountable
|
-
Friends serving as a reason to procrastinate
|
What
|
Getting undesirable work done
|
-
To Do Lists, interleaving process and product tasks
-
Do the least enjoyable task first
-
Planning many mini rewards for keeping to mini
tasks
|
-
The temptation to not practice delayed
gratification is strong, must have enough mini rewards to help justify the
plan
|
Where
|
Environment can strongly influence procrastination
|
-
Minimize distractions; ensure study are is set
for studying
-
Be aware of your attention level
|
-
Household chores are most alluring when
procrastinating
|
When
|
Ensuring a planned time to work
on the unpleasant task
|
-
Write To Do list night before, to allow
diffuse mode during sleep to help make connections
|
-
Assume that you’ll get it done “when you have
time”, putting off the hard, unpleasant tasks
|
Why
|
To not engage in the small rewards of procrastination, and focus on
the larger rewards of learning.
Deep learning can be very rewarding- the flow of working can be
enjoyable
|
-
Try to form habits conducing to good studying,
and to substitute the rewards of procrastination with delayed gratification
(post working) rewards
|
-
Putting off the unpleasant or hard tasks can
be temporarily rewarded by doing something more enjoyable, but the price for
procrastinating is high
|
How
|
Ensuring the place, time and mindset are available for learning
|
-
Using a Pomodoro timer to alternate between
focussed mode and diffuse mode – have planned rewards for the progressively
elongating breaks
-
Engage in Ulysses Contracts – deny the
possibility to engage in procrastinatory behaviour (e.g. don’t bring the smartphone
to study sessions)
-
Acknowledge procrastination cues (e.g. write
them down), and study on
|
-
Depending on willpower, a resource intensive
activity, will occupy parts of your working memory that can crowd out learning
|
Other important concepts, ranging from the state of the art
understanding of the hippocampus, how best to take a test (hard start, jump
to easy; review test backwards) to stress relieving diaphragmatic breathing
were also in this course. I can’t hope
to cover everything – but hopefully the above can give you some insights on Learning
How to Learn!
Thanks Dr. Barb Oakley!
Happy learning!