by Barbara Oakley – Coursera
The course provides learners with valuable insights and strategies to enhance their learning process. It provides fundamental principles of learning, including how memory works, effective techniques for mastering new material, strategies for overcoming procrastination, and ways to cultivate a growth mindset. By the end of the course, students gain a deeper understanding of how to optimize their learning experience and develop the skills needed to succeed in their academic and professional pursuits.
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🏷️ Tags: course, education, study, learning, psychology, neuroscience, science, growth, pomodoro, procrastination, self-improvement
- Discover several fundamentally different modes of thinking.
- Be introduced to a tool for tackling procrastination.
- Discover useful insights about learning and sleep.
- Recommended book: A Mind for Numbers.
- We have two fundamentally different modes of thinking: the Focused and the Diffuse modes.
- We're familiar with focusing. It's when you concentrate intently on something you're trying to learn or to understand. But we're not so familiar with diffuse thinking. Turns out that this more relaxed thinking style is related to a set of neural resting states.
- Metaphors and analogies are helpful when you're trying to learn something new.
- 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.
- Dalí used to have an interesting technique to help him come up with his fantastically creative Surrealist paintings. He'd relax in a chair and let his mind go free, often still vaguely thinking about what he had been previously focusing on. He'd have a key in his hand, dangling it just above the floor. And as he would slip into his dreams, falling asleep, the key would fall from his hand and the clatter would wake him up, just in time so he could gather up those diffuse mode connections and ideas in his mind. And off he'd go back into the focused mode bringing with him the new connections he'd made while in the diffuse mode.
- When you're learning something new, especially something a little more difficult, your mind needs to be able to go back and forth between the two different learning modes.
- 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 that entire day working out like a fiend. I mean, it just doesn't happen that way.
- To gain muscular structure, you need to do a little work every day, gradually allowing your muscles to grow. Similarly, to build neuro-structure, you need to do a little work every day, gradually allowing yourself to grow a neuro-scaffold to hang your thinking on, a little bit every day and that's the trick.
- Analogies provide powerful techniques for learning.
- Learning something difficult can take time. Your brain needs to alternate its ways of learning as it grapples with and assimilates the new material.
- You are not the same person you were after a night's sleep or even a nap. It is as if you went to bed with one brain and woke up with an upgrade.
- Everybody has some issues with procrastination. Because if you're working on something, it means you're not working, on a lot of other things.
- When you look at something that you rather not do, it seems that you activate the areas of your brain associated with pain. But here's the trick. Researchers discovered that not long after people started working out what they didn't like, that neuro discomfort disappeared.
- The Pomodoro.
- It was invented by Francesco Cirillo, in the early 1980s. Pomodoro is Italian for tomato.
- The timer you use often looks like a tomato. All you need to do, is set a timer to 25 minutes, turn off all interruptions, and then focus.
- The only last important thing is to give yourself a little reward when you're done. A few minutes of web surfing, a cup of coffee, etc. allows your brain to enjoyably change its focus for a while.
- It's a little like doing an intense 25-minute workout at a mental gym. Followed by some mental relaxation.
- 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 a while.
- 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.
- If you don't do this, if instead you learn by cramming, your knowledge will be a poor foundation and confused.
- If you have problems with procrastination, that's when you want to use the Pomodoro, that brief timer.
- In this course, we are going to focus on two ways of memory:
- Long term memory
- Working memory
- The two types of memory are related.
- Working memory
- Is the part of memory that has to do with what you're immediately and consciously processing in your mind.
- Your working memory is centered out of the prefrontal cortex, although there are also connections to other parts of your brain, so you can access long-term memories.
- Now it's widely believed that the working memory holds only about four chunks of information. We tend to automatically group memory items into chunks so it seems our working memory is bigger than it is.
- Although your working memory is like a blackboard, it's not a very good blackboard. You often need to keep repeating what you are trying to work with so it stays in your working memory.
- Long-term memory.
- Is like a storage warehouse. And just like a warehouse, it's distributed over a big area.
- Different kinds of long-term memories are stored in different regions of the brain.
