How to learn how to learn
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This is a short presentation that I made at 10X Day 2020 in Dublin. This deck covers key processes required to learn effectively in the 21st century. After all, learning is the main skill that all professionals must possess. In the words of Alvin Tofler, "the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn".
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How to learn how to learn
- 2. Learning agency “The future demands skilled, digitally-aware learners with the capacity to participate in learning throughout their life, using technologies of their own choosing.” - Higher Education Strategy Group, 2011 https://hea.ie/assets/uploads/2017/06/National-Strategy-for-Higher-Education-2030.pdf
- 4. A note on intelligence • Ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments • IQ tests: Relative intelligence VS Ultimate intelligence • Intelligence: broad & malleable
- 5. “Geniuses are forged in the crucible of continuous learning.” – Ulrich Boser Indirect weak approaches to intelligence enhancement: • Transcranial magnetic stimulation • Nootropics Learning toolbox: • Transcranial magnetic stimulation • Nootropics Indirect weak approaches to intelligence enhancement • Transcranial magnetic stimulation • Nootropics Tools to rewire your brain 1. Mastery > Familiarity 2. Active retrieval > Re-exposure 3. Interleaving > Mass practice 4. Focus AND Diffuse thinking 5. Sleep > Crushing it 6. Elaboration > Repetition “MI-SAFE”
- 6. Understanding ≠ Knowing: How well do you understand your topic? • Beware the Illusion of Explanatory Depth (IoED) aka “fluency illusion” • #1: for poor performance (exams, presentations etc.) • Acknowledge complexity / Calibrate confidence
- 8. Familiarity < Mastery • Passive / shallow • Rereading / Highlighting • Massed practice (cramming) • Staying on topic until you “get it” = Least effective learning techniques = Temporary gains Mastery > Familiarity • Active / deep • Strong cognitive effort = strong learning • Counter intuitive & uncomfortable • Desirable difficulty • Active learning: 5Ts: Test, Teach, Transfer, Try, Time!
- 9. Active spaced retrieval > Re-exposure • Active retrieval Retrieval strength • Working memory to Long term memory : Spaced repetition • Consistency > intensity • E.g., 5 hours study versus 5*1 hours • End cramming • Harder learning Stronger learning Lasts longer
- 10. Cells that fire together, wire together
- 11. Retrieval strength increases storage strength • “We think of effortless performance as desirable, but it’s really a terrible way to learn.” - Dan Coyle, The Talent Code • Retrieval supports retention • Hard learning = Strong / Long lasting learning • Exponential learning
- 12. Interleaving > Mass practice “Practice like you play so you can play like you practice” Which group did better? 1. The “massed practice“ group, hit curveball after curveball. 2. The “interleaved practice” group, was thrown random pitches. • Massed practice: faster forgetting • Interleaved practice: better retrieval AND retention
- 13. Diffuse modeFocus mode Focus AND Diffuse thinking
- 14. Focused thinking (“conscious processing”) • Narrow and tactical • Methodical and focused • Utilises working memory • Necessary for deep work • Limited • Analogy: RAM / Juggler / Spinning plates
- 15. Diffuse mode aka “unconscious processing” • Broad and conceptual • Strategic (Big picture) • Meandering and creative • Uncovers meaning and connection • Analogy: basecamp for mountain climbers i.e., active recovery • Analogy: hard drive memory
- 17. Sleep > Crushing it • Consolidates memory • Sharpens skills • Improves comprehension & retention • Morning study, 1 hour nap = 30% improvement in test results
- 18. “If the brain is a learning machine, then it’s an eccentric one. And it performs best when its quirks are exploited.” – Benedict Carey, How We Learn
- 19. Elaboration > Repetition • Elaboration = explaining in your own words • Relate new information to prior knowledge • Understanding as a *consequence* of explaining • Explaining drivers knowledge deeper into your consciousness • https://www.reddit.com/r/EILI5/
- 20. Homework • What will you teach people from 10x day? 5Ts Test, Teach, Try, Transfer, Time! 1. Mastery > Familiarity 2. Active retrieval > Re-exposure 3. Interleaving > Mass practice 4. Focus AND Diffuse thinking 5. Sleep > Crushing it 6. Elaboration > Repetition
Editor's Notes
- 21st century learning What it means to be literate in the 21st century. Learners need to take agency Maximise potential using new & emerging technologies
- What is intelligence: Ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments. Learning was once thought to depend entirely on the innate intelligence of the learner. Rote learning was the order of the day. Reminds me of IQ tests which reveal relative intelligence at a moment in time. This is not the same as ultimate intelligence. Intelligence is broader than it is currently defined (many models) and more malleable than we believe.
