UCLA Professor Says Conventional Wisdom on Study Habits Is All Washed Up

An anonymous reader writes "Taking notes during class? Topic-focused study? A consistent learning environment? According to Robert Bjork, director of the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab, distinguished professor of psychology, and massively renowned expert on packing things in your brain in a way that keeps them from leaking out, all are three are exactly opposite the best strategies for learning."

Comments

I can corroborate this

[davesque]

I majored in music in college. Throughout my life, I've gone through various phases of being out of practice, getting back into the practicing groove, falling out of it, getting back into it again, and so on. I've noticed every time I return to the instrument after having taken a long break, there is a short period of difficulty followed by a burst of learning and progress. Sounds just like what the prof is talking about.

His brain is better than mine

[Taco Cowboy]

I gotta concede that Professor Bjork's brain is much better than mine.

Bjork also recommends taking notes just after class, rather than during â" forcing yourself to recall a lectureâ(TM)s information is more effective than simply copying it from a blackboard

That might work for him because his brain has the capacity to recall all the stuffs _after_ the class is over. Not me.

If I waited till the class is over and _then_ started to write down the notes based on what I recall, I probably can recall 15% to 20% of the total thing.

Granted, not every single word from the lecturer mouth is useful, but still, about 30% of the stuffs an average lecturer taught in an average college level class is relevant in _someway_ to the subject in hand.

My own ability to recall only 15% to 20% means that there will be essential stuffs that I would have missed.

Re:His brain is better than mine

[Fzz]

I've always found that I can take notes, or understand, but I can't do both. Back when I was a student, i generally taken almost no notes - just perhaps half a page to a page in an hours lecture - just the key points and nothing else to act as reminders later. It always worked well for me - I seemed to be the only person who actually understood stuff.

Of course, revision for exams was interesting, but it really was revision, because I didn't have enough notes to attempt to learn anything during revision. Probably fits with the article - remembering during revision was hard, but once I had remembered, I really knew it well.

Re:His brain is better than mine

[Taco Cowboy]

The problem is actually getting through the class in the first place .. not only in terms of being able to keep up. Since everyone tends to fall asleep after 30-45 minutes, we need to have shorter lessons.

My view is that we need to adapt "burst-mode" into the way we teach / learn

Throughout the millennia the patent of sharing knowledge amongst human being has been in a linear scale - that is, bit by bit, at almost constant rate.

That was okay provided there is not much to be learn, (or not much depth) for that particular subject

But today's world we live in, many subjects have accumulated so much in scope - whether we talk about mathematics or chemistry or philosophy - learning knowledge bit by little bit would take too much time - and yes, students do fall asleep in classes

That is why I propose the "burst mode" teaching / learning process, in which, the knowledge is packaged in such interesting / memorable way that we can cramp a lot into our brain in a short while - before boredom sets in.

Re:His brain is better than mine

[gstrickler]

If you're taking many notes, you're not really listening. If you're really listening, you'll remember much more at the end of class and you'll be able to fill in a lot of notes.

Here's what I've found works for most people if they're willing to try it. Listen to the lecture and make very short notes about the most important points and/or details that you want to remember. Then, fill in additional notes at the end of class (or at the next break). Discuss them with other students if needed to fill in what you may have missed. How do you know what you missed? It if seemed important, you should have a brief note about it. Also, in discussing it with other students you'll hear what they noted as "important" and can add that to your notes if necessary.

If you're a touch typist, it's less distracting to type notes, writing requires more attention. That might not apply on touchscreen devices.

Another option is to record the session on a voice recorder to help fill in the gaps you can't remember at the end of class. Of course, it can take extra time to listen again, but for a few people, that might be the most effective method.

Re:His brain is better than mine

[hey!]

I always had a very good memory for lecture material. I typically took notes, then never had to look at them again. Nor do I pay *any* attention to notes while I am taking them. I just scribble along, focused on the instructor, or sometimes jotting thoughts that are provoked. In fact I think worrying about structuring your notes as you take them just distracts you from the material you're supposed to be learning. My study time tends to be spent on *reasoning* about the material, or working practice problems, not driving facts into my skull long hoping they'll stay there long enough for me to use them on the test.

So if I never refer to my notes, why take them at all? Because when I didn't take notes, the magic didn't work. It's possible taking notes ensured I was paying attention, but I think there' s more to it than that. I'm reasonably certain that physical activity that's tied to the visual and auditory information did something to fix the material in my memory.