- Research has shown when you first try to put a short-term memory in long-term memory, you need to revisit it at least a few times to increase the chances that you'll be able to find it later when you might need it.
- 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.
- Repeating a new vocabulary word or a problem-solving technique, for example, over several days.
- Extending your practice over several days does make a difference.
- Just being awake creates toxic products in your brain. 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.
- Fluid can flow past these cells and wash the toxins out. So sleep, which can sometimes seem like such a waste of time, is your brain's way of keeping itself clean and healthy
- Too little sleep, over too long of a time, can also be associated with all sorts of nasty conditions. Including headaches, depression, heart disease, diabetes, and just plain dying earlier
- But sleep does more than just allow your brain to wash away toxins. It's an important part of the memory and learning process. It seems that during sleep your brain tidies up ideas and concepts you are 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 understand what you're trying to learn.
- It's as if the complete deactivation of the conscious you in the pre-frontal 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.
- If you're going over what you're learning right before you take a nap or go to sleep for the evening you have an increased chance of dreaming about it.
- If you go even further and set it in mind that you want to dream about the material, it seems to improve your chances of dreaming about it still further.
- Dreaming about what you're studying can substantially enhance your ability to understand.
- It somehow consolidates your memories into easier-to-grasp chunks.
- The ultimate goal of Dr. Sejnowski's research is to build linking principles, from the brain to behaviour using computational models.
- So what do you do to help yourself learn more easily when you're looking at something completely new?
- Well, I like to get into the thick of it. I don't get much out of just going and reading a lot of books.
- I'm a firm believer in learning by doing and learning by osmosis from people who are experts.
- How do you keep yourself paying attention, during something like a boring lecture?
- I found that there isn't, a simple way to keep yourself attending something that you're not interested in.
- But I have found a little trick to waylay the speaker, and that is by asking a question.
- And the interruption often gives rise to a discussion that is a lot more interesting. And it follows the general principle which is that you learn more by active engagement rather than passive listening.
- So, what do you do to get into and take advantage of diffuse mode thinking?
- I find that when I'm jogging, or out getting exercise, it's a wonderful way to get the mind disengaged, from the normal train of thought.
- I find that it's very very possible to to sort of come up with new thoughts, new ideas. And it's almost as if your brain goes into a new mode, you're running along, and things are passing you by. And you start thinking about what's happening.
- For example, things that your brain has been working on, your out-of-conscious thoughts bubble to the surface. And often new ideas that are going to be then helpful to you later on. The only problem I have is remembering all those great ideas. Because when I get back and take a shower, then a lot of them have evaporated. And that's why I like to take a little notebook along with me, so I can take notes and remember what it is that I was thinking about.
- Have there been any special techniques you've acquired over the years that help you focus, learn or create more effectively?
- I find that being in a creative environment, where other people, are, are creative is, is, is a way of, enhancing your creativity.
- I find that I have better ideas if I'm talking to somebody, and trying to explain to them my ideas.
- If you had any advice for a young high school or college student, about how to learn effectively, what would you say?
- That success doesn't necessarily come by being smart.
- But I know a lot of people, who are very, very passionate and persistent.
- A lot of success in life is that passion and persistence, of really staying the course, staying working on it, and, not letting go. Not giving up.
- That's really, I think the most important, quality that I see in students, that I work with, who are successful.
- The importance of practice and repetition in making something permanent in memory.
- The importance of sleep in clearing metabolic toxins from the brain.
- The importance of exercise in helping you to learn and remember better.
- Two fundamentally different modes of thinking: focused and diffuse. Using the simple pinball analogy to help us understand both.
- Focused:
- Has tight spacing for the rubber bumpers which seems to help keep your thoughts concentrated.
- Is centred more in the prefrontal cortex, and it often seems to involve thinking about things you're somewhat familiar with.
- Diffuse:
- The diffuse mode has more widely spaced bumpers that allow for more broad-ranging ways of thinking.
- This mode, as it turns out, is representative of the brain's many neural resting states.
