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It's through practice and repetition that we can help enhance and strengthen the neural structures we're building as we're learning something new. Practice and repetition is particularly important for more abstract topics1 - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Topics which are visible real objects (like cows or trees) or are associated with emotions but still abstract (like love or hope) are easier to learn.
And just as importantly, exercise is surprisingly valuable in helping both improve our memory and our ability to learn. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Also, an enriched environment (...) is very important.
These are two essential learning modes of your brain.
Diffuse thinking is often active when resting.
Focused thinking means that you're actively concentrating on something using rational, sequential, analytical approaches.
So, the bottom line is, when you're learning something new, especially something that's a little more difficult, your mind needs to be able to go back and forth between the two different learning modes. That's what helps you learn effectively. You might think of it as a bit analogous to building your strength by lifting weights. You would never plan to compete in a weightlifting competition by waiting until the very day before a meet and then spending the entire day working out like a fiend. I mean, it just doesn't happen that way. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Analogy: Think of a ping-pong table and a ball jumping back and forth on each side when switching between the modes.
Analogy: Activating a thought process when learning is like a Pinball machine working in your head. Imagine rows of bumpers layed out as a 2-D grid over your brain. When the pinball machine releases the ball it finds a pattern between mutliple bumbers.
You think a thought, boom, it takes off, moves smoothly along. And then, as it's bouncing around on the bumpers, you're able to figure out the problem you're trying to solve, or, the concept you're trying to understand that's related to something you're rather familiar with. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Analogy: Focused Thinking is like a Pinball machine with a lot of very close bumpers. It activates a very clear and close pattern. It is like looking at the small parts of a problem.
Analogy: Diffuse Thinking is like a Pinball machine with few very widely spaced bumpers. It is used to reach areas in the brain which would not be accessible by focused thinking (Think of the very close bumpers blocking the way). It helps to grasp new concepts which you never thought of before, or helps when the problem you are working on needs new ideas or approaches. It is like looking at the big picture of a problem.
- It seems you can't be in both thinking modes at the same time.
It's kind of like a coin. We can see either one side, or the other side of the coin. But not both sides at the same time. Being in one mode seems to limit your access to the other mode's way of thinking. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Learning too much without breaks and sleep in between, cramming it all inside leads to a weak neuronal foundation. Analogy: Think of the neural patterns in your brain is like building a brick wall. You need breaks and sleep so that connections can get strong and the bricks doesn't fall appart. So let the mortar dry!
When you're learning, what you want to do is study something. Study it hard by focusing intently. Then take a break or at least change your focus to something different for awhile. During this time of seeming relaxation, your brain's diffuse mode has a chance to work away in the background and help you out with your conceptual understanding. Your neural mortar in some sense has a chance to dry. If you don't do this, if instead you learn by cramming, your knowledge base will look more like this (picture shown), all in a jumble with everything confused, a poor foundation. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Metaphor and analogy are really helpful when you're trying to learn something new.
- The brain's two different learning modes focused and diffuse helps us learn but in very different ways.
- Learning something difficult can take time:
Your brain needs to alternate it's ways of learning as it grapples with and assimilates the new material - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Ask yourself:
When do you find your mind relaxing somewhat and getting away from focused attention? When taking a shower? Riding on the bus? Going for a walk?
- When being in nature, or on the balcony.
- Silence is a good addition.
- Rainy days at home.
- Going for a long walk especially on a beautiful spring day or rainy autumn day.
- When smoking cigarettes.
- When laying in bed and resting.
- Breathing cold air in.
Procrastination2
When you look at something that you really rather not do, it seems that you activate the areas of your brain associated with pain. Your brain, naturally enough, looks for a way to stop that negative stimulation by switching your attention to something else. But here's the trick. Researchers discovered that not long after people might start actually working out what they didn't like, that neurodiscomfort disappeared. So it seems what happens when you procrastinate, is something like this. First, you observe, and get a cue about something that causes a tiny bit of unease. You don't like it, so to make the sensation go away you turn your attention from whatever caused that unease.You turn toward something more pleasant. The result, you feel happier, temporarily. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
A handy little mental tool: The Pomodoro3 method
- How it works: 25 min focusing on something, without disruptions and then reward4 yourself.
This helps you get going, using brief periods each day of focused attention, that will help you start building the neural patterns you need to be more successful in learning more challenging materials. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Ask yourself:
What in particular would YOU want to make sure is turned off or unavailable to ensure you retain your focus when you do a Pomodoro ?
Unavailable/Off:
- Smartphone
...
Improving Focus:
- Silence
- Know boundaries of my task
- Clean working environement
- Nice environment, plants, light
- Hardware timer
- Posture and current working location (bed..)
- Enough hydration
- If I work on a pc, a nice feeling keyboard
- Task vs. Reward (Overthinking reward - not starting)
- Body and Mood feeling (tired, lazy etc.)
Practice makes permanent !
