Learning How To Learn: The Applied Lessons

Like most people in the world, COVID-19 has got me stuck locked down at home. Inspired by the videos of people learning languages, programming, cooking, <cool skill>… I thought it would be good to also resume my interest in learning.

And what better way to start off the learning journey through learning how to learn. Taught by a top instructor and one of the most popular courses on Coursera is ‘Learning How To Learn’ by Dr Barbara Oakley. Having taken the course before but perhaps forgetting some of the lessons (I blame my failure at applying the spaced repetition memory technique) 😅, I am re-watching and have created this article as refresher notes so that I can come back if I ever forget to apply such great lessons. Hopefully these notes will be helpful to others as well.

Interesting fact: The average human brain is about 1.4kg but it consumes 10x more energy by weight than the rest of the body! According to Dr Terry Sejnowski (the other instructor of the course) it is the most complex device in the known universe.

What Is Learning?

Week 1 of the course is on what is learning. Here, learning can be divided into: focused and diffused learning. One cannot be in both modes at the same time. Being in one mode, limits your access to the other.

The focused mode of thinking is working on a singular task. Adding up calculations, thinking about a specific problem, reading this sentence etc. Your neurons are following a tight focused path on figuring out what you are thinking about. It’s a familiar path.

The diffused mode of thinking occurs in a more broad stroke setting, it is more of where your brain wanders. Through say for example taking a walk, you come up with different ideas to think about a problem.

Understanding Procrastination
When one looks at something that they really rather not do, it seems to activate areas of the brain associated with pain. The brain, naturally enough, looks for a way to stop that negative stimulation by switching your attention to something else. Damn procrastination!

But there’s a trick.

Researchers discovered that not long after people start actually working on what they don’t like, the neurodiscomfort disappears. A technique for helping do this is the pomodoro where you put a timer for 25 minutes, turn off all interruptions and focus. After the 25 minutes, you get a little reward, a few minutes break.

You can of course also increase the time, say to 1 hour before 15 minute break.

Practice makes permanent. By practicing you help solidify some of the more abstract concepts that is generally found in say maths or science. By practicing, you begin deepening the neuron connections.

Neurons become linked together through repeated use

To help build up practice — try the ‘Don’t Break The Chain’ Method. This means keep up a good habit. A habit used by Jerry Seinfield in writing jokes. This avoids the neuron jumble that would be found in cramming. It is also an effective method to building up greater practice over time.

Another method, is spaced repetition which involves practicing something in small timeframes and as one gets better at it, increasing the amount of time between each timeframe. Like memory cards, you look at something more often when you are initially learning something to memory. But then overtime, you space out the time you would practice it until eventually it becomes cemented in your mind. But by bringing it into focused memory, you help that process.

Key takeaways:

• Analogies and metaphors provide powerful techniques for learning.
• Having focused thinking is good — it is necessary for deep work. But to benefit from diffuse thinking, one should after studying, take a walk, have a nap or sit around and do something different. In this way, the brain can wander and the diffused mind can work!
• Brain connectivity is dynamic. Multiple synapses gets formed off the dendrite after sleep (i.e. sleep helps your memory and learning!).
• Beat procrastination through pomodoro, don’t break the chain and spaced repetition techniques.

Chunking

Week 2 is on Chunking. Chunks are compact packages of information that your mind can easily access. They are bound together through meaning or use. Chunking is the mental leap that helps you unite bits of pieces of information through meaning. It helps your brain run more efficiently as it becomes easier to recall the main idea (chunk) rather than all the small details that aren’t actually needed. E.g. when one gets dressed, they know what to do without necessarily contemplating all the complexities of the steps involved in doing so.

The complex neuron activity in our brain weaves chunks together to provide meaning. For example if you want to learn Spanish, memory loops are created when one associates the word with a mental image. This happens through structured practice and more diffuse learning such as free speech.

Forming Chunks
A chunk is formed by first grasping an understanding of a major concept and then figuring out where to use it. One can look at patterns, grasp and master mini-skills/mini-chunks to combine into a reaction, learning bit by bit. Work a problem through samples. Figure out the steps taken and why they were done in such a way to form connections.

To optimally chunk, stay focused on the task at hand.