- Creative thinkers throughout history, whatever their discipline, have found ways to access the diffuse mode, often more directly and quickly. But we all access this mode quite naturally when we do things like go for a walk, take a shower or even just drift off to sleep. When we find ourselves stuck on a problem, or even if we're unsure of a situation in the course of living our daily life, it's often a good idea, once you've focused directly on the situation, to let things settle back, and take a bit more time. That way, more neural processing can take place, often below conscious awareness in the diffuse mode.
- The easiest way to tackle procrastination is to use the Pomodoro Technique.
- 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 are particularly important for more abstract topics.
- Memory, of course, is an important aspect of learning. There are four slots in our working memory.
- If you practised and repeated something well enough to get it into long-term memory, you can usually call it up later if you need it, although you may need an occasional bit of repetition to freshen the memory up.
- It's never a good idea to cram your learning by repeating things many times all in one day. Because that's like trying to build muscle by lifting weights all in one day. There's no time for solid structures to grow.
- We've also learned of the importance of sleep in washing away the toxins that develop during our day's activities.
- Exercise is surprisingly valuable in helping improve both our memory and our ability to learn.
- Chunks: compact packages of information that your mind can easily access.
- Chunking is the mental leap that helps you unite bits of information 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.
- Chunks are pieces of information, neuroscientifically speaking, through bound together through meaning or use.
- If you're learning to play a difficult song on the guitar, the neural representation of the song in your mind can be considered as a rather large chunk. You would first listen to the song. Maybe you'd even watch someone else playing the song especially if you were just a beginner who was learning things like, how to hold the guitar.
- Getting an initial sense of the pattern you want to master for yourself is similar to most subjects or skills.
- You often have to grasp little bits of songs that become neuro mini-chunks, which will later join together into larger chunks.
- In learning a sport, say basketball. You grasp and master various bits and pieces of the skills you need.
- You're creating little neural mini-chunks, that you can gradually knit into larger neural chunks.
- Later you can hit those larger chunks into still larger and more complex chunks that you can draw up in an instant.
- 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. That is the point of making complex ideas, movements or reactions into a single chunk.
- Learning in math and science involves the same approach.
- When you're learning new math and science material, you're often given sample problems with worked-out solutions.
- When you first try to understand how to work a problem, you have a heavy cognitive load. So it helps to start with a work-through example. It's like first listening to a song before trying to play it yo.
- One concern about using worked-out examples in math and science to help you start to form chunks is that it can be all too easy to focus too much on why an individual step works and not on the connection between steps. That is why this particular step is the next thing you should do.
- So keep in mind that I'm not just talking about a cookie-cutter, just-do-as-you-'re-told, mindless approach when following a worked-out solution. It's more like using a road map to help you when travelling to a new place. Pay attention to what's going on around you when you're using the map, and soon you'll find yourself able to get there on your own. You'll even be able to figure out new ways of getting there.
- The basic steps behind how to make a chunk.
- Focus. Concentrate on what you are trying to learn / chunk.
- Understand the basic idea you're trying to chunk.
- Practice it on your own. Only doing it yourself helps create the neural patterns that underlie true mastery.
- Gaining context. So you can see not just how, but also when to use this chunk.
- Every discipline is a little different. Chunking in the subject of history, for example, is quite different from chunking in chemistry or karate.
- We are going to lean a little more towards explaining the chunking of mental ideas rather than physical body motions. But you'll see that the two approaches are closely related.
- If you have the television going on in the background, or you're looking up every few minutes to check your phone, it means you're going to have more difficulty in making a chunk because your brain is not focusing on chunking the new material.
- When you first begin to learn something, you're making new neural patterns and connecting them with preexisting patterns that are spread through many areas of the brain.
- 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.
- The second step in chunking is to understand the basic idea you're trying to chunk. Students can often synthesize the gist, that is figure out the main idea or ideas, pretty naturally. Or at least they can grasp those ideas if they allow the focused and diffuse modes of thinking to take turns in helping them figure out what's going on.
- Understanding is like a super glue that helps hold the underlying memory traces together.
- It creates broad-encompassing traces that can link to other memory traces.
