This is an absolutely fantastic and essential book, and I would recommend it to anyone who considers themselves to be a lifelong learner or wants to become one. Like the title indicates, this is a book about the science of how we learn, what are the best strategies to learn effectively and what methods can we use to improve cognition/intelligence. In addition to that, this book provides up-to-date research on similar and related topics in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, specifically, mindset, cognitive biases, intelligence, and neural plasticity. However, I am going to specifically focus on learning strategies and ways to improve cognition/intelligence because I think that is what most people here will find useful. If anyone is interested in one of the topics and you don’t think I covered it in enough detail and are interested in it, I will write about it further.
Common learning and study strategies and why they are ineffective
Most students and learners study by reviewing notes and highlights, re-reading text, and doing this all in one big burst, otherwise known as cramming/massed practice. I know that is what I did in high school and college and, until recently, have just read, highlighted and commented in the margins of the non-fiction books that I have read. Does this sound like you? Well, that sort of learning/study strategy is ineffective.
Why is this ineffective?
Because simply being exposed to the material again does not actually make the material ‘stick’ in your mind. Going over the material in a cram session might allow you to pass the test, but the problem is, is that all of that information will just be stored in your working memory. You are not creating long-term memories because to create a long-term memory, it needs to be deeply encoded by understanding the underlying principle, making connections to prior knowledge, and/or that information be deeply personal. Essentially, performance in the moment is not an indicator of durable learning. Remembering and reciting information weeks after is. Reviewing and cramming can’t help you with that.
The most important component, however, is retrieval. Retrieval strengthens and consolidates this deep-encoding process. You can also identify areas that you struggle with, make adjustments to your learning, and, through repeated testing, make the information ‘stick’.
Why do most of us use such ineffective learning strategies? Shouldn’t we be good judges of our learning? Well, we should, but we arent. We delude ourselves into thinking that we are learning when we are really not (learning meaning it ‘sticking’ in our brains). We are masters of self-deception. The first self-deception when it comes to learning is that we mistake the ease and fluency with which we comprehend a text with learning. So with looking over notes and highlights and re-reading texts, we get more practice reading that material, and thus be able to comprehend it more, but we are not consolidating the information and taking steps to actually recall it when we need it. This was illustrated by a number of studies and experiments, but I will just briefly summarize a few. People actually learned more when the font’s text was slightly blurry. Crazy huh? But it makes sense if you realize that they had to concentrate a lot more reading the text and were less likely to confuse fluency with learning. The other studies have to do with the best learning strategies kicking the common ‘review and cram’ learning strategies butt.
Well, then what are these awesome learning strategies?
The first one is testing. Yes, testing is the best learning strategy, and if you take one thing from this post, then you should understand that testing yourself is vastly superior to cram and review as a learning strategy. In fact, that is precisely why I am writing this post. This is a form of testing, and I definitely want this information to ‘stick’ with me. How is this a test? Well, the authors use a very broad definition of testing since any action that requires you to retrieve and recite information from long term memory that you can then receive feedback on is testing to them. Recall, recite, feedback, and corrections = testing.
Well, then why does it work? You just need to go back a few paragraphs above to realize why it is better. review and cram uses working memory. Working memory, however, is temporary, and we forget about 70% of what we read and hear very quickly, the other 30% we will lose more slowly, but we will still lose it. Therefore, you can think of learning as interrupting the forgetting process. Testing yourself does this because you are not taking that knowledge from your working memory. You are taking it from your long-term memory, and the process retrieving this information from your long-term memory results in that learning being consolidated in that long-term memory and you actually being able to recall and recite that knowledge.
How should I test myself
The most effective way to test yourself is spaced-repetition testing. What is that? Well, it means test yourself before you read or learn something (this has been shown to increase learning in studies), test yourself after your learn something, and then continually test yourself if it is something that you want to ‘stick’ in your brain. That repeated testing after the fact is the most important part. Studies indicate that testing once helped learning, but repeated testing at spaced intervals yielded significant improvements in learning retention. I think this is best illustrated in a study in a middle school where a researcher tested the students in the beginning of class and at the end on some of the material. Come final test time, the students remembered that tested material a lot more than the non-tested material. And this experiment did not even use testing at spaced-intervals, which studies indicate is by far the most effective. Remember, we are masters of self-deception, so do not stop testing something you want to learn because you ‘think’ you ‘learned’ it. You can increase the time you go back and test yourself with that material, but never stop testing yourself.
How should I Test myself
Anything works. Flashcards, multiple choice tests, essays, reflections etc, but the simple rule is that the more cognitive effort you put into the test the better the results, so an essay, teaching, or a discussion will be better than flashcards. Feedback is also essential. You need to know what you are struggling with so that you can change up your learning process.
Test to understand the underlying principle, the rule, the theme, etc of what you are learning. This is essential because this creates a foundation of knowledge that you will be able to add new relevant learning to. Without this foundation, you will not know whether or not any new learning you do is relevant or necessary to that body of knowledge.
Interleaving
What is interleaving? Well, this test has informed me that I need to do a bit more learning on this process. However, my understanding is that your learning will improve if you ‘interleave’ two+ related subjects into your learning. This means that focused repetitive practice is not as effective, that ‘burning’ some knowledge or skill into your brain until you ‘get’ it, is not effective.