- We won’t focus on things like frequent nootropics use. Our goal is to understand the blueprints behind high-performance. To become a master in your field, you either have to be a born genius, have an outstanding memory or, at the very least, be willing to bury your head in the books for years. Right? Not quite. Actually, everyone can become efficient learners. You don’t have to be the next Einstein or have a photographic memory. All you need are some tools to help you rewire your brain. Much remains to be known about learning and its neural underpinnings however research in recent years there has been some good insights contributing to the science of learning: highly effective, evidence-based strategies to replace less effective but widely accepted practices. The catch is that the most effective learning strategies are not intuitive.
- Beware the Illusion of Explanatory Depth (IoED) aka “fluency illusion” Do you know how a bicycle works? If I asked, could you say where the chain, pedals and frame are? According to a 2006 study by the University of Liverpool, maybe not. Participants in the study were asked to draw a picture of a bicycle. Many participants drew bicycles that would be completely non-functional. Later, to make sure that lack of artistic skill wasn’t a factor, participants were asked to view pictures with different arrangements of chains, pedals and frames to state which corresponds to a working bicycle. The result was that over 40% of participants couldn’t do it. #1: for poor performance (exams, presentations etc.) Beware Dunning Kruger Syndrome If we can acknowledge the complexity about something, we can recalibrate our confidence accordingly.
- Ebbinghaus was the first person to research memory. He studied random symbols and attempted to memorise them. Discovered exponential loss of memory.
- Acknowledge complexity / Calibrate confidence Competence: function of our mental models Poor mental models because we assume we know more than we do We have already seen that there is a huge difference between fluency and mastery Humans are poor judges of when we are learning and when we’re not. Good learning is hard and slow. It doesn’t feel productive. Therefore, we are drawn to tactics that feel more productive, unaware that the gains from these tactics are often temporary. Conventional approaches to learning include: Rereading, Highlighting, Massed practice (cramming), Staying on topic until you “get it”, Low(er) cognitive effort? Rereading and massed practice give rise to feelings of fluency that are taken to be signs of mastery. However, for true durability of learning, these tactics are largely a waste of time. Reality: Rereading and massed practice are among the least effective learning techniques. They are comfortable but NOT durable. 5Ts: Test, Teach, Transfer (to paper), Try (Practice), Time (Thinking requires concentration. Contentration requires uninterrupted time). ------ Responsibility for learning does not reside with the teacher
- Remember the forgetting curve? Law of disuse: information gets forgotten unless it is used. Interrupt the forgetting curve with “active retrieval”. This is key to remembering indefinitely. (Retrieval) Testing vanquishes the fluency trap. / Regular retrieval practice will put an end to cramming and lead to long term remembering.. Knowledge can only be embedded into long term memory (storage) via spaced practice. Retrieval practice needs to be spaced out. => Consistency > intensity: New learning requires consolidation which takes time. Spaced out study is as close to a freebie in learning science as you can get. Desirable difficulty: the harder you need to work to remember something, the bigger the spike in storage and retrieval capacity Harder learning is stronger and lasts longer. Gym analogy: Go for a long run versus interval training. It’s much easier to go for a run (or whatever) at a steady state than it is to bust out X intervals of high intensity followed by quick recovery. Interval training leads to better physical conditioning. -- Short term incubation versus long term percolation (Percolation is building something that wasn't there before) Spacing - learning in different contexts can be useful for forming associations Research: Pre-testing The most effective retrieval practice will reflect how you will use the knowledge later
- Analogy: Making a path in the snow. It’s not easy but it gets easier each time you walk the path Hebbian Learning: Neurons that fire together, wire together. At a cellular level: adaptation of brain neurons during the learning process Introduced by Donald Hebb in his 1949 book The Organization of Behavior
- Every time you work hard to retrieve a memory, you strengthen it. Retrieval itself creates greater retention / stability No limit to the amount you can learn Ie., when the mind has to work, learning sticks better Exponential learning: The more you learn, the better able you are to connect. “Success is the product of the severest kind of mental and physical application.” - Thomas Edison
- “It’s not just what you know, but how you practice what you know that determines how well the learning serves you later.” Learning preferences ≠ learning effectiveness Massed practice is how we typically approach learning. We work through a set of similar problems until we attain a perceived level of mastery and then move on. The problem is that gains are based on short-term memory, not true, deep learning. Interleaved practice a better course to mastery. This means mixing things up. That means mixed problem sets. Changing topics etc. Gym analogy: Long run versus interval training. It’s much easier to go for a run (or whatever) at a steady state than it is to bust out X intervals of high intensity followed by quick recovery. Interval training leads to better physical conditioning. Interleave your practice so you can deal with life’s curveballs Interleave practice to move learning from short-term memory into long term memory structures It is one skill to hit a curveball when you know a curveball will be thrown, it is a different skill to hit a curveball when you don’t know it’s coming.” What the authors are explaining in the aforementioned quote is, that if the baseball players want to optimize their skills and become better athletes, they need to: Spend LESS of their time practicing hitting curveballs when they KNOW they’re coming, and Spend MOST of their time practicing hitting curveballs when they DON’T KNOW they’re coming Unfortunately however, the players often do the reverse; spending countless back-to-back hours of hitting curveball after curveball with no surprises thrown into the mix to switch it up and keep them on their toes.