The best chunks is where one does not even need to think about the neural pattern. You need to use your working memory to chunk. And if you are focused, you can use that space without being distracted by other things such as the TV in the background or other thoughts also competing in the working memory. Grasping something is easier when the focused and diffused learning parts of the brain are being fully allocated to the task at hand. Through reviewing, when one can do something by themselves, that will allow you to truly understand it. Practice helps you broaden out the paths of such a knowledge.

Only doing an activity yourself will allow you to fully understand and master the chunking of what you wish to learn.

If something motivates you, learning it will be easy.

— Dr Terry Sejnowski

Your emotions are intertwined with perception and attention. They are integrated with how you learn. Being motivated and being interested helps how you learn.

Motivation is controlled in our brain by dopamine neurons. Dopamine is released from these neurons when there is an unexpected reward. These neurons are also attracted by future rewards. They are part of the unconscious brain and when one treats themselves after an intense studying session for example — they are activated.

Bill Gates and other industry leaders, set aside extended, week-long reading periods so that they can hold many and varied ideas in mind during one time. These ‘think weeks’ helped them think on the right problem.

Basically, what people do to enhance their knowledge and gain expertise, is to gradually build the number of chunks in their mind, valuable bits of information they can piece together in new and creative ways. Chess masters for example, can easily access thousands of different chess patterns. Musicians, linguists and scientists, can each access similar chunks of knowledge in their own disciplines. 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.

A chunk is a way of compacting and compress the learning of what you are learning. Chunks allow you to do transfer learning, applying your knowledge into new ways. Through practice you create a chunked library that your brain can refer back to when you have different problems to think about. Creating longer and darker neural patterns.

Overlearning, Choking, Einstellung and Interleaving
Overlearning is where you continue to practice something over and over again during the same study session even after you have mastered it. Repetitive overlearning in the same study session doesn’t help strengthen long term memory. It also brings an illusion of competence — so you should instead balance your studies by focusing on what you think is more difficult. This is known as deliberate practice.

This relates to a concept known as Einstellung which is the German word for ‘mindset’. It is like a roadblock, where your initial intuition or erroneous past learning may prevent a better idea or new solution from being found.

Interleaving is a technique to help prevent overlearning. Once you have mastered a concept, try to mix up your learning by interleaving your practice with different types of problems or concepts. Interleaving between different subjects and disciplines helps increase your creativity.

You can also help your learning through practicing recall. This is done by writing out a bit on what you just learned or teaching someone what you learned. In doing so, you help form better mind-body neural connections as well as avoiding the illusion of competence.

Key takeaways:

• Creating conceptual chunks through connecting disparate information with a unified meaning helps form neural networks that improve the ability to learn!
• Chunking is helped by having a roadmap where you pay attention on what the direction of learning you are ultimately trying to form.
• Learn the major concepts or points first. Learning happens in two ways: top down (big picture) of what you are learning and bottom up learning (chunking). Context is the middle ground to merge the two. By glancing and understanding a sense of the big picture, one can better know what should be chunked.
• Learning can be done sequentially or intuition. The former being step by step and the latter a more holistic understanding. Intuitive insights might not always be correct but this diffuse mode of thinking helps you solve the more trickier problems!
• Don’t be trapped by einstellung instead apply deliberate practice in hard problems or interleaving your practice with different types of problem to deepen your understanding of the subject and increase your creativity.

Procrastination and Memory

In Week 3, Dr Barbara Oakley explored procrastination and memory. The two are related. As Oakley puts it, building solid long-term memory chunks that are easily accessible (chunks that are easily accessible by your short term memory) takes time, “It’s not the kind of thing you want to be putting off until the last minute”.

Learning to avoid procrastination is important because good learning is a bit by bit activity. One should avoid cramming as it doesn’t build solid neural structures — by putting the same amount of time into your learning via spaced learning, you’ll learn better.

Tackling procrastination
The lazy person’s approach to tackling procrastination.

Your inner habit zombies are routine habitual responses your brain falls into as a result of specific cues. Unlike procrastination, willpower is hard to come by and shouldn’t be wasted on fending off procrastination except when absolutely necessary.

Procrastination happens when one thinks about things that make one feel a little bit uncomfortable. This causes the pain centers of the brain to light up. So one shifts and narrows the focus of attention to something more enjoyable. But this is bad because it can create long-term effects of habitual avoidance and snowball into a worse effect.

Procrastination shares features with addiction.

— Dr Barbara Oakley

Neuroscientifically speaking, chunking is related to habit.