Working Memory and Long Term Memory are the major systems for learning and making permanent memory of our brain 5. When you are learning something new, you use your prefrontal cortex and your Working Memory. Working memory is the part of memory that has to do with what you're immediately and consciously processing in your mind.
It is widely believed, that your working memory can hold only 4 chunks6 of information at the same time.
You often need to keep repeating what you're trying to work with so it stays in your working memory.
Repetitions needed so that your metabolic vampires that is natural dissipating processes don't suck those memories away. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Analogy: Short-term memory is something like an inefficient mental blackboard where the letters fade away in a short period of time.
Analogy: Long term memory is a wide storage warehouse, and just like a warehouse, it's distributed over a big area7.
The long-term memory storage warehouse is immense, it's got room for billions of items. In fact there can be so many items they can bury each other. So it can be difficult for you to find the information you need unless you practice and repeat at least a few times. Long-term memory is important because it's where you store fundamental concepts and techniques that are often involved in whatever you're learning about. When you encounter something new, you often use your working memory to handle it. If you want to move that information into your long-term memory, it often takes time and practice. To help with this process, use a technique called spaced repetition. This technique involves repeating what you're trying to retain, but what you want to do is space this repetition out. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- It will help you to retain information in your Long term memory effectively. Instead of cramming, you space out your learning sessions over mutiple days, with breaks in between.
**Examples **8
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
- Just being awake produces toxin products in your brain.
- Sleeping is important so that the brain can get rid of the toxins. These toxins can make it so you can't think very clearly if you don't sleep enough.
How does the brain get rid of these poisons? Turns out that when you sleep, your brain cells shrink. This causes an increase in the space between your brain cells. It's like unblocking a stream. Fluid can flow past these cells and wash the toxins out. So, sleep which can sometimes seem like such a waste of time is actually your brain's way of keeping itself clean and healthy - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Sleeping is actually an important part of the memory and learning process.
- It strengthens important parts of memories even as it erases less important memories.
- Allows your brain a chance to rehearse difficult material--going over and over the tougher aspects of what you are trying to learn.
- Makes a remarkable difference in your ability to figure out difficult problems and to understand what you are trying to learn.
It seems that during sleep, your brain tidies up ideas and concepts you're thinking about and learning. It erases the less important parts of memories and simultaneously strengthens areas that you need or want to remember.
During sleep, your brain also rehearses some of the tougher parts of whatever you're trying to learn, going over and over neural patterns to deepen and strengthen them.
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. It's as if the complete deactivation of the conscious you in the prefrontal cortex at the forefront of your brain helps other areas of your brain start talking more easily to one another allowing them to put together the neural solution to your learning task while you're sleeping. Of course, you must also plant the seed for your diffuse mode by first doing focused mode work. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Analogy:
(...)
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Dreaming about what you're studying can substantially enhance your ability to understand.
Increase chances of dreaming:
- Go over what you are learning right before taking a nap or going to sleep.
- Set in mind that you want to dream about the material.
Note-taking tools and tips9
- Avoid transcribing notes (writing every word the instructor says) in favor of writing notes in your own words.
- Review your notes the same day you created them and then on a regular basis, rather than cramming review into one long study session immediately prior to an exam.
- Test yourself on the content of your notes either by using flashcards or using methodology from Cornell Notes. Testing yourself helps you identify what you do not yet know from your notes, and successful recall of tested information improves your ability to recall that information later (you will be less likely to forget it).
- Carefully consider whether to take notes on pen and paper or with a laptop. There are costs and benefits to either option.
- We are often misled to believe that we know lecture content better than we actually do, which can lead to poor study decisions. Avoid this misperception at all costs!
It is possible to change and become accomplished in areas that you don't think you can do very well at.
Analytical and metaphorical approaches...
Practice makes permanent memory.
- What is a chunk of information in terms of neuro science ?
- Barbara Oakley: What do you think your biggest learning challenge might be ?
- Math
- Physics
- Benny Lewis, Fluent in 3 Months
- Barbara Oakley, A mind for numbers
- Deutsch: (K)ein Gespür für Zahlen
By Barbara Oakley:
Research has shown that writing your notes by hand instead of typing them helps you learn better. We prefer Palomino Blackwing Pencils for note taking. These pencils have the most extraordinary feel of any pencil we've used. Once past the initial sharpening with a standard pencil sharpener, (vertical is best) we use cheap plastic Staedtler manual pencil sharpener, which we keep beside us whenever we are writing. We prefer quadrille ruled engineering pads for our lists and doodles.
Incidentally, when Barb goes to sleep, she uses her wonderful Blackwing pencil to write a brief list of the main things she'd like to accomplish the next day. Writing the “Day” task list the evening before helps her set it in mind to actually accomplish what she wants to accomplish. When Barb gets up in the morning, she looks over her Day list, and then sets out a little mini-list of three or four mini-tasks on a small Now list on a different part of the same page as the Day list. Using her wonderful pencil, she gets to cross off each of those smaller tasks as she does them. It feels great! As she gradually finishes the items on the bigger Day list, she crosses them off there, too. She usually don’t finish all the items on the Day list, but she makes a lot of progress this way. Barb usually tries to get at least one Pomodoro in early on her toughest task, to “eat her frogs first.”
