Learning How To Learn
I took a course about "Learning How To Learn", on Coursera in which I learn about how the brain works, how to apply learning techniques and tricks to get along well with your brain, and to learn more effectively.
My short notes---
Metaphor
Metaphor and analogy help simplifying matters.
Focused vs diffuse mode-
You’re either in the focused mode or the diffuse mode of thinking.It seems you can’t be in both thinking modes at the same time.
Focused: intense thinking, uninterruptedly
Diffuse: leave what you’re doing and relax. Here you can look at things broadly from a very different,big picture perspective.
Have you ever had a problem that you couldn’t find a solution and then suddenly after a good night of sleep you woke up with a brilliant idea? That’s because sleeping is another moment when your brain naturally falls into the diffuse mode.
Thomas Edison knew the importance of the diffuse mode. When faced with a problem, Edison would sit and relax in his chair, holding ball bearings in his hand. He would then relax away letting his mind run free until fall as sleep. Once he felt as sleep, the ball bearings would drop and make him wake up with the noise. He would then get back to his work and take advantage from the ideas he got while in diffuse mode.
Deal with procrastination
People tend to procrastinate, because our brains tend to turn away unease new things to something more pleasant and familiar
Use Pomodoro technique, set a timer of more than 25 minutes, uninterruptedly. Then promise to give yourself a reward.
Practice Makes Permanent
When facing new and abstract concepts, like Monad it’s important to practice with ideas and concepts to help enhance and strengthen the neural connection your making during the learning process.
Checking if you have any holes in your understanding of the material is a good first step. Create a test checklist where you can go from each point and recall everything you learned. If there’s something that is not 100% clear yet, then you probably still need to spend time on it.
Prefer spaced repetition
If you want to move that information into your long term memory, it often takes time and practice.Spaced repetition involves repeating what you’re trying to retain, but what you want to do is space this
repetition out, daily, over a number of days
Sleeping
Plain being awake creates toxic products in your brain, and sleeping remove these toxic. Sleeping is also when you go into your diffuse mode.
Sleep has also been shown to make a remarkable difference in your ability to figure out difficult problems and to understand what you’re trying to learn.
Chunking
This is the idea of breaking what you want to learn into concepts. The goal is to learn each concept in a way that they each become like a well-known puzzle piece. In order to master a concept, you not only need to know it but also to know how it fits into the bigger picture.
Chunking is when you grasp and master various bits and pieces of the skills you need. You’re creating little neural mini chunks, that you can then gradually knit together into larger neural chunks.
Forming initial chunk by going through examples, creating a road map of what you need to go through--
- Focus your undivided attention on the information you want to chunk
- Understand the basic idea
- See the connection between the basic elements
- Practice and repetition
Recall
Recall instead of reread. After you’ve read the material, simply look away, and see what you can recall from the material you’ve just read
Concept mapping, drawing diagrams that show the relationship between the concepts would be the best.
Avoid illusion of competence
Merely glancing at a solution and thinking you truly know it yourself is one of the most common illusions of competence in learning.
Test it, recall it to see whether you actually grasp the idea.
By recalling and thinking about the material when you are in various physical environment, you become independent of the cues from any one given location
Avoid overlearning
Spread it out over many sessions and over many different modes of learning.
I have been trying to set aside 30–60 minutes every day for each new thing I am trying to learn or learn in more depth. Not only has this been better in resulting in lasting learning, but I also find it way more achievable to say that I am going to work on X for 30 minutes.
Continuing to study or practice after you’ve mastered what you can in the session is called overlearning.
Deliberate practice by focusing on the more difficult material.
Each practice session should be focused on one individual skill. Usually, each skill built upon the one before it
Remember Einstellung, a phenomenon, in which an idea you already have in mind or a neural pattern you’ve already developed and strengthened, may prevent a better idea or solution from being found.
Can you recall a situation where you kept trying the same thing over and over again, even though it wasn’t working at all !!
Meaningful groups
Study Groups / Teamwork
This one isn’t new to me and has proven to be most beneficial to maintain continued progress and hold each other accountable. But, it is important to include in this list and note that finding the right group is key.
It’s much easier to remember numbers by associating them with memorable events.
Create meaningful groups that simplify the material. It takes a bit of time to conjure up a solid mental image. But the more you do it, the quicker it become Motivation.
It is hard to learn when you’re not into it. But if it’s something you’re really interested in, learning is easy
Taking responsibility for your own ,learning is one of the most important things you can do The big picture.
Structure your learning before you get started.Spend some time planning and identifying the key parts of your learning.
