Learning how to learn

Date: 2021-04-04 11:24:56 +08:00Date modified: 2021-06-05 22:33:37 +08:00

This course is one of the more popular metalearning courses especially on those who look for more ways to be more productive such as students. I studied with this course for the exact title: learn the mechanics of learning and how to apply it for me to learn more effectively.

Not all of the details are listed here, just what I think I need for review.

How the brain works

In order to understand the inner mechanics of metalearning, we have to familiarize with the brain (at least a little). The brain, while physically small, relates to a lot of things: our thought processes, motivations, emotions, tendencies, and memory. Thus, it is one of the more expensive organ in our body requiring more oxygen relative to its mass.

Inside our brain houses a lot of smaller things called neurons where they store information. Each neuron may then form connections to other neurons called synapses where they form neural pattern representing a web of thoughts.

There has been a staying belief from studies that the brain is in development from birth up to 25 years of age. With recent developments in brain imaging technology, it is shown that neurons can still develop in the adult stage. Furthermore, it form new synapses with changes in activity including resting.

Focused and diffused mode

The brain goes into two modes: focused and diffused.

In other words, our brain is working 24/7. Similar to ourselves, the brain has a routine to follow not only to make our body function as-is day-to-day but also improve ourselves in terms of habits and skills when we put the effort. Nonetheless, both of these modes can be used to our advantage to familiarize with new information, see the bigger picture, and learn a new skill.

Memory and sleep

Similar to working out to build up muscles, a neural formation is stronger if you use it more often while it decays if you neglect for some time. This is the basis of memory.

The memory can be separated into two parts:

Our memory goes through the consolidation process — that is, our memory is solidified and becames a part of the long-term memory. This is when we have familiarity with the topic, getting out from the beginner phase to being a semi-expert. It is also the reason why nostalgia occurs whenever we encounter certain things, go to locations we've visited, or watched movies in childhood. When we revisit a memory, it goes through reconsolidation, strengthening that memory including imaginative situations and false memories. The overarching process is the reason why Spaced repetition is effective.

The following practices are recommended to strengthen your memory:

Chunking

The simple process of reading is actually complex from putting letters into words, then words into image, then images into a narrative, and so on. When we hear words, read sentences, solve problems, or listen music, we invoke reactions; it may invoke imagery, visualizations, a narrative, an association with another thing, etc. Those are the results of chunking.

Chunking is the process of simplifying groups of information (or neural structure) as you learn and use more of them. Neuroscientifically speaking, a chunk is a group of neurons that learnt to sing in tune as you react to something. When a certain word is heard, it may invoke an imagery. That process comes from your neurons storing bits on information combining into the resulting imagery.

A new chunk can form from the diffused mode of thinking where random bits on information are gathered while in this mode. The chunk may grow bigger as you use more of them or decay as you use less. The bigger the chunk is, the more information is condensed and this is when we start to form expertise over various skills. There are specific practices for forming a chunk and for that, see Practices in forming new chunks.

Having a group of chunks can be helpful in learning new ideas as you'll find relations between different fields/skills/ideas. This transfer of ideas will come in handy once you explore more. If you're a mathematician, for example, you'll find similarities on computer programming with the concepts of variables, looping, functions, conditionals, and so forth. It can even work vice-versa.

Practices in forming new chunks

To form new chunks, one of the guidelines is to focus, understand, and practice.

For specific details, you can do the following practices for hammering down the lesson.

A new chunk can also form when you're under stress impeding your understanding or when you're in diffused mode. That said, having a chunk does not often mean useful. A chunk is useless if it's isolated among the rest for some time or if it's not made to connect with other chunks. Furthermore, due to the semi-random way of thinking when diffused, it should be verified with a focused way of thinking.

Interleaving

Interleaving, in general, refers to jumping between different context. This could be applied in different ways.

This is helpful in gaining new perspectives and preventing being stuck to one idea (see Einstellung) or being overspecialized. While practice and repetition is important, this is where you'll be able to independently think and creating innovative ideas.