- brainfacts.org
- Barbara Oakley, 10 Rules of Good and Bad Studying
- James Clear, Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead
- David Handel, The Importance of Becoming a Self-Directed Lifelong Learner
- Scott Young, MIT Challenge
- Cindi May, 2014, A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop
- Only dip in to read what is of interest to you.
Chapters 1-3 of the book A Mind for Numbers are especially helpful in providing helpful information and additional exercises related to the materials of Module 1.
Access Notes: The New York Times has limited (5) free articles per email address. Mind Tools and The New Yorker are paid (firewall) services.
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Scott Young, I Was Wrong About Speed Reading: Here are the Facts
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John Dunlosky, Strengthening the Student Toolbox: Study Strategies to Boost Learning - American Educator, Fall, 2013. This excellent, comprehensive article is written by one of the top researchers in learning.
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Michael Friedman, Note-taking tools and tips (October 15, 2014), Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching. Very useful insights into how to improve your note taking.
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Maria Konnikova, Goodnight. Sleep Clean - New York Times
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John Hamilton, Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep. - NPR All Things Considered.
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Mind Tools, The Pomodoro Technique® Staying Focused Throughout the Day
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Anne Trafton, "Try, try again? Study says no: Trying harder makes it more difficult to learn some aspects of language, neuroscientists find." Science Daily.
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Richard C. Mohs. "How Human Memory Works." How Stuff Works. Notice that what Dr. Mohs calls "short term memory" in his excellent article is almost the same as "working memory." Also, Dr. Mohs retains the "seven slots" theory of working memory--researchers still differ in their perspectives about this.
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Dan Rockmore, (Nov 7, 2019) "The Myth and Magic of Generating New Ideas," The New Yorker.
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Gretchen Reynolds. (April 30, 2014). "Want to be More Creative? Take a Walk."The New York Times.
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Ferris Jabr, (September 3, 2014). "Why Walking Helps Us Think."The New Yorker.
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Brigid Schulte, (May 16, 2014). "For a more productive life, daydream."CNN Opinion.
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Robert Wright, (April 21, 2012). "How to Break the Procrastination Habit"The Atlantic. (Charles Duhigg's book,The Power of Habit, which is mentioned in the article, is also great!)
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Daniel J. Levitin, (August 9, 2014), "Hit the Reset Button in Your Brain," The New York Times.
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Charlie Tyson, (August 14, 2014), "Failure to Replicate," Inside Higher Ed. This is a very interesting overview article about the state of affairs in education research.
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Pam Harrison, (September 8, 2014), "Sleep on It: Sleep Consolidates Memory of New Motor Task," Medscape. Although this article deals with motor tasks, there are obvious implications related to the importance of sleep in consolidating other areas in learning. (You'll need to join to read the article, but it's free.)
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National Numeracy. A website by an independent charity that is devoted to helping every person in the UK to reach a level of numeracy skills that allow them to meet their full potential.
- Boyce, Richard et al. "Causal evidence for the role of REM sleep theta rhythm in contextual memory consolidation." Science 352, 6287 (2016): 812-816.
As it turns out one of the first steps towards gaining expertise in academic topics is to create conceptual chunks, mental leaps that unite scattered bits of information through meaning. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
A chunk is a network of neurons that are used to fire together when a familiar action or thought is provoked, to help you think or perform smoothly and effectively.
Chunks are pieces of information, neuroscientifically speaking, through bound together through meaning or use. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Examples: Dressing yourself, rolling a cigarette, going to toilet, walking, drinking, eating, dish washing, beard shaving, swimming, music, dance, doing math like adding numbers, spoken words -- also ideas and concepts, simply put, anything where humans can get good at -- These thoughts are the basis of much of the science, literature and art.
Chunking is the mental leap that helps you unite bits of information together through meaning. The new logical whole makes the chunk easier to remember, and also makes it easier to fit the chunk into the larger picture of what you're learning.
Just memorizing a fact without understanding or context doesn't help you understand what's really going on or how the concept fits together with other concepts you're learning.
Chunking helps your brain run more efficiently. Once you chunk an idea, a concept, or an action, you don't know need to remember all the little underlying details. You've got the main idea, the chunk, and that's enough. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Also, chunks get larger over time and can connect together to build a group of chunks. Is that true ? (...)
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Question & Reflection: Does these groups count as "one chunk" for the working memory ? I think this is the case. I think these groups of chunks must be forming multiple interconnected long term memories which are related to one another, in order to manage complex interactions by thought and actions in the future.
