5 principles for better learning freely taken from a coursera moo: Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects by Dr. Barbara Oakley, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski

1. 5 principles for learning
better (or better learning)

2. What is this?

3. What is this?
Here is a super-quick summary of 5 principles that can
help you learn better.
They are taken from the MOOC:
Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help
you master tough subjects
by Dr. Barbara Oakley, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski
and loosely described by my understanding of them.

4. 1. Chunking

5. 1. Chunking
Chunking is breaking (new) informations into pieces to
assimilate them better. It is like eating in a way. Putting
in your mouth a too big piece of food makes it difficult,
if not impossible, to digest it. On the other side small
bites makes it easier, safer and healthier.
Since our working memory is limited we can also
absorb a limited amount of new informations in a given
time. By chunking them we can start using new
concepts in our mind until they become “part of our
library” and then we can move onto the next one.

6. 2. Diffuse mode

7. 2. Diffuse mode
There are two states, or modes, your brain can process
informations. The focused one is when we use almost
all our attention on a given task to tackle it. For a tech
person that would be a foreground process with priority.
The other one is diffuse mode, when we are doing
different things but our brain is also making connections
in the background. The latter is very good for creative
thinking and to face new challenges even in learning
since we are more able to make new connections
between informations and think out of the box.
Relaxing activities and sport could be good activities to
prosper diffuse mode.

8. 3. Crosspollinating

9. 3. Crosspollinating
Crosspollinating is about making connections between
different topics, realms or chunks, to sediment
informations in our memory.
In a way is a learning practice that we already
practiced (pun intended) at school. An example is we
are taught how an atom works often by referring how
a planet and its satellites do.
The great thing about finding correlations between
different realms is not only to make it easier to grasp
concepts but also come up with strong innovative
ideas. History proves that lots of amazing ideas come
from picking a concept in a world and apply it to
another one, at first sight maybe unrelated.

10. 4. Procrastination

11. 4. Procrastination
Procrastination is bad. We know it.
Good news, you are not the only one suffering and
there's an explanation behind. Still you want to
overcome it.
A good technique is the “pomodoro” technique.
There is nothing so terrible that you cannot do for 25
minutes in a row! So split your agenda in 30 minutes
parts and assign a task to each one of them. In the first
25 minutes focus on process (doing what you are
supposed to do) rather then product (the final
outcome). And then reward yourself for 5 minutes.
Then on to the next one!

12. 5. Sleep

13. 5. Sleep
Sleep is good! For you and for learning.
There are several reasons for it but I am to point two
of them.
When you sleep your brain goes over informations
and works to stick them in your memory. The more
you sleep the better is for your memory.
Second if you try to learn something before going to
sleep, and maybe you try to fall asleep thinking of it,
there are good chances that you'll dream about it and
your brain will review it during the night. Increasing
your learning experience!

14. Conclusion: What are more
concepts?
There is of course much more in the
mooc, like deliberate practicing, the
palace technique, long term memory,
overlearning, Einstellung, teamwork,
metaphors, ...

15. Where to find more?
https://class.coursera.org/learning-002