What I Learnt From “ Learning How To Learn”?

This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines

Chunking

Chunks are compact packages of information that your mind can easily access. Consider it a kind of mental leap helps you combine some information together through meaning.

Later you can fit this chuck in to a larger picture while your learning is going on. Chunks bound together through meaning or use. So first create mental leaps that unite scattered bits of information through meaning.

Used focused practice and repetition to create strong memory traces, helps you to create chunk. With more practice small chunks will get bigger.

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.

Creating Information Chunks

There are many ways to create chunks

• Grouping
• Patterns
• Organizing

Any ( or multiple ) of above methods can used when you learning spelling, music, maths or science; or a new language or skill

Chunks are created through high focuses attention, repeating information and then practicing it.

Later these chunks can be recalled to connect with other chunks of information, creating a larger picture and helping grasping complex information.

If you just started to learn a new skill. Just do a two-minute picture walk through the chapters in a book before you begin studying it. Just glance at pictures and section headings. This will allow you to gain a sense of the big picture.

Illusions of Competence — Reread Vs. Recall

Rereading is very common mistake. Psychologist, Jeffrey Karpicke, says Reread approach is actually much less productive than another, very simple, technique. Recall

Practicing and recalling the material learned is works far more efficient and at a much deeper level than just simply rereading something a number of times.

During recalling, the retrieval process itself enhances deep learning, and helps creating chunks. It’s almost as if the recall process helps build in little neural hooks, that we can hang our thinking on.

Just intending to learn the material, and spending a lot of time with it reading and rereading, doesn’t guarantee you’ll actually learn it.

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.

Even if you are outside of your usual place of study, you can still help you strengthen your grasp of the material.

When you are learning something new you can often take in subliminal cues from the surroundings

The Value of a Library of Chunks

Its amazing what you can do when you combine different chunks in new and different ways. This will help you generate your own innovative thinking by allowing fresh in mind ideas to network amongst themselves.

Club these chunks together in new and creative ways.

The bigger and more well practiced your chunked mental library, whatever the subject you’re learning, the more easily you’ll be able to solve problems and figure out solutions

Not only in the similar field, but you can use chunks from one field to somewhat totally different fields. This process is called Transfer

Some of the most difficult subjects and problems are grasped through the power of intuition — and most of new innovative ideas make a leap away from something that we are familiar with.

Intuitive ideas coming out of diffused mode of learning while using various chunks of information aren’t always correct. So make sure to bring in focused mode of learning just to validate those ideas

Overlearning, Choking, Einstellung, and Interleaving

Over Learning

If you are learning music — learning same thing again and again make you master that skill.

In public speaking — you can repeat and rehearse a talk multiple times to master your nervousness, your posture and your tone.

But, research has shown that it can be a waste of valuable time. If you don’t know when to stop and move on to the next chapter, next book or next skill — you have just hit a situation called diminishing returns.

Einstellung

Sometimes an initial thought you had my prevent a better idea or solution from being found. In your mind you have neural pattern you’ve already developed and strengthened — is creating a roadblock for you to move ahead

Try to unlearn you erroneous older ideas or approaches even while you’re learning new ones.

Get away with your hammer: Because to a man with a hammer, everything is a nail

Interleaving

You could also practice jumping back and forth between problems or situations that require different techniques or strategies.

Interleaving enhances your creativity and flexibility while practice and repetition is important in helping build solid neural patterns to draw on

Particulrly, when you interleave between several subjects or multiple disciplines, you can more easily make interesting new connections between chunks in the different fields, that can enhance your creativity even further

Do not get trapped in Einstellung by blocking your thoughts on a particular subject — rather change the subject and use Interleaving method to enjoy creativity and come back to the original subject once your mind is fresh and ready