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Question & Reflection: Are chunks always stored in the Long Term Memory? - If I understand the material correctly, this must be the case, because chunks are formed and reused later on in life through the prefrontal cortex, which does by itself not have a long term memory10. The counterpart, the Working Memory11, relies on the LTM because by itself, it can't hold any memory long term. If any chunks would not live in the LTM, wouldn't that mean they could not be persistant ?
Analogy: Chunks are like packages stored in the [wide storage warehouse](#Long Term Memory) analogy.
Remember: Only four chunks can be handled by your WM at the same time.
Analogy: Imagine your working memory is an Octupus. There are four wholes beneath it. It has four arms and can access and hold four chunks through the holes at the same time. This happens, when you focus on something.
Remember, this is different from the random connections of the diffuse mode. Focusing your attention to connect parts of the brain to tie together ideas is an important part of the focused mode of learning.
It is also often what helps get you started in creating a chunk. Interestingly when you're stressed your attentional octopus begins to lose the ability to make some of those connections. This is why your brain doesn't seem to work right when you're angry, stressed, or afraid. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- To learn a new complex topic, it helps to analyse, grasp and master small steps to build 'micro chunks'. These micro chunks, can connect together to build lager chunks and thus lead to better understanding. Also, it is not too important of why individual steps work by themself, but how they connect and build upon each other and why a next step is a next thing to do.
Analogy: When learning to play a song on guitar, at first it helps to learn small single patterns or bits which occur in the song. Later on you will learn to connect them together, to play the whole song. It is like using a map to help find an unkown place. Soon you will find the way on your own. You will even find new ways to get there.
In learning a sport, say basketball, soccer, golf, 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.
Later, you can knit those larger chunks into still larger and more complex chunks that you can draw up in an instant in reaction say to a slight shift and twist in the soccer ball that's coming your way. The best chunks are the ones that are so well ingrained that you don't even have to consciously think about connecting the neural pattern together. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Analyzing worked out solutions beforehand, helps to see the key features and underlying principles of a problem.
- Chunking of physical motions and mental ideas is closely related.
- Get an overview of the material, skipping ahead looking at the topics and how they relate, seeing illustrations or pictures will help you grasp the big picture (doing a "picture walk"). This will help you creating context later on.
- Remember: Focused and diffuse thinking is vital in the chunking process.
- There is a bottom-up chunking process and a top-down big picture process. The first process will help to strenghten your chunks by practice and repetition. The second process is important for understanding what you are learning and where it fits in.
Both processes are vital in gaining mastery over the material.
Context is where bottom-up and top-down learning meet.
To clarify here, chunking may involve your learning how to use a certain problem solving technique. Context means learning when to use that technique instead of some other technique. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
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Focus your attention on the information you want to chunk (Distractions lead to difficulties forming a chunk).
Analogy: Your octopus tentacles, so to speak, can't reach very well if some of them are off on other thoughts using up some of the limited slots in your working memory. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
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Understand the basic idea (or the Gist) you are trying to chunk. This comes most often rather naturally and is important for how to use the underlying technique.
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Chunk the topic into smaller topics (micro chunks) if you are learning a new topic or have trouble understanding.
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Proofing if you really understand something is the moment when you can do it yourself.
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Only by doing it yourself you will create the neural patterns that leads to true mastery.
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Whether its understanding a concepts such as continental drift, seeing the connection between the basic elements of a plot for a story, grasping the economic principle of supply and demand, or comprehending the essence of a particular type of math problem. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Gaining context: Practice with both, related and unrelated problems, to master the topic and get a sense of the big picture. This is important so that you "know" when to use a chunk and not only how.
- Research of Jeff Karpicke
- Just rereading notes/books that are present right before you, leads to the illusion that the material has manifested also in your brain.
- The key is testing your self on whatever you are learning.
- As mentioned, just by repetitively reading your notes, you don't gain confidence and understanding of the material. Try to reread your notes once every time you begin a learning session and then put them away and try to recall what you have read.
- This is one way of testing yourself.
(...)
Bit by bit making mistakes helps you to correct your thinking so that you will learn better and get better at tests.
- Your brain reacts on each environment and that can be surprising to it. By changing the environment when you are learning your brain can get used to different signals and you will better prepared when you write a test in a new environment.
I think these topics cover techniques for seeing the bigger picture in general when chunking, but also the bigger picture for this course material.
Your brain has following diffuse Neuromodulators which influence your behavior, focusing abilities, motivation, social life and feeling about rewarding yourself. Learning more about this: http://brainfacts.org
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Acetylcholine Neurons
- Influences your ability to focus and paying close attention.
- These neurons form a big network in your brain.
- They are responsible for creating memories in the LTM.
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Dopamine Neurons
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Influences your motivation and decision making and even the value of sensory inputs.
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Dopamin is also in play when predicting future rewards.
(Like the cigarette I want to smoke after this pomodoro :P ?)
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Dopamine is released when unexpected rewards happen.
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Dopamin has a great effect on learning.
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Dopamine neurons are found in a small place in the brain stem.
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These neurons are part of a big system in your brain which controls reward learning.
