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Learning - Intro

https://guides.lib.uoguelph.ca/c.php?g=697430&p=4949569

Autodidactic Learning (Self Learn)

Learn by creating stories

Tell me and I forget, Teach me and I remember, Involve me and I learn -- Benjamin Franklin

Competence over credentials

If you want to learn something, learn from experts, and you will see the difference

One of the best strategies for learning something quickly: corner a nerd.

Find someone who totally geeks out about that topic and ask them every question you can think of.

Rivals are important - They can make you to raise your bar

MungerTechnique: Dedicate your best hour of the day to improving your mind, you'll improve your life on every level

If you're not working hard, ideas don't matter. The best idea is worthless without execution.

If you're already working hard, ideas are crucial. Most effort is wasted on mediocre ideas.

Don't over-improve your weaknesses. If you're not good at something, work on it until it no longer prevents your progress, but the bulk of your time is better spent maximizing your strengths.

The world contains far more information than any single person can learn in their lifetime.

The question is not whether you are ignorant, but what you choose to be ignorant about.

Few topics are worth your precious time. Choose what you pay attention to with great care.

You can't double your intelligence in one hour, but you can use one hour to write something twice as clear. And ideas that are easy to read and easy to understand will make you seem smarter. The better you communicate, the more intelligent you appear.

The gift of a beginner is fresh eyes.

The longer you're in a field, the harder it is to perceive new truths. Your mind is biased toward refining what you're already doing instead of exploring fresh terrain.

Take your expertise and apply it to something new.

Learning Pyramid​

learning-pyramid

image

Collateral Knowledge​

When one searches for answers regarding a specific subject, but ends up learning about several others in the process.

Trying to find out how to pronounce "Boise", but ended up also learning about the molecular structure of a diamond lattice.

Everytime you get deep into topic, there comes a point where you are satisfied, from there you go back so that you can focus on your area

Get a coach​

  • Overload training
  • Underload training

https://360learning.com/blog/learning-theories

  1. Cognitive Learning Theory
  2. Behavioral Learning Theory
  3. Constructivist Learning Theory
  4. Connectivism Learning Theory
  5. Adult Learning Theory
  6. Transformative Learning
  7. Learning Curve Theory
  8. Lifelong Learning Theory
  9. It all comes down to Collaborative Learning

Mental Models​

  • Deliberate Practice - "How expert one becomes at a skill has more to do with how one practices than with merely performing a skill a large number of times."

    The right sort of practice over a sufficient period of time leads to improvement. Nothing else.

  • Imposter Syndrome - "High-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a 'fraud'."

  • Spacing Effect - "The phenomenon whereby learning is greater when studying is spread out over time, as opposed to studying the same amount of time in a single session."

Memory Types​

Retrospective Memory - Remembering the past​

  • By Content
    • Implicit Memory / skill memory

The ability to do a task (brushing teeth)

  • Declarative / Explicit

  • Semantic - Memory of facts and meaning

  • Episodic - Memory from events

    Experiences you've had

  • By Duration

  • Working Memory - What you can "keep in mind" at the same time, to think, reason and solve problems.

Can be divided into 4 components

  1. Phonological loop - stores sounds including words, digits, sentences
  2. Visuospatial sketchpad - stores images of objects
  3. Central executive - directs attention and manipulates information
  4. Episodic buffer
  • Long-term Memory -- Anything you remember longer than a moment--what you ate for breakfast, exam questions or your friend's birthday.

Prospective Memory - Reminding yourself to do something in the future​

Remember to describe doing the task as vividly as possible, like passing through a library.

Encoding: Putting Memories into Brain​

Questions to ask while studying​

  • How does this concept related to the other?
  • What are the implications of this concept for...?
  • Why does it make sense that...?
  • What are the steps that I must take to solve this problem?

Recommendations​

  • Take structured notes (whatever suits you best: hierarchical, flow- based, mind-maps, etc.)
  • Do not memorize lecturer's or textbook phrases, explain concepts to yourself in your own words
  • When taking notes, avoid copying information word-for-word (verbatim). Use your own phrasing instead.

Lecturer - Negative reinforcement occurs when an aversive stimulus is removed to reinforce a behavior

Notes - Negative reinforcement is like when something becomes less painful, so you do it more, Like the time I prepared for that 10k run

  • Avoid taking notes on a computer. Take handwritten notes instead.
  • Exocortex (An Exocortex is a theoretical augmentation to a person's brain. It's basically extra functions and memory you could add to a brain to make people smarter)
  • Knowledge notebook/personal wiki
  • SQ3R method (Pragmatic Thinking and Learning book) - Scan, Question, Read, Record, Review

Transfer-appropriate processing​

  • A trick to remembering is to practice as close as possible to the state of use/test/exam. Means it must closely resemble the use.