Two helpful examples that the book provided is that a company found it more beneficial to train employees in a new procedure by hopping from process 1 to 3 to 5 to 8, etc, rather than making sure the employee really understands 1 before going on to 2. Why? Well, this does not ‘feel’ effective to us, but it helps better understand the underlying principle of things and helps us distinguish and make connections.
A good example is batting practice. The book discusses a study where they had a college baseball team take 2 extra batting sessions a week for like 6 weeks (or something). The control group continued with their normal batting practice of 15 fastballs, 15 curveballs and 15 changeups. While the study group had no idea what pitch was going to be thrown at them. The study group struggled at first, but at the end of the study, they improved their batting average significantly. Why? because they were interleaving the pitches instead of doing a focused mass practice and they were studying how they play. Even though they struggled at first, they were improving their ability to distinguish pitches. This is pretty significant considering that these were already very good hitters.
practice how you play and vary it up
Test in a manner in the way you are going to actually use the knowledge. As for variability, the book gives an example of drill stations on a hockey rink. That is not effective because a hockey player is just learning how to do a touch-pass on that specific area on the rink in that specific context. Vary it up.
how do I improve cognition/intelligence?
First off, what is the difference between learning and cognition/intelligence? Basically, the learning strategies will be tied to the domain of what you are learning. You will learn and remember that domain very well, but it doesnt increase your natural ability to learn other things faster. You will simply know the best ways to learn. Well, what actions do result in a cognition multiplayer? For adults, there are three scientifically supported ones (babies and little kids have a lot more)
Mindset
This is by far the next most important component of learning. if you don’t want to do every strategy, then you should at least do testing and mindset. Well, what is it? Basically, this revolves around the research of Carol Dweck who wanted to find out why some people give up when they are confronted with failure while others persevere and overcome that failure. Her findings (extensively studied) is that it all comes down to mindset.
Well, what characterizes the people who take failure badly? They see failure as an indication of their innate ability. They think failure means that they are stupid, not intelligent and do not have any hope of overcoming that failure. Their mindset is ‘fixed’. They also see the purpose of learning to be achievement, not actual learning. Why? Well, since they see success and failure as an indication of their fixed ability and intelligence, then learning is simply a way to show the world how smart they are.
What does this result in? A fear of failure. Students who are successful with this mindset do not take risks. And if they are confronted with a hard problem that they do not know how to do, they give up and provide some sort of excuse. They are trying to protect their identity as intelligent. Their main priority isnt to learn, because taking risks and putting forth effort is essential to learning. It is even worse for students who have experienced repeated failure. They internalize a feeling of learned helplessness and simply give up. They think they are stupid and so what is the point? They don’t even try. I will admit that I had a fixed mindset for quite a while. ‘Luckily’, I was ‘successful’ one, but the negative impacts of this mindset definitely impacted my life in a negative way.
How about people who handle failure well? They see learning determined by effort, not by intelligence. Therefore, when they experience difficulty or failure, they view it as an opportunity to learn. This is the proper way to view failure because failure provides you with valuable information. It is one of the main reasons why testing is so effective as a learning strategy. Moreover, because they see learning as determined by effort, they are also willing to take a lot more risks in their learning and persevere through failure.
I am sure a few of you are thinking, is mindset actually backed up by ‘hard’ science or is it just a way to trick the mind. In fact, it is! Besides the loads and loads of studies that Dweck has done, neuroscience also backs it up thanks to neuroplasticity. Our brain changes based on our actions, which means that the power to increase our ability is largely within our own control. Intelligence isnt fixed, but does increase when you put forth cognitive effort.
Deliberate Practice
Increasing our ability being largely in our own hands is also born out by this. Deliberate practice is how you gain mastery in a certain domain. It is goal oriented, mostly solitary, and its purpose is to constantly exceed your past performance. To obtain mastery takes an incredible amount of time and really disproves the notion of ‘they are simply a natural’. No, they achieved mastery through long hours of deliberate practice.
The takeaway is that anyone can achieve mastery in a specific domain if they have the time and focus because what determines mastery is not innate ability, but the quantity and quality of practice. I am sure innate ability helps some, but the point is you can master a domain with just average abilities and deliberate practice, but you certainly can’t master it with natural abilities but no deliberate practice.
Memory Cues
I first should point out that memory cues are a method to organize knowledge that is already learned. You won’t learn anything from using these cues, and you won’t understand the underlying principle or theme of a topic without learning and mastering that first. So remembering a bunch of names and dates and thinking you know history is just stupid, because you dont.
So what is the point of memory cues? Well, it is to organize everything that you have learned and attached cues to what you have learned so you can immediately recall it. The most famous and extensive memory cue system would probably be the memory palace. Basically, it ties what you want to remember to mental images (the more shocking and out there the better) and ‘hangs’ them in an imagined physical location. When you want to recall something, you just mentally walk through that location and the images you placed in that location will trigger what you were trying to remember. Why does it work? Well, we are far better at remembering images than basically anything else. This takes advantage of that fact.
In conclusion, or holy crap that is a long post, just give me the essentials
If you take away two things from this post, then it should be that testing as a tool for learning is by far the most effective study method, and that you need to make sure that you either have or develop a growth mindset so you are psychologically ready to learn.
If you are looking for a good spaced-repetition testing program, then I would check out Anki. It is limited to flashcards, but it is very effective if you want to learn vocabulary or a bunch of terms and definitions.
Interested in learning more? Well, first read this book, but you could also read Mindset by Carol Dweck, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and/or The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I am sure there are many more, but these are the ones that I have read.