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Serotonin
- Influences your social life.
- The level of seretonin activities in your brain is linked for risk taking behavior.
The level of serotonin is also closely linked to risk-taking behavior, with higher risk in lower serotonin monkeys. Inmates in jail for violent crimes have some of the lowest levels of serotonin activity in society. - Dr. Terry Sejnowski
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Emotions strongly effect your learning. They influence percpetion and attention and interact with learning and memory.
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The amygdala is the center in your brain where cognition and emotion is controlled.
The amygdala is a part of the limbic system which, together with hippocampus, is involved in processing memory and decision-making as well as regulating emotional reactions.
You will want to keep your amygdala happy to be an effective learner. - Dr. Terry Sejnowski
- Your emotions and neuromodulatory system are as important as perception and action for successfull learning.
Chunks of completely different topics, problems or concepts can relate to one another. This means you can access methods from another chunk to solve your current problem or understand a new concept. Therefore new problems can be more easily solved with more chunks in your 'Library' and leads to more creative flexibility.
- This will help you see different classes and types of concepts and find patterns for solving new problems.
Metaphor:
When you're trying to figure something out, if you have a good library of these chunks, you can more easily skip to the right solution by metaphorically speaking, listening to whispers from your diffuse mode.
- If you don't practice with your library of chunks, they can faint and it will be harder to see the big picture of what you are learning.
As you gain more experience in chunking in any particular subject, you'll see that the chunks you're able to create are bigger, in some sense that the ribbons are longer.
Not only are those ribbons longer, but the neural patterns are in some sense darker. They're more solid and firmly ingrained. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Practicing: You can try to understand something by two ways:
- Sequentiel step by step reasoning using Focused Mode
- Holistic Intuition using creatively Diffuse Mode (This often applies often when learning something new.)
- These 'random' connecting results should be verified since they can be wrong. Intuitive insights aren't always correct.
Lady Luck favors the one who tries. (Wer wagt, gewinnt.)
- With each small concept you learn after a first one, each will be easier to learn.
Overleaning means to repeat stuff you already learned very often. This can be good for a presentation for example, to reduce nervousness during the presentation and build self confidence (automaticity).
However, overlearning things you want to learn during a single session can be a waste of your learning time.
Worse yet, focusing on one technique is a little like learning carpentry by only practicing with a hammer.
After awhile you think you can fix anything by just bashing at it. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Repeating on new learning topics is good and strengthens your neural connections.
Repeating on topics you already know perfectly well, can give you a illusion of competence: You mastered the full range of material. But instead you mastered only the easy stuff !
Instead, you want to balance your studies by deliberately focusing on what you find more difficult.
This focusing on the more difficult material is called deliberate practice.
This phenomenon involves a mindeset like an idea or concept you already know, but which is basically misleading or incorrect. This can can prevent finding solving patterns and (better) solutions on the real subject (blocked thoughts). You will need to unlearn even when you are learning as a result.
Understanding how to obtain real solutions is important in learning and in life. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Don't jump into the water before you learned to swim.
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Interleave your learning by practicing your choice of different concepts, approach, and techniques all in one session.
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Repeat Video
Interleaving is extraordinarily important. Although practice and repetition is important in helping build solid neural patterns to draw on, it's interleaving that starts building flexibility and creativity.
It's where you leave the world of practice and repetition, and begin thinking more independently. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Resources:
- Mike Rowe, TV Show "Dirty Jobs"
Task: To help you better chunk and remember the ideas in this section, please pause to recall the main ideas we've covered in week two. Write them below (See Recall folder in FSNotes).
- Five rules to make the most of your online learning - By Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Accelerated Learning: Learn Faster and Remember More
- 11 Teacher-Recommended Math Apps and Online Tools
- Only dip in to read what is of interest to you - these readings are entirely optional.
Chapters 4 and 7 of A Mind for Numbers are especially helpful in providing helpful information and additional exercises related to the materials of Module 2.
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Robyn Scott, "The 30 Second Habit That Can Have a Big Impact On Your Life," Feb 18, 2014, The Huffington Post. This is actually a wonderful article on chunking!
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David Glenn,"Divided Attention," February 28, 2010, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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Errol Morris, "The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)," June 20, 2010, The New York Times, Opinionator.
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Johns Hopkins Medicine, "Memories of errors foster faster learning," August 14, 2014, Science Daily. Yes, mistakes really do help you learn!
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Travis Bradberry, "Multitasking Damages Your Brain And Career, New Studies Suggest," October 8, 2014, Forbes.
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Sue Shellenbarger, "The Power of the Doodle: Improve Your Focus and Memory," July 29, 2014, The Wall Street Journal.
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Colin Gerber, "Memory Consolidation and Productivity Can Both Be Improved by Taking Breaks," Quora, November, 2014.
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Steven C. Pan, "The Interleaving Effect: Mixing It Up Boosts Learning," Scientific American, August 4, 2015.