Like you can read everything about cycling, but you cannot cycle until you practice cycling

  • In summary, if you are going to take a test of a particular format (such as an essay format), the best approach is to reap the benefits of multi- ple strategies. Whereas practicing with the final test format will teach you to processes the material in the way required by the test, recall will lead to most effective encoding. Therefore, ideally you should:
    • Spend about 1/4 of your time practicing with the final test format (e.g. multiple choice)
    • Spend the remaining 3/4 practicing with recall combined with deep-processing techniques

State Dependence​

  • Spend at least 1/4 of your study time simulating the state you will likely be in during your exam (e.g. sit at a desk, time your answers)
  • Study regardless of your mental/physical state (in different moods, with different energy levels, etc.)

Context Dependence​

  • For 1/2 of your study time, simulate the environmental conditions of your test (a noisy/quiet environment, similar distractions, people around)
  • For the other 1/2, alternate rooms, places and conditions as you study
  • Test yourself with different kinds of practice questions - what-questions
    • why-questions
    • how-questions
  • Make use of minimal context for flashcards, or if possible, try differ- ent ways of asking yourself questions to maximize your flexibility.

Retaining/Storage: Keeping Memories in the Brain​

Forgetting can be caused by two different processes. The first is a failure of storage -the information might be forgotten because our brain loses it over time. The second is a failure of retrieval -the information might be "in" there, but we can't access it.

Trace Decay​

  • Memories follow an exponential decay curve, it fades fast just after studying something and began to slow down after 2 days
  • Spend about 1/10 of your study time revising old material
  • Insert brief periods of revision of old material into the study of new material

Consolidation and Sleep​

  • Although some consolidation occurs during wakefulness, the primary time for consolidation is sleep.

  • Napping during the day will protect your memory from trace decay and interference due to sleep-induced consolidation processes. (90 minutes cycle)

  • Take a 20-minute nap to restore your energy.

  • Take a 90-minute nap after a study session to consolidate your memory.

  • Schedule your study sessions before sleep to reap the full benefits of consolidation.

Interference: Does learning new things block your old memories?​

  • Research has found that the only way to overcome blocking interference is by making conscious effort to recover the correct memory trace (and have patience as this may take some time). Interference may, however, also cause a permanent loss of memory. Scientists who study memory call this the retrieval-induced forgetting effect (RIF).
  • Re-study concepts that you confuse
    • Use comparing and contrasting to find differences between the concepts
    • Integrate the concepts (find the relations between them)
  • Aim for mastery in a subject, do not pay attention to other people's performance

Spacing effect​

Retrieval: Accessing Memories from the Brain​

Spreading activation: Gain quick access to your memory

  • When learning a new concept, connect it to the things that you al- ready know
  • The more connections you make between the new concept and old concepts, the more easily it will be to remember the new concept

Retrieval failure: What to do if you get stuck in an exam

  • To better remember to do something in a particular place and time in the future, visualize yourself vividly doing it (e.g. imagine your- self passing the library and returning the book)

  • visualize the details of the context where you need to remember

the intention (objects, buildings, people)

  • If you cannot remember a particular concept that you studied

during your exam:

  • Actively remember as many concepts as possible which are relat- ed to this concept
  • Actively remember as many concepts as possible which you stud- ied before and after this concept
  • Visualize yourself in the context of studying (sitting at the desk in your room, etc.)
  • Try to remember what time and where you studied the concept, what kind of mood you were in and what had happened on that day

Practice test: The most powerful technique for boosting memory

  • Avoid learning strategies based on recognition (reviewing/re-reading of textbook chapters/notes, highlighting, summarizing)
  • Revise with practice tests / questions to achieve the best results in your tests and exams
    • Use free recall (questions/tasks with no hints or options to choose from)
    • Practice with recognition questions (such as multiple-choice) only if your test will also be multiple-choice (see transfer-appro- priate processing) and for 1/4 of your study time only
    • Selectively re-read only the material that you cannot remember
    • Get immediate or delayed feedback on your answers Revise with practice tests / questions to achieve the best results in your tests and exams

https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/02/15/memory

Hebbian Theory - Neurons that fire together, wire together​

Use it or lose it

Neurons that fall out of sync lose their link

Learning How to Learn​

Key Points​

  • Focused and Diffused Brain
  • Pomodoro Technique
  • Spaced Repitition
  • A Good Sleep

Introduction to Focused and Diffused Brain​

We have 2 modes of thinking: focused (highly intensive mental processes when you are acutely aware of what you are thinking), and diffuse (a more relaxed mental process associated with sub-conscious thinking)

Sometimes the first solution found prevents you from seeing a wider range of possible solutions. To sidestep that, repeatedly intersperse short periods of intense focus on new information with periods of relaxed diffuse thinking.

