How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
Benedict Carey
“This book is a revelation. I feel as if I’ve
owned a brain for fifty-four years and only now discovered the operating
manual.”—Mary Roach,
bestselling author of Stiff and Gulp
Memorization
and retention, two terms to describe learning about how we learn and how we
perceive. I was so fascinated by the book written by Benedict Carey, the title
itself is very attractive and catchy, “How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About
When, Where, and Why It Happens”.
From an early age, it is drilled into our heads: Restlessness, distraction, and ignorance are the enemies of success. We’re told that learning is all self-discipline, that we must confine ourselves to designated study areas, turn off the music, and maintain a strict ritual if we want to ace that test, memorize that presentation, or nail that piano recital.
But what if almost everything we were told about learning is wrong? And what if there was a way to achieve more with less effort?
In How We Learn, award-winning science reporter Benedict Carey sifts through decades of education research and landmark studies to uncover the truth about how our brains absorb and retain information. What he discovers is that, from the moment we are born, we are all learning quickly, efficiently, and automatically; but in our zeal to systematize the process we have ignored valuable, naturally enjoyable learning tools like forgetting, sleeping, and daydreaming. Is a dedicated desk in a quiet room really the best way to study? Can altering your routine improve your recall? Are there times when distraction is good? Is repetition necessary? Carey’s search for answers to these questions yields a wealth of strategies that make learning more a part of our everyday lives—and less of a chore.
By road testing many of the counterintuitive techniques described in this book, Carey shows how we can flex the neural muscles that make deep learning possible. Along the way he reveals why teachers should give final exams on the first day of class, why it’s wise to interleave subjects and concepts when learning any new skill, and when it’s smarter to stay up late prepping for that presentation than to rise early for one last cram session. And if this requires some suspension of disbelief, that’s because the research defies what we’ve been told, throughout our lives, about how best to learn.
The brain is not like a muscle, at least not in any straightforward sense. It is something else altogether, sensitive to mood, to timing, to circadian rhythms, as well as to location and environment. It doesn’t take orders well, to put it mildly. If the brain is a learning machine, then it is an eccentric one. In How We Learn, Benedict Carey shows us how to exploit its quirks to our advantage.
Benedict Carey's "How We Learn" is focused on the process of enhancing and exercising our memories in order to achieve positive results in memorization. He goes in depth in helping his readers enhance their memories through several techniques, in order to register, store and retrieve information. Most of us are not aware that our brains are capable of so much, but Benedict Carey makes the process look easy. Some of his techniques range from beginners techniques, to more advanced. I pretty much have the beginners techniques down pact; I would like to divulge into the more advanced techniques, as enhancing my memory has become a number one priority in my life.
Repetition, according to Benedict, is a vital part in helping us to enhance the memory. We must train our brains, in a way, so that certain things we may forget become more and more routine to us. For example, I sometimes forget to lock all the doors in my house before going to sleep. If I am aware of this and practice locking the doors each and every night, soon enough it will become routine to me and I'll no longer forget to do it.
If you can associate certain things with something you are more familiar with, you are more likely to start remembering as time goes on. Problem Solving is a third technique in which Benedict explains. If you can train your brain to solve the problem that need to be completed, we also learn the upside of distraction.
He also provides dietary advice that can help to improve our memory. Most of us would not think or believe that sleep actually plays a vital role in our brain function and memorization, but it does. Something as simple as making small changes in our lifestyle can actually enhance our memories.
From an early age, it is drilled into our heads: Restlessness, distraction, and ignorance are the enemies of success. We’re told that learning is all self-discipline, that we must confine ourselves to designated study areas, turn off the music, and maintain a strict ritual if we want to ace that test, memorize that presentation, or nail that piano recital.
But what if almost everything we were told about learning is wrong? And what if there was a way to achieve more with less effort?
In How We Learn, award-winning science reporter Benedict Carey sifts through decades of education research and landmark studies to uncover the truth about how our brains absorb and retain information. What he discovers is that, from the moment we are born, we are all learning quickly, efficiently, and automatically; but in our zeal to systematize the process we have ignored valuable, naturally enjoyable learning tools like forgetting, sleeping, and daydreaming. Is a dedicated desk in a quiet room really the best way to study? Can altering your routine improve your recall? Are there times when distraction is good? Is repetition necessary? Carey’s search for answers to these questions yields a wealth of strategies that make learning more a part of our everyday lives—and less of a chore.
By road testing many of the counterintuitive techniques described in this book, Carey shows how we can flex the neural muscles that make deep learning possible. Along the way he reveals why teachers should give final exams on the first day of class, why it’s wise to interleave subjects and concepts when learning any new skill, and when it’s smarter to stay up late prepping for that presentation than to rise early for one last cram session. And if this requires some suspension of disbelief, that’s because the research defies what we’ve been told, throughout our lives, about how best to learn.
The brain is not like a muscle, at least not in any straightforward sense. It is something else altogether, sensitive to mood, to timing, to circadian rhythms, as well as to location and environment. It doesn’t take orders well, to put it mildly. If the brain is a learning machine, then it is an eccentric one. In How We Learn, Benedict Carey shows us how to exploit its quirks to our advantage.