- Keep a planner Journal for what you goals are for each day. Write Task in the evening for the next day, and see what works out and what not.
- Commit yourself to certain routines and tasks each day.
- Enjoy rewards.
- Delay rewards until you finish the task.
- Watch for procrastination cues.
- Gain trust in your new system so you don't feel guilt about your progress.
- Have backup plans for when you still procrastinate.
- Eat your frogs first.
(Example) Planning for this Week:
Mon, 24th Aug - Start of learning week 3
Estimated Pomodoros for this Week: Est. ~3h = 12 = 5h
Reason: English-German Tasking and last weeks logs (Last week I took 5h where course estimated 3h).
Routine: Make this material Summary and Planning each monday.
- Planned Pomodoros for this week:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
- Reflect at Sunday if this planning worked out well.
Tue, 25th Aug
- You should not use willpower to defend procrastination 14. Willpower needs a lot of neural energies.
- However, long-term effects of habitual avoidance can be nasty.
- Procrastination can be the single key bad habit in your studies. It shows the same features of addiction. You can easily fool yourself to find irrational reasons on how to avoid essential learning topics. These reasons can look reasonable on the surface, but are shifting your focus, time and energy too much away.
- Learning strategies to handle procrastination 15 can be very helpful in your life. The higher you go in your studies, the more important it is to control procrastination. In the end, your habits can turn against you, if you don't.
Analogy: You can get immune to the immediate effects of poison (like arsen) by taking small doses over time. This will also protect you from immediate effects of larger doses, but long-term you organs will be damaged and your cancer risk raises. Same applies on your procrastination habits. You can take small doses but you will build up bad habits. It may feel good 16 for the moment, but the long-term effects are not so good.
Habits help you to save energy on some task (Like knowing how to ride a bike). They can be bad or good and also brief or long. Your brains goes in a way into a zombie mode, where it does not need to think about the details, but can do it very effectively.
Habits consists of four things (short CRRB):
- The Cue (Der Schlüsselreiz)
This triggers the habit and starts the routine. It is neither bad or good.
- The Routine
This is also the 'zombie mode' where you do one or multiple actions with too much effort. It determines if your habit is actually a good one or bad one.
- The Reward
Every habit continues to develop because they give us a feeling of pleasure. Procrastination is a very easy to develop habit, because of the imminent reward.
- The Belief (Die Überzeugung)
This is the thinking of why you do this is the right thing to do. To change a habit, you have to determine and change these manifested thoughts which have power over you.
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A good habit is:
I reflect on what I learn and work on regularily and sometimes automatically (which can turn to be exausting sometimes, expecially before sleeping). Since I know of the diffuse thinking mode, this got very much better, however. I can release my thoughts about complex topics better, because I know: 'diffuse mode and sleep is gonna do it instead'.
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A bad habit is:
When going to sleep, I often start surfing my favorite websites very long and focused. It is like I need some input when before sleeping. Actually it a very bad habit, because it messes with my reward system in a rather not so good way before sleeping, I think. It feels like I need the reward before even be able to sleep sometimes.
- Feeling 'the pain of learning' before starting is normal, even when you like what you are learning.
Concentrate on the Process, not the Product, to prevent procrastination.
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Concenration on the Product means concentrating on the outcome, for example on the finalizing of homework or tests.
In my case: Stop worrying about the outcome of your notes for each video session (!!). The feeling of 'getting behind' is blocking me, so that I put off my learning sessions over some days. This in return can lead to cramming, like last week where I crammed half of my needed learning sessions into one day 17. I should just focus on making regular progress and try to understand incrementally.
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Concentration on the Process means concentrating on the habits and actions required for the (unpleasant) tasks that need to be done.
Who cares whether you finish the homework or grasp the key concepts in any one session. The whole point instead, is that you calmly put forth your best effort for a short period.
The process.
For you, one of the easiest ways to focus on process is to focus on doing a Pomodoro, a 25 minute timed work session, not on completing a task. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
Note to myself: The understanding and application of the details and actions of this topic seem difficult to me. (-> Deliberate Practice applies: So I have to spend more time to understand this topic fully)
Start by trying to overwrite some habits, not all of them at once. Using as less willpower as possible is a good starting point. Concentrate on cues of your habits and analyse your reaction and feelings. This is where you need to be aware of what you need to change and have a plan on how-to.
The only place you need to apply willpower is to change your reaction to the cue. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
To understand all this, reanalyzing the four different components of a habit can help:
- The Cue: Notice, feel and get awareness of what launches you into 'zombie-procrastination mode':
- Location
- Time
- How you feel
- Reactions either to other people or something that just happened.
- Being all day at home lets me feel tired.
- Feeling tired over the day leads to excessive procrastination over several days and even weeks.
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The Routine: After the cue, your brain wants to get into the routine so you will feel better. This is where you need to start rewiring your habit.
- Having a plan to change your routine will help you with this. Adjust this plan if neccessary and just keep going.