Habit is an energy saver by allowing us to free our mind for other types of activities. So how does one do the lazy approach to tackling procrastination — by using your inner habit zombie! You can think of Habit as having four parts:

1. The cue — this is the trigger that launches you into zombie mode, it can be as simple as seeing the first item in your to-do list.
2. The routine — the zombie mode, the routine habitual response your brain falls into when it receives the cue.
3. The reward — the good feeling you get for following the routine. Every habit develops and continues because it rewards us. It gives an immediate little feeling of pleasure. One should reward good habits.
4. The belief — habits have power because of your belief in them. These are thoughts which reinforce the habit. For example you might feel you can’t change a habit because of your belief that it is too late or too difficult. SO to change the habit, you’ll need to change your underlying belief.

To change a bad habit and make it all crumble — just take out the cue. You only need to apply your willpower to recognising and changing the cue for what leads you to zombie procrastination mode. The cue usually falls into four categories: location, time, how you feel and reactions. If for example your phone is your distraction, remove your phone into a different room and the rest of the parts of a bad habit falls apart.

Researchers have found that non-procrastinators put their negative thinking aside saying things to themselves like. Quit wasting time and just get on with it, once you get going, you’ll feel better about it. If you find yourself avoiding certain tasks because they make you feel uncomfortable, you should know there’s another helpful way to re-frame things. And that’s to learn to focus on process not product. Process means, the flow of time and the habits and actions associated with that flow of time. As in, I’m going to spend 20 minutes working. Product is an outcome, for example, a homework assignment that you need to finish.

To prevent procrastination, avoid concentrating on product. Instead focus on building processes.

Processes relate to simple habits, habits that coincidentally allow you to do the unpleasant tasks that need to be done. The product is what triggers the pain that causes you to procrastinate. By avoiding focus on the product and focusing on the processes, investing small chunks of time over days, you are able to grasp the key concepts and not necessarily be focused on the product outcome for the session.

For example, a surfer is focused on the moment rather than the accomplishment of having surfed a big wave. The zombie habitual part of the brain likes processes because it can march mindlessly along. It’s much more easier to enlist the friendly zombie habit to help with a process rather than with a product. This helps you get into a flow of work and when a distraction arises, you only need to train yourself to just let it flow by.

Focus on the process rather than the outcome at hand.

We’ve got space for about four things in working memory. Free up some of your working memory by using lists. Using a list helps you free up space for your memory as well as a reminder/cue for the good habits you do want to build.

The list should be on tasks which you can realistically accomplish. Research has shown that writing this daily list the evening before helps your subconscious to grapple with the tasks on the list, so you can figure out how to accomplish them. Use your zombies to help you accomplish the items on the list the next day. Have a reminder and also have a finish line! Use your timer to help you stay in the focus.

Committing to long term memory

Memory
Your mind is built to remember a place. This visual spatial aspect of your brain helps with what you would like to remember. Having a memorable picture or mnemonic helps. As an example:

Example of visual memory: f = ma with a donkey helps remember this equation and meaning

An image is important to memory as it directly connects to your right brain. By tapping into visual areas you tap into more enhanced sensory memory aspects of your brains. You can see, you can smell and you can ‘feel’ what it is. The funnier, the more evocative, the better!

[But don’t forget repetition — sporadic and throughout the day helps!]

Use index cards and use handwriting will help with this technique.

Memory Palace Technique — The Sherlock Holmes method ;-)
Mnemonics, phrases and shorter forms can be used to summarise a list for memorising what needs to be learned.The memory palace technique is where you group things together with a place familiar to yourself, you can then create a conceptual image of what needs to be remembered. As an example with a shopping list where you need to remember milk and eggs, you can place a giant milk carton in your front house and broken eggs dripping from the ceiling!

This memory palace technique has been proven to help speed up the memory of chunks and big picture aspects of learning. It is also a boost to your creativity as you are boosting wild unexpected ideas from unrelated items and concepts. Build an evocative image.