- Focused and diffused modes of thinking bring different insights to your learning.
- All examples prior are based on focused attention Focused mode is straight-forward: Concentrate and put in the effort! But you can gas out quickly. Utilises limited working memory On difficult subjects: Short term incubation versus long term percolation (Percolation is building something that wasn't there before) Percolation suggests that we should start work on large projects asap and stop when we get stuck………with the confidence that we are initiating percolation, not quitting.
- Think: Symphonic thinking You can trigger the diffuse mode when you are not employing your focus via your working memory. This happens when you go for a walk, take a nap, meditate, take a shower, and the ultimate diffuse mode: SLEEPING!
- Think intense effort followed by intense recovery. You need them both. How to engage both strategically? Use the ‘Pomodoro’ technique. Focused attention for 25 minutes followed by 5 minutes chilling out. Francesco Cirillo developed this time-management system in the 1980s using a tomato-shaped timer. Once you start the timer, you keep going. Don’t check emails. Don’t check your phone. Stop interruptions by telling people you are ‘doing a Pomodoro’ or ‘on the clock,’ and it gives a friendly reason for them to leave you alone. Note: You won’t engage your diffuse mode of thinking if you spend your 5 minutes scrolling Twitter or Facebook. Get up from your desk. Make me a cup of tea!
- Sleep supports rather than gets in the way of learning. Sleep improves comprehension and retention of what was learned the day before. The research: In a series of experiments at University of California, researchers found that people who study in the morning, whether it’s words or pattern recognition games, straight retention or comprehension of deeper structures, do about 30% better on an evening test if they’ve had an hour-long nap than if they didn’t nap. Sleep can clarify memory and sharpen skills. It is necessary to lock in both. Consider: how poorly you perform at work when you stay up late the night before!
- Also, story of Edison with the benny between his knees Penny would drop into the pot and wake him back up - at that moment Edison would write down whatever was in his mind Father of Surrealist art, Salvador Dali Intrigued with the images which occur at the boundary between sleeping and waking. Slept with a spoon in his hand and a tin plate on the floor The moment that he began to doze the spoon would slip from his fingers and clang on the plate, immediately waking him to capture the surreal images. Unconscious is a living, moving stream of energy from which thoughts gradually rise to the conscious level and take on a definite form. Unconscious is like a hydrant in the yard while your consciousness is like a tap in the kitchen. Once you know how to turn on the hydrant, a constant supply of images can flow freely from the tap.
- Think: You don’t know the topic until you can explain it to somebody else, succinctly. Action: Explain what you’re studying to someone. Teach it to them. Like another way of testing. Useful for dispelling the fluency illusion. 20-30% more powerful than starting at the pages. Book: Made to Stick: Elaboration > repetition: “Elaboration is the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know.” Can you explain the material in your own words? - The more connections you can make / create to other knowledge, the better you will be able to recall (and apply) the new knowledge later. Mission Impossible: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to teach your favourite big ideas from today to your spouse, colleagues and friends. Book: A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley: “The legendary Charles Darwin would do much the same thing. When trying to explain a concept, he imagined someone had just walked into his study. He would put his pen down and try to explain the idea in the simplest terms. That helped him figure out how he would describe the concept in print. Along those lines, the website Reddit.com has a section called ‘Explain like I’m 5’ where anyone can make a post asking for a simple explanation of a complex topic.” https://www.reddit.com/r/EILI5/
- Mission Impossible: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to teach your favourite big ideas from today to your spouse, colleagues and friends.