- The Pomodoro technique can be very helpful to shift your reactions to the cues. (How ?)
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The Reward: Habits are powerful because the create neurological cravings. Find rewards to replace them.
Only once your brain starts expecting that reward, will the important rewiring take place that will allow you to create new habits. - Dr. Barabara Oakley
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The Belief: The most important point. Hanging out with linkminded people can help you with this very much.
- Task: What is the most common cue that launches you into procrastination mode? Is there a way you could avoid this without having to use a lot of willpower?
It is the problematic sleeping habits. When I tend to sleep during the day because of long nights of 'not able to sleep / awake brain, tired body' I fall into endless relax mode during the days only doing stuff I really enjoy. The cue is the feeling of not having enough mind energy. Coupled with my need to understand everything right away this leads to strong procrastination and 'brain-pain'. My underlying belief is, that I think I am not able to learn and focus enough and that it takes too much effort. It is very hard to let it go.
Without using much willpower I might start by just doing it no matter how my sleep was and reduce my time for the day dedicated to the learning. I just should not judge on how that might work out and only make little progress and give myself a very high reward. Just a 'mini-learning' day so that I don't feel like I am missing out.
- This is how my 'mini-learning' session could be done: No notes, just listen. Mark your notes with '(...)' for later.
Also remember that the better you get at something, the more enjoyable it can become. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
How to keep an overview of what you are learning:
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Keep a balance of small tasks during learning.
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Once a week, write a list of key tasks.
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Each day, the evening before 18, write a list of tasks which you can reasonably accomplish the next day.
Why the evening before?
Research has shown that this helps your subconscious to grapple with the tasks on the list, so you can figure out how to accomplish them.
Writing the list before you go to sleep enlists your 'zombies' to help you accomplish the items on the list the next day.
If you don't write your tasks down on a list, they lurk at the edge of the four or so slots in your working memory, taking up valuable mental real estate. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Balance your task between more process and fewer product tasks, where the latter tends to be doable within a limited period of time.
- Mix task in for 'diffuse mode' break tasks like 'go for a walk' or 'clean X' to prevent sitting to long.
- Make notes about what works and what not: With getting more and more experience you will get a feeling about what you can reasonably accomplish during the day.
- Plan a specific quitting time for the day is even more important than the working time. This even can work in rigorous academic programs.
- Have a healty leisure time along the hard work to improve your learning.
Time after time, those who are committed to maintaining healthy leisure time along with
their hard work outperformed those who doggedly pursue an endless treadmill. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Eat your frogs first in the morning: Work on the most important and disliked task first, at least one Pomodoro Unit. This is incredibly effective.
Note: This could fit together with the Bullet Journal System very well.
You need to sometimes make changes in your plans because of unforeseen events, of course, but remember the law of serendipity:
Lady Luck favors the one who tries.
Planning well is part of trying. Keep your eye on your learning goal and try not to get too unsettled by occasional roadblocks. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
To make memories in LTM you need two things:
- The idea should be memorable.
Making topics much more memorable by tapping into the visual memory system19:
- Try to make a very memorable visual image representing one key item you want to remember.
- Try to feel, hear and smell your imagination.
Memorizing visual things is very effective and easy, because humans in evolution needed to survive by finding their ways through terrain and locate food.
Example:
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F stands for "Flying"
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M stands for "Mule"
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A stands for "is Awesome"
- Repeat what you want to memorize.
Use Spaced Repetition:
The idea in Spaced Repetition technique is to recall what you learned previously. Starting with more dense spaces and go off more widely.
By increasing your spacing as you become more certain of mastery, you'll lock the material more firmly into place. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Flash cards are very helpful when doing Spaced Repetition. Start with a couple ones and repeat them during the day and once before going to sleep. Keep the information simple and compact. Complement your flash cards with visual images to utilize the VM. Also, hand writing and saying helps with what you want to memorize.
- Once you retained your first cards, create some more and repeat retaining.
- Once you have several cards try to do them all and mix them around (This helps Interleave your Learning / Das hilft dabei, in deinem Lernen Dinge zu verzahnen.)
Don't be surprised if you struggle a bit.
Once you've given your cards a good try, put them away. Wait and take them out again, maybe before you go to sleep.
Remember that sleep is when your mind repeats patterns and pieces together solutions.
Briefly repeat what you want to remember over several days. Perhaps for a few minutes each morning or each evening.
Gradually extend the time between the repetitions as the material firms itself into your mind.
By increasing your spacing as you become more certain of mastery, you'll lock the material more firmly into place. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Flash card algorythms: Anki
Task:
What is a concept you're trying to learn in class, or a concept or series of ideas you've always simply wanted to be able to remember? Can you think of an image that could help you to encapsulate the concept or ideas in memory so that you can more readily call them to mind ?
(...)
- The Hippocampus 20 is an Important area in the brain for learning and creating new Long Term Memories 21 - it is associated with a process called Memory Consolidation.