- Can you create a chunk if you don't understand? Yes, but it's often a useless chunk that won't fit in with, or relate to other material of your learning.
- That said, it's important to realize that understanding how a problem was solved, for example, does not necessarily create a chunk you can easily call to mind later. Don't confuse the "Aha!", of a breakthrough in understanding, with solid expertise.
- In math and science-related subjects, closing the book and testing yourself on whether you, yourself, can solve the problem you think you understand, will speed up your learning at this stage.
- Just because you see it or even that you understand it, it doesn't mean that you can do it.
- Only doing it yourself helps create the neural patterns that underlie true mastery.
- The third step to chunking is gaining context, so you can see not just how, but also when to use this chunk.
- Context means going beyond the initial problem and seeing more broadly, repeating and practicing with both related and unrelated problems, so that you can see not only when to use the chunk, but when not to use it.
- This helps you see how your newly formed chunk fits into the bigger picture.
- Ultimately, practice helps you broaden the networks of neurons that are connected to your chunk, ensuring it's not only firm but also accessible from many different paths.
- Doing a rapid two-minute picture walk through a chapter in a book before you begin studying it, glancing at pictures and section headings, can allow you to gain a sense of the big picture. So can listening to a very well-organized lecture.
- These kinds of activities can help you know where to put the chunks you're constructing, and how the chunks relate to one another.
- Learn the major concepts or points first. These are often the key parts of a good instructor or book chapter's outline, flow charts, tables, or concept maps. Once you have this done, fill in the details. Even if a few of the puzzle pieces are missing at the end of your studies, you can still see the big picture
- In summary: chunks are best built with focused attention, understanding of the basic idea, and practice to help you gain mastery and a sense of the big-picture context. Those are the essential steps in making a chunk and fitting that chunk into a greater conceptual overview of what you're learning.
- We're going to talk about some essential ideas for getting your learning on track.
- The best way to learn a material is using a very simple technique: Recall.
- After you've read the material, simply look away, and see what you can recall from the material you've just read.
- Karpicke's research, published in the Journal of Science, provided solid evidence along these lines. Students studied a scientific text and then practiced it, by recalling as much of the information as they could. Then they re-studied the text and recalled it again. That is, they tried to remember the key ideas, once more. The results, in the same amount of time, by simply practising and recalling the material students learned far more and at a much deeper level than they did using any other approach. Including simply rereading the text several times. Or drawing concept maps that supposedly enrich the relationships in the materials under study.
- This gives an important reminder: when we retrieve knowledge, we're not just being mindless robots. The retrieval process itself enhances deep learning and helps us to begin forming chunks. It's almost as if the recall process helps build in little neural hooks, that we can hang our thinking on.
- Simply reading and recalling the materials, wasn't the best way to learn. Concept mapping and drawing diagrams that show the relationship between the concepts would be the best. But if you're trying to build connections between chunks, before the basic chunks are embedded in the brain, it doesn't work as well. It's like trying to learn advanced strategy in chess before you even understand the basic concepts of how the pieces move.
- If you do mark up the text, try to look for the main ideas before making any marks. And try to keep your underlining or highlighting to a minimum. One sentence or less per paragraph. On the other hand, words or notes in a margin that synthesize key concepts are a very good idea.
- Illusions of competence in learning → The reason students like to keep rereading their notes or a textbook, is that when they have the book or Google open right in front of them, it provides the illusion that the material is also in their brains. But it's not, because it can be easier to look at the book instead of recalling, students persist in their illusions studying in a way that just isn't very effective.
- A super helpful way to make sure you're learning and not fooling yourself with illusions of competence is to test yourself on whatever you're learning.
- In some sense, that's what recall is doing. Allowing you to see whether or not you grasp an idea.
- If you make a mistake in what you are doing, it's a very good thing. You want to try not to repeat your mistakes, of course, but mistakes are very valuable to make in your little self-tests before high-stakes real tests. Because they allow you to make repairs and you're thinking flaws bit by bit mistakes help correct your thinking so that you can learn better and do better.