Key Points​

  • Should be able to switch back and forth between focused and diffused mode
    • Pinball anology (tightly packed pinballs and loosely packed pinballs)
    • Eisten and salvador both let there mind wander and have a ball bearing and keys respectively in their hands and when they go to sleep, it falls and due to noise they wake up and work again in focused mode.
  • Learning something difficult takes time (a little bit of it everyday)
  • Metaphors and analogies are a powerful technique to learn
  • Mind Maps (find on internet what mindmaps are available)

What is Learning?​

  • Dendrites of nerurons form new synapses when we learn something new.
  • Brain is highly flexible and always growing
  • We can tap in the power of unconsious mind and sleep to help us to learn something new.
  • There are a million billion synapses in our brain

Introduction to memory​

Two major memory system

  • Long term memory (like a storage warehouse)
  • Working memory (centered our of prefrontal cortex but have links to other parts of the brain to retrieve from Long term memory)
    • Can only hold 4 chunks of information

Spaced repetition​

  • repeating a vocabulary word or concept over days
  • Builds stronger neural structures by repeating them over a number of days
  • Recalling is very important part of learning and making it permanent

Boost Learning Speed​

  1. Learners proficient in fast-paced games are significantly faster at performing new cognitive tasks.
  2. By pretending you are teaching something to someone using simple language, you understand it better.
  3. Bilingual people may have a leg up when it comes to understanding new thingsand processing information, regardless of the learned language.
  4. Learning new material right before sleeping provides a significant retention advantage.
  5. Establishing as many connections as possible is an effective way to learn, and the best way to do that is to relate new information to known information.
  6. The brain processes visual information faster than text. Include relevant visuals (charts, symbols, diagrams...) with learning materialsto improve retention.

"One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try." - Sophocles

We often avoid taking action because we think "I need to learn more," but the best way to learn is often by taking action.

The teacher learns more than the student.

The author learns more than the reader.

The speaker learns more than the attendee.

The way to learn is by doing.

https://deepstash.com/article/3352/quotes-to-inspire-you-to-never-stop-learning

Need For Cognition (NFC)​

NFC is a personality trait used in psychology to describe how inclined an individual is to seek effortful mental activities like puzzles, complex concepts, or problem-solving. The APA(American Psychological Association) gives a slightly more in-depth description:

"A personality trait reflecting a person's tendency to enjoy engaging in extensive cognitive activity. This trait primarily reflects a person's motivation to engage in cognitive activity rather than his or her actual ability to do so. Individuals high in need for cognition tend to develop attitudes or take action based on thoughtful evaluation of information."

https://centerofinquiry.org/uncategorized/need-for-cognition-scale-wabash-national-study

Curiosity​

Curiosity is a function of overcoming fear. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being right. Fear of being different. If you don't have the guts to think about really bad ideas, you'll never have the opportunity to execute brilliant ones.

Diversive curiosity​

Diversive curiosity is the fleeting desire to explore novel things. It is the impulse that drives us to endlessly scroll Twitter, flip through People Magazine, or click on a headline, but it doesn't engage us in deeper exploration

Empathic curiosity​

Empathic curiosity is the 'curiosity about the thoughts and feelings of other people.' This is the curiosity that pushes us to truly empathize with someone and "put ourselves in their shoes."

Epistemic curiosity​

This is the ideal type of curiosity according to Leslie, and the one we should all be cultivating in ourselves, and in our learners: "Epistemic curiosity represents the deepening of a simple seeking of newness into a directed attempt to build understanding. It's what happens when diverse curiosity grows up."

Dr. Litman further splintered epistemic curiosity into two additional types:Intellectual Interest curiosity (type I) and Informational Deprivation curiosity (type D). The former refers to curiosity that drives one 'to learn something that may be entertaining or amusing,' while the latter 'is activated in situations when individuals feel they are lacking information that is considered essential to improving their understanding.'

https://360learning.com/blog/need-for-cognition

Learning Styles (VARK) - It doesn't work​

It depends on what are you learning​

  • Visual
  • Auditory
  • Reading/Writing
  • Kinesthetic

Andragogy (Adult Learning Theory)​

Adults don't learn the same way children do (pedagogy)

Adult Learning Theory is a set of guiding principles that explain how adults learn, in contrast to how children learn.

6 principles of Knowles' Adult Learning Theory​

Knowles organized his theory around six assumptions that distinguished the novel andragogy from pedagogy:

  • The need to know:Adults must understand the utility of the material they're learning. Children are told to learn for the sake of it, and only what the teacher deems necessary. This means it's often the trainer's role to guide an adult learner to seeing that a skill gap, or a 'need to know,' exists.

  • Learner's self-concept:Adult learners do not like feeling imposed upon by a trainer, or that they aren't in control of their own learning. In classrooms, however, teachers are undoubtedly the ones in charge.