Regarding mistakes

Mistakes are a helpful indicator of how much you've mastered the subject. They are also helpful at pointing out flaws from what you've learnt. It's better to think mistakes as a tool in preventing illusions of competence (see Pitfalls and illusions of competence).

Memory palace

Taking advantage of our tendency to associate and to group things, we can create a technique to learn new things. The memory palace technique places the familiar things with the newer topics such as your house, your route to a store, or a collection of things we're familiar with.

For example, you overlaid the conjunctions into an acronym: "FANBOYS" each letter standing for one of them — e.g., for, and, but, or, yet, so. There is a whole memory competition scene that famously use the technique by crafting a crazy narrative around it.

What's interesting with this technique is it can be an exercise in creativity. Like most skills, the time to create more memorable narratives in shorter time can improve with more practice.

Pitfalls and illusions of competence

Illusions of competence is one of the pitfalls when trying to learn. One of lesser forms of it is practicing what is proved to be ineffective — while plausible to learn with those, can entrap the learner into thinking they're making progress.

Presence of the material

One of the reasons of illusion of competence is the presence of the material itself. Once seen by the student, they tend to think they have absorbed the material. To combat against this, simply closing the material (see Practices in forming new chunks) and testing yourself is an effective option.

Examples of common practices

Highlighting, rereading, concept mapping = not effective than what you thought.

Procrastination

Procrastination is a habitual problem (see Habits) that all of us face. When we procastinate, the things we avert are associated with pain thus we turn our attention away from them. It's a negative habit that it rewards you for doing nothing thus it can be compared to addiction.

To mitigate against this:

Trying to solve head-first

One of the common mistakes of students is doing homeworks ahead without looking for the solution applying the sink-or-swim approach. While useful in training your intuition, it is not progress as you'll enforce bad habits when established solutions are more helpful. Looking over solutions is a helpful learning skill. Although there are also pitfalls for that (see Learning with solutions).

Overlearning

Once you have understood the lesson, you may continually study away in one concept. This is a dangerous practice as you're wasting valuable time that could've spent on learning and practicing new concepts.

Once you understood the key idea of a concept, you should move on to the next (preferably more difficult) concept (see Deliberate practice). Interleaving self-testing and study (see Practices in forming new chunks) is more than enough for your learning.

Learning with solutions

Another example of it is learning with solutions — while helpful into learning the big picture, it can also fool students thinking the problem is easier than they thought. The shown solution is given and solved by others so it is easy to think that we have solved the problem as well.

One of the key takeaways from this is doing the problem solving ourselves is the one of the most important step in mastering a subject.

Einstellung

When learning a field for your career, it doesn't end with learning and mastering the concepts that you're supposed to know. As changes occur over time so does the required knowledge for that career with technology-related fields as one of the popular examples.

Once you've mastered something, you're now vulnerable of being entrenched of an idea preventing you from accepting newer ideas. The saying "Science progresses one funeral at a time." relates to the fact that most breakthroughs are done by young people and those who are not originally trained in that discipline. This concept is known as einstellung.

To be less vulnerable to this mindset, you have to practice interleaving and unlearning.

Motivations

Your brain is composed of neuromodulators and chemicals that affects your learning.

Emotions and cognition are related to one another and no less important to learning. If you want to be an effective learner, you have to be happy or in the mood.

Some tips for a happier brain:

Habits

Our brain has a preference for routines or habits. These routines start from small doses with each repeat becoming larger to the point it can affect your life for better or worse. It is very similar to addiction.

Habits are great energy-savers as they free up our mental space to put it somewhere else. When we mindless do a task, it is our habits in motion.

This is how procrastination (see Procrastination) also forms. To combat against this, we need to know the internals of habits.

A habit can be sliced into several parts:

For the habit to improve, worsen, or even entirely replaced, we need to change our belief. Habits are enforced by the most important component: belief. Believing that your new system works can get you through overriding habits.

How to start gaining habits?

Habits are one of the ways to improve without using much willpower as it is scarce. Nonetheless, there are ways how to start and override your habits.

Week 4

Takeaways from "Interview with Dr. Terrence Sejnowski"

Takeaways from "Interview with Dr. Robert Bilder on creativity and problem solving"