Learning that lasts!

You hear the tune of a favourite song/poem but are not able to recall it. You know the lyrics by heart; only if someone could help you with the first few words you would sing the entire song in a single breath. In a different scenario, you very well remember what you had for dinner last night but won’t remember this at all after one week even with clues.

The strength of memory in the human brain has two components — retrieval strength & storage strength. In the former case, memory has a strong storage strength but weak retrieval strength. In the latter case, memory has strong retrieval strength but low storage strength.

But why should I know about memory for learning?
Memorization is useful only when you want to cram (ratta) something right?

Flashback to how you learned to divide two numbers? You understood division as a concept in school, you saw what 10 divided by 2 is and what are the steps of this process. Initially, you have to explicitly recall the steps of division from your memory for every problem. As you practise more, the recall process becomes automatic and implicit. Eventually, after years of practice, the process happens unconsciously & seems trivial. Now you have learnt division. The storage & retrieval strength of that process have become so strong that the process feels familiar like the back of your hand.

How do you learn to swim? You start with understanding what hand movements or leg movements are required to stay afloat. For initial practice, you have to explicitly recall the steps from your memory. Eventually, as you practise more, you automatically recall the steps and it feels more natural — i.e. you memorise the process so well that you don’t have to explicitly recall it.

Most of us have a negative connotation with the word memorization. We relate it to the process of cramming where you don’t understand the meaning of the text, you just remember it line by line. This is just one type of memorization where you are memorising the text. This type of memorization is less brain friendly but can be done in a short time, hence it is very popular one night before an exam.

When we cram and ‘memorise’ the retrieval strength increases but storage strength remains low. For any memory, low storage strength dampens the retrieval strength very fast. Hence we forget the stuff we learnt one night before the exam, and one week after the exam.

Okay, but why should I learn something that will last?

1. Almost the entire education system is designed in a way that discourages spaced repetition. Annual/semi-annual high stake tests require you to memorise the concepts once and then forget them. On the other hand, companies have a better approach to employee training (learning) because they need their employees to know the concepts well before giving them responsibility.
   When your work requires you to solve problems and execute solutions, the quality of those solutions will depend on your knowledge of that domain. The deeper & broader knowledge you have about a domain — what strategies work, when to implement them and why they work — the more efficient & more effective the solutions will be. Hence implicit knowledge about your domain exponentially increases the quality of work. For eg., a novice coder will take more time in debugging the code as compared to a proficient coder — a proficient coder is very familiar with coding.
2. We can approach 2nd order problems only if we are familiar with 1st-order concepts very well. When we learn something foundational very well, only then we would be able to create/understand new knowledge on top of foundations. One can think about optimising an algorithm only after learning the brute force approach very well. You can solve calculus problems only after you have practised algebra & trigonometry concepts.
   “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” - Albert Einstein
3. Knowing the fundamentals of a concept leads to higher confidence in that topic. High confidence reduces anxiety & nervousness which is critical when appearing for a high stake exam or interview.

How can I improve my learning with this context?

1. Spaced repetition

Learning a concept, taking time to forget the concept and then relearning it — iterating these steps multiple times. Multiple iterations improve storage strength and effortful retrieval after forgetting improves retrieval strength. This is sparsely implemented in educational settings.
It can be applied in educational settings in multiple ways — a recap of yesterday’s class before today’s class, small low-stake weekly tests instead of big high-stake semester exams, and making learners write down the summary of concepts.
Keep in mind, effortful retrieval will require effort and learners will have high resistance towards this.

2. Interleaving

What to do in the time between spaced repetition? Interleave. Interleaving subjects/topics help in forgetting concepts learnt prior. Additionally, it also reduces monotonicity in learning and fills the learning experience with diverse flavours.
This is implemented well in educational settings by conducting classes of different subjects one after another on the same day.

3. Different environments

You were able to solve the questions fairly well at your home, but went completely blank in the exam hall? That is because the retrieval strength of memory of that concept was highly dependent on the physical clues present in your study area. Once you are out of that area, it is difficult to recall the memory without physical clues. Performing spaced repetition in different physical environments further increases retrieval strength independent of the environment.