  • The role of the learner's experiences:Adults bring more experiences to a learning environment than do children. This means that a group of adults will contain more varied backgrounds, and so teaching should be more individualized. It also means that they can more actively participate as sources of knowledge.

  • Readiness to learn:Children are 'ready to learn' when teachers tell them they have learned enough to move to the next grade. For adults, learning should coincide with a developmental stage in their personal or work lives.

  • Orientation to learning:Adults approach learning as a way to solve a problem in real-world contexts, and are more receptive to learning when material is applied to real-life situations. Children, on the other hand, are expected to learn material for the sake of it.

  • Motivation:Adults are more motivated by internal factors, like a desire for higher self-esteem, than external ones, like a pay raise. Children are motivated primarily by external factors, like achieving a good grade or avoiding a parental reprimand.

Adult Learning Theory in practice

  • Use a bottom-up approach to training needs analysis
  • Decentralize course creation
  • Embrace self-directed learning

https://360learning.com/blog/adult-learning-theory

Forgetting Curve​

Our memories have a forgetting curve, and unless we review what we see or learn, most of the content is forgotten in 24 hours, and the rest in the following days.

Due to the internet, our recall memory has become less necessary, because now we don't need to remember information to recall it. Recognition memory is more important with recall memory fading away due to it being externalized.

curve of forgetting

The Knowledge Illusion

Japan's ancient secret to better cognitive memory - BBC REEL

Curve of Forgetting | Campus Wellness | University of Waterloo

SQ3R / SQ4R (Survey, Question, Read, Respond, Record and Review)​

  • SQ4R is a method of reading and studying textbooks.
  • When using this method, complete all the steps initially, then choose which are most effective for you and your courses.
  • The SQ4R method may seem time consuming at first, but it's an effective method for reading, understanding, and remembering information from your textbooks.

What are the benefits of using SQ4R?​

  • It's an active learning strategy that can be adapted to suit an individual's study preferences.
  • It provides a strategy to retain a lot of factual detail, reducing the amount of information that has to be relearned for exams.
  • It prompts the creation of study material to be used when preparing for exams.
  • It helps to identify errors or areas of confusion.

Step 1: Survey the textbook and chapters​

  • Read the preface and introduction to the text, and browse through the table of contents and the index. This will describe the main topics and the basic organizational structure of the book.
  • Read the introduction and conclusion in each chapter and subsection.
  • Scan the titles and subtitles. Study the pictures, charts, or graphs.
  • Read the summary and any chapter questions.

Step 2: Start with a question​

  • Take the section title, subtitle, or the first sentence of each paragraph and turn it into a question.
  • For example: "Functions of the spinal cord" becomes "What are the functions of the spinal cord?"

Step 3: Read actively​

  • Read carefully and actively by creating a "dialogue" with the text.
  • Try to find the answer to the question you created, and ask questions as you read.
  • Be careful not to skim the text looking for the answer, as you might miss other important information.

Step 4: Respond to your question​

  • Close the textbook and answer the question you created in your own words.
  • If you can't answer the question, reread the section until you can.
  • If, after a few tries, you still can't answer the question, go on to the next few sections and see if things become clearer.
  • If that doesn't help, you may need to change your question. Try making it broader or narrower.
  • If changing your question doesn't help, get some assistance. Your instructor or TA are good places to start, or contact Learning Services.

Step 5: Record Your notes​

  • Once you understand the material and can summarize it in your own words make a record of it.
  • Common methods are highlighting and/or marking the text, or taking notes, or some combination of both.
  • Whichever methods you choose, it's critical to read and understand the material first, and then go back and record.
  • See belowfor the pros and cons of notetaking and highlighting.
  • See our resources for help with note taking.

Step 6: Review Your notes​

  • Do a thorough review of lecture and text notes weekly, and briefly before each class.
  • Make weekly review periods effective by starting from the beginning of the course in each review session. Though the volume of review material increases as the semester progresses, the amount of time needed to review older material decreases. After you've reviewed the first week's material a few times, it will take only minutes to skim over it and recall the key points.

https://guides.lib.uoguelph.ca/c.php?g=697430&p=5011752

https://perell.com/essay/how-philosophers-think

Chauffeur Knowledge​

You understand an idea not when you've memorized it, but when you know why its specific form was chosen over all the alternatives.

MASTERY by George Leonard | Core Message

  • The dabbler - quick to fall in relationship, and quick to end the relationship when honeymoon phase ends
  • The obsessive - refuses to let the honeymoon phase end
  • The Hacker - just enough to win someone over to get married. Then they coast & expect the relationship to last

Weekly Mastery Questions​

  • Am I surrendering to instruction?
  • Am I practicing intentionally?
  • Do I love to practice?
  • Am I exploring the edge?

Others​