Key takeaways:

• Chunking is related to habit. Habit is an energy saver by allowing us to free our mind for other types of activities.
• Good learning is a bit by bit activity. One should avoid cramming and avoid procrastination. To do so, build habit zombies. Like a zombie routine in the morning where you just do it — try build such habits for things you know are good for you but hate doing.
• Finding ways to reward good study habits is important for escaping procrastination.
• If there is any negative habits or bad behaviours — look at the underlying belief behind them and seek to change it.
• To prevent procrastination, avoid concentrating on product. Instead focus on building processes. Processes are the simple habits that allow you to do the unpleasant tasks at hand. Eat your frogs at breakfast. Try do the hardest/things you dislike to do at the start of your day.
• Sometimes it takes a few days of the pomodoro technique before the flow starts to get through. The better you get at something, the more you will enjoy it. Get into the flow.
• Use images/use the sensory part of your brain to help you remember.
• Have a finish/planning quit time. By having a finish line, this will help you refresh and recover. Try squeeze a little break time for yourself!

Renaissance learning & unlocking your potential

New neurons are born everyday. Learning new things will help form new neurons as does exercise (more effective than any drugs). Learning new things does require practice however — without it, those new neurons will die off.

Learning doesn’t progress logically — it doesn’t happen in a straight line.

Learning goes up and down; you might hit roadblocks sometimes. It takes time to assimilate new knowledge.

Sometimes you might hit roadblocks but emerging from these temporary frustrations, you might find that you will have taken a surprising leap forward.

A learning technique that is very powerful is putting a lively visual metaphor or analogy. By putting yourself in the shoes of what you want to learn — by having yourself in a central concept to what you want; you can remove yourself from einstellung effect but also retain what you want to learn.

You gain greater understanding when your mind is able to construct the patterns of meaning, rather than simply accepting what someone else has told you. This is oft a phrase repeated by many people famous for their intellect such as John Von Neumann. People learn by trying to make sense out of the information they perceive.

Being smart usually just means you have a bigger working memory. You might hold 9 things instead of 4. But holding onto an idea into your mind and not letting other thoughts go through will just allow for einstellung. Von Neumann was a contemporary of Einstein. Von Neumann is famed for his academic contributions and how quick he was in processing concepts. Von Neumann is given the honour of being classed as the last of the greatest mathematicians and is famed for being able to repeat a book word for word only after one reading.

Although Von Neumann was perhaps more ‘intellectual’ than Einstein as can be seen by the breadth of contributions and diversity of fields he contributed to from economics to mathematics to politics to physics to computer science — Einstein is better known as a ‘genius’. Einstein may not have had as high of an IQ as Von Neumann but he was more creative in his thinking — and this diffuse mode of learning is where he excelled!

Having a somewhat smaller working memory means you can more easily generalize your learning into new, more creative combinations. Because your working memory, which grows from the focusing abilities of the prefrontal cortex doesn’t lock everything up so tightly. You can more easily get input from other parts of your brain. — Dr Barbara Oakley

Anyone even the least gifted, can learn to change their brain and improve. Charles Darwin was a poor student at school — dropped out of medical school and went on an around the world trip as a ship’s naturalist. It was the wandering mind, the diffused learning that helped him develop his theories of evolution.

Use your natural contrariness to defy the always present prejudices from others about what you can accomplish.

Your brain has a left and right hemisphere. According to leading neuroscientist, Vilayanur S Ramachandran, the right hemisphere serves as a sort of devil’s advocate to question the status quo and look for global inconsistencies. The left hemisphere instead tries to cling tenaciously to the way things were. When you work in the focus mode, it’s easy to make minor mistakes in your assumptions or calculations. It provides for an analytical and upbeat approach, but abundant research evidence suggests there’s a potential for rigidity, dogmatism, and egocentricity. Sometimes allow yourself to lean back so that your right hemisphere can check your overconfident left.

Otherwise try find a friend, a team or other people who are learning in the same direction. By studying with some other people you might find yourself where you might be too overconfident and over swaying. It allows you to understand what you just might not be able to see!

Key takeaways:

• Practice can repair and train the brain. It also reinforces connections between neuronal circuits.
• Learning isn’t linear. Sometimes you might hit roadblocks but emerging from these temporary frustrations, you might find that you will have taken a surprising leap forward.
• Particular deliberate practice on the toughest aspects of materials you struggle with can help lift your brain into performing better and surprising you on what you can learn!
• Whatever it is you decide to learn, it all starts with the story you tell yourself. Pretend you’re the hero in the story of your own learning journey.

And…

If you want to learn more about your brain, Dr Terry Sejnowski suggests also checking out his site: www.brainfacts.org