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Memories are very flexible and living parts of your brain that are also ever changing whenever you recall them. This is called Reconsolidation.
STM = WM
The green process of consolidation takes the brain state in active memory and stores it in long term memory by modifying synapses on the dendrites of neurons.
These long term memories can remain dormant for a long time until the memory is retrieved and reinstated, by the red process, in short term working memory.
The reinstated memory is in a new context, which can itself be transferred to long term memory, thereby, altering the old memory though reconsolidation.
Our memories are intertwined with each other. As we learn new things, our old memories also change.
Like consolidation, reconsolidation also occurs during sleep. - Dr. Terry Sejnowski
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They are the most occurent type of glial cells within the brain.
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Astrocytes provide nutrion to the neurons.
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Are involved in repair after injury.
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Maintain extra cellular ion balance.
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Recent experiments suggests that they are also involved in the learning process 22.
The green are astrocytes and the blue are neurons, containg thousands of synapses :
- Associate things with meaning, like historic years with when a realtive was born or concepts with mnemonics (look up if there already exists smart memory tricks):
Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle
(Ein Kahn, der fuhr im Mondenschein im Dreieck um das Erbsenbein.)
(To remember the carpus bones.)
Old People From Texas Eat Spiders
(To remember the Cranial Bones)
Research has shown that students who use these kinds of tricks outperform those who don't.
In addition, imaging research on how people become experts shows that such memory tools speed up the acquisition of both chunks, and big picture templates helping transform novices to semi experts much more quickly even in a matter of weeks.
Memory tricks allow people to expand their working memory with easy access to long term memory. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Basically it means going to familiar places, like the rooms in your house and imagine the things you want to remember sitting on your couch or dropping off the table (Like an egg you want to buy later on). Being creative in this manner, helps a lot to easily remember things. This is also an exercise in creativity which means you will also train your creativity and creating palace memory items will be easier in the future.
Chapters 5, 6, 8-11 of A Mind for Numbers are especially helpful in providing helpful information and additional exercises related to the materials of Module 3.
- Benedict Carey, (May 19, 2014), "Remembering, as an Extreme Sport,"The New York Times
- University of California Los Angeles, (June 4, 2014), "Poor health, lifestyle factors linked to memory complaints, even among younger adults," Medical Press.
- Annie Murphy Paul, (April 29, 2014), "How Studying or Working Abroad Makes You Smarter," Time. The full text of the wonderful study cited by Annie Murphy Paul is available online for free: Maddux, W. W., H. Adam, and A. D. Galinsky. "When in Rome ... Learn Why the Romans Do What They Do: How Multicultural Learning Experiences Facilitate Creativity." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, June 2010; vol. 36, 6: pp. 731-741, May 5, 2010.
- Lauren Davidson, "This Is the Kind of Music You Should Listen to at Work," The Telegraph, 23 October, 2014.
Spaced Repetition
- The idea in Spaced Repetition technique is to recall what you learned previously. Starting with more dense spaces and go off more widely is one way.
By increasing your spacing as you become more certain of mastery, you'll lock the material more firmly into place. - Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Flash card algorythms: Anki
(...)
Footnotes
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You can find abstract topics especially in math and science. ↩
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It is possible to change and become accomplished in areas that you don't think you can do very well at. ↩
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That means 'tomato' on italian. ↩
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Even just stretching or chatting mindlessly, allowing your brain to enjoyably change its focus for a while. ↩
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Besides, there are lots of different ways to slice our understanding of memory. ↩
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We tend to automatically group memory items into chunks so it seems our working memory is bigger than it actually is. ↩
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Different kinds of long-term memories are stored in different regions of the brain. ↩
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In Pomodoro Units. ↩
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Michael Friedman, Note-taking tools and tips (October 15, 2014), Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching. Very useful insights into how to improve your note taking. ↩
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Abbreviated with "LTM" from now on. ↩
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Abbreviated with "WM" from now on. ↩
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[+]: Does not count into regular Pomodoros. ↩
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Eat your frogs first ! Recalling is a Procrastination cue for me I realized. ↩
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Except when absolutely necessary. ↩
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These strategies are often not obvious by intuition. ↩
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Your brain responds to pain signals when procrastinating. Drawing your attation away can relieve these signals. ↩
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I now know how many learning sessions per week I approx. need for this course, to finish the weeks material in time and do the test, thanks to the learning logs I did. ↩
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This will free up working memory. ↩
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Abbreviated with "VM" from now on. ↩
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The Hippocampus has the shape of a seahorse. Greek: 'Hippos' (Horse) and 'Kampos' (Seamonster) ↩
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Without the Hippocampus, you could not build new Long Term Memories ever again. See Film Momento with Guy Pearce, or research for the Patient 'HM' who got its Hippocampus removed to cure epilepsy. ↩
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When human astrocytes were put into mouse brains, the humanized mice learned faster. Also, Einsteins Brain had many more Astrocytes than the average human, making him so awesomely creative as he was. ↩