How to Learn

One thing that school or college education didn’t teach us is “HOW TO LEARN”.

We have been programmed to learn in a specific way.

1. Read and re-read the material.
2. Sit one full day for a single subject.
3. Create a timetable for what you will learn each day.

But research says, all the above 3 strategies are not really effective at all. You read it correctly, whatever we have been following for the last 20 to 30 years is just flawed !!!

Here comes are super effective learning strategies.

1)Active Recall

2)Spaced Repetition

3)Interleaved Practice

Active Recall

Instead of rereading a material again and again,just read and understand concept once. And then close the book and try to recall what you have learned. The moment you try to recall, neuron connection to retrieve that knowledge becomes strong.

But frankly, this method is not easy in the beginning. At times when I have read some content and then try to recall it I have become completely clueless. But push your brain to retrieve the content. And after some good amount of effort, our super efficient brain will eventually find it. The strange peculiarity of our brain is that, the harder the effort is to recollect the information, the stronger that connection becomes.

In short, the method is simple, read a topic, try to recall. There is no requirement to re-read the content ever again.

A few of us might have done this technique without knowing the name when we were kids. We acted as teachers and explained our dolls and toys what we have learned. Yes, it is active recall, when we try to explain what we have learned in our own words.

The techniques that you can use to implement active recall are

1)Speak in your own words what u have learned.

2)Create a mind map of the content using a pen and paper.(most effective tool)

3)Create your own questions from this topic and try to answer it.

I know what you are thinking, “Are you really mad to take this much effort to learn a single concept ?”

This is not the effort you are putting to learn a concept, it is to make the concept stay in our memory for a super long time. As per studies, 12 years of what you have studied in your school, gets wiped out so quickly that, only what persists is just 3-4 weeks of school education, if you don’t recall the concepts again. And I think that is true, I don’t remember what happened at the Boston tea party or what is Mitochondria.

So from now on push yourself to master this technique of Active Recall for whatever simple thing you learn and after 10 or 20 years also you would have that content fresh in your memory.

Spaced Repetition

I told you to recall the content, but just by recalling once will it stay in my memory forever? No never!!!

Here comes the strategy spaced repetition. Repeat the recall process in a spaced fashion.

The way to do this is in this order.

a)Recall in 1 hour of learning

b)Recall again in 1 day

c)Recall again in 3 days

d)Recall again in 7 days

e)Recall again in 14 days

Yes 5 repetitions of same content in a spaced manner.And then your memory path is super strong.

You are repeating the recall process by increasing the time gap between each recall. So ideally you are giving a chance for the brain to forget the content during this time and then in your next recall session, you are pushing your brain to find the neuron route again. This is the super effective strategy to improve your neuroplasticity. And trust me it works wonders. And you really don’t have to sit and spend your study time for this. You can do the recall technique when you are bathing or waiting for your train or standing in supermarket queue. You don’t need any tools, just a quick mental recall will do.

Interleaved practice

If you want to reach full potential using the above two methods, mix up the subjects you are learning. If you are a school student, instead of learning chemistry for the whole day, learn it for 1 or 2 hours and then switch to physics, then literature and so on. So your brain is not crammed with just one kind of information, but a mix of stuff.

The concept is if you want to learn how to strike a ball from 20 yards, instead of just redoing the practice at 20 yards only, practice from 15 yards, 20 yards, and 25 yards. Initially, you will see that one who practices just at 20 yards has a tremendous performance improvement, but over time you can notice that the once who practiced at 15,20,25, will be able to strike the ball at a superior precision.

If you think you are too old or lazy to apply these techniques in your life, you are missing the joy of learning once and retaining it forever in your brain. Teach your kids these techniques and let them be next-gen super brainers!!!

Happy learning and sharing…

-From PCube