Benedict Carey's "How We Learn" is focused on the process of enhancing and exercising our memories in order to achieve positive results in memorization. He goes in depth in helping his readers enhance their memories through several techniques, in order to register, store and retrieve information. Most of us are not aware that our brains are capable of so much, but Benedict Carey makes the process look easy. Some of his techniques range from beginners techniques, to more advanced. I pretty much have the beginners techniques down pact; I would like to divulge into the more advanced techniques, as enhancing my memory has become a number one priority in my life.
Repetition, according to Benedict, is a vital part in helping us to enhance the memory. We must train our brains, in a way, so that certain things we may forget become more and more routine to us. For example, I sometimes forget to lock all the doors in my house before going to sleep. If I am aware of this and practice locking the doors each and every night, soon enough it will become routine to me and I'll no longer forget to do it.
If you can associate certain things with something you are more familiar with, you are more likely to start remembering as time goes on. Problem Solving is a third technique in which Benedict explains. If you can train your brain to solve the problem that need to be completed, we also learn the upside of distraction.
He also provides dietary advice that can help to improve our memory. Most of us would not think or believe that sleep actually plays a vital role in our brain function and memorization, but it does. Something as simple as making small changes in our lifestyle can actually enhance our memories.
Chapter Two: The Power of Forgetting
• Forgetting is
critical to the learning of new skills and to the preservation and
reacquisition of old ones.
• Continuing to
test yourself on information will increase the storage and retrieval strength
of what you already remembered, as well as allowing your brain to search for
more information to add. Write down as much as you can remember of the
information without looking, and then repeat at a later time. It is likely that
you will be able to add more information each time.
• Using memory changes memory. Forgetting
enables and deepens learning, by filtering out distracting information and by
allowing some breakdown that, after reuse, drives retrieval and storage
strength higher than they were originally.
Chapter Three: Breaking Good Habits
• Vary the aspects of the environment in which
you study. Since we cannot always predict the environment in which we have to
perform, we are better off varying the circumstances in which we prepare.
• Each alteration of the routine further
enriches the skills being rehearsed, making them sharper and more accessible
for longer periods of time. This kind of experimenting reinforces learning and
makes what you know increasingly independent of your surroundings. o The
traditional advice to establish a strict practice routine is no way to do so.
Try another room, another time of day. Go outside. Change cafés. Put on
different types of music.
Chapter Four: Spacing Out
• Distributed learning can increase the amount
you remember later on. Learning from cramming can occur, but the chance of
long-term retrieval is low.
• Take advantage of the spacing effect: Study
information you have to memorize for ten minutes every day.
• Break up practice
time. If you plan to allot 3 hours to a particular subject, it is better to
study it for 30 or 60 minutes over a few days, rather than 3 hours at a time.
• Wiseheart and
Pashler (2008) calculated the optimal distribution of study time based on how
long you want to remember it: Time to Test First Study Interval 1 week 1-2 days
1 month 1 week 3 months 2 weeks 6 months 3 weeks 1 year 1 month.
Chapter Five: The Hidden Value of Ignorance
• The fluency illusion can interfere with test
performance: Once we feel we can remember information right now, we often
refrain from further study.
• Simply repeating
facts right after you have studied them gives you no added memory benefit.
Wait, and try to recollect in your own words later. When the brain is
retrieving information, it is doing something different, and harder, than when
it merely sees information again. The extra effort deepens storage and
retrieval strength.
• When we
successfully retrieve a fact, we then re-store it in memory in a different way
than we did before, which gives the memory new and different connections.
• Use the Gates
ratio: Devote 30-40% of time to reading/memorization and the rest of the time
to recitation/recall.
• Reviewing or rewriting notes will not be as
helpful as studying them and then trying to rewrite them without looking. • The
most effective test preparation is testing itself. Quiz yourself or take
practice exams immediately after reading the material. This technique proves to
be effective for long-term recall.
• Make use of pretesting. Unsuccessful
retrieval attempts alter how we think about and store the information contained
in the questions.
• Particularly on
multiple-choice tests, we learn from answering incorrectly, especially when
given the correct answer soon afterward.
• Guessing wrongly increases the likelihood of
getting the question or a similar one correct in the future.
Chapter Eight: Being Mixed Up
• Repetition
creates a powerful illusion. Skills improve quickly and then plateau. Varied
practice produces a slower apparent rate of improvement in each session, but a
greater accumulation of learning over time.
• Make use of the
technique of interleaving: Mixing related but distinct material during study.
This process will help you see the distinctions between each, as well as
achieve a clearer grasp on each one individually.
• Surround new material with older, related
material that you know, but have not revisited in a while.
Chapter Ten: You Snooze, You Win
• Sleep improves retention and comprehension
of what was studied the day before. Study all material for an exam a minimum of
the day before the exam, or at least take a nap in between studying and the
exam.
• If you are preparing for an exam that will
strain your ability to detect patterns, it is better to stay up late and sleep
as late as possible. If you need to recall information, go to bed at your
regular time, and get up early to do a quick review before dawn.
• Naps of 1-1.5 hours often contain both slow-wave deep
sleep and REM. People who study in the morning do better on an evening test if
they have had a 1.5-hour nap.
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