If that is true, why it should be so is beyond me. The brain is complicated, ad hoc hunk of goo that evolved to keep us alive and procreating on the African savanna. It's got its own way of doing things, and doesn't have to play by the rules set by our theories of education or psychology. But to this day I never go to an important meeting without a stack of paper and pencils.

Re:His brain is better than mine

[catchblue22]

But what if the subject in hand is quantum mechanics, or nuclear physics, or subjects that are more conceptual than practical?

I remember learning quantum mechanics. I remember reading a particular paragraph in a textbook over and over, because I knew it was important. I remember that in reading that paragraph, something eventually clicked, and the entire course became more clear. It seemed to happen in a moment. Suddenly, everything before and after in the course made sense in a deeper way. It was exhilarating. I don't use the material so much now, but I suspect that if I went back and re-read it, I would understand it at a much deeper and more lasting level than I did then. I find this has been so with many other topics in my university education.

Re:His brain is better than mine

[catchblue22]

When I was learning those topics (all the ones you listed save for laying bricks) I didn't take any notes in class. Maybe I'm just the target subject, but if I forgot something in QM then I can still remember enough to look it up in my text or even online.

Instead of QM and nuclear physics, I would have used literature analysis or the like, because there you specifically want the professor's insights rather than verifiable points of fact.

My intro quantum professor had very chaotic notes. They were non-linear, jumping around from board to board. I took notes, but I think the notes were more pointers or reminders of points made in class. The professor had a way of referring to material in many other courses, both taken and to be taken by most of the students. And yet it all made sense in a deep way. Going to his lectures was like going on a journey. By the time the lecture was over, you felt as if you had been transported somewhere else.

When I hear educational theorists pronouncing with dogmatic certainty that lectures are an ineffective method of instruction I think back to that course, and find that I am skeptical of their dogma. Lectures are no doubt ineffective in many cases, but I think that such masterful lecturers are the exceptions that disprove their axiomatic claims.

Re:His brain is better than mine

[budgenator]

The problem is actually getting through the class in the first place .. not only in terms of being able to keep up. Since everyone tends to fall asleep after 30-45 minutes, we need to have shorter lessons. Since everyone falls asleep after lunch, we should have labs after lunch.

My microbiology classes lecturer had an incredibly boring voice, the was class after lunch and the morning was 4 hrs worth of clinicals, half the class was either asleep or throwing paper-wads at each other and the other half had a funny glazed stare, mostly daydreaming. I aced the class because I paid attention using an Army technique, if you can't stay awake sitting down in class, stand up in the back of the room; nobody falls asleep standing up.

Poultry Science memories

[EdwinFreed]

As the newest math professor in the department, of course I was lowest of the low. I was informed that there was no classroom available in the classroom building and I had to choose between one in Animal Husbandry and Poultry Science. In a moment of true quantum stupidity I chose the one in Poultry Science because it was closer to my office.

The classroom sat adjacent to a room that contained hundreds of chickens, maybe more. You had to smell it to believe it. Of course the students complained but there was nothing I could do.

The class actually did quite well, that is, until the day of the final exam. When I got there to deliver the exam (which of course was being given at a different time) the door was locked and no key could be found. I was forced to walk the entire class over to the classroom building and give the exam in an empty classroom.

Checking the scores against the midterm, I found there had been a significant drop for almost every student. To this day I am convinced that the context change and the lack of that awful smell was as or more responsible for the difference than all the chaos leading up to taking the exam.

Re:Do Not Want

[t4ng*]

Since you seem to know Dr. Bjork.... TFA mentions using interleaving for learning physical skills like tennis and ballroom dancing. As a former dance instructor I have witnessed numerous students trying to do too much at once (taking classes with multiple teachers, working on numerous skills at the same time). Dance students trying to learn this way become hopelessly confused, suck horribly, and usually quit in frustration. On the other hand, dance students that take the time to master fundamental skills before moving on to more complex ones find it much easier to master new skills. In fact, they eventually reach a level where they can analyze a movement by another dancer, figure it out on their own without an instructor, and master it with some practice.

I would assert that any complex physical skill like dancing, tennis, martial arts, etc. is a learning process, you can not interleave. The student must become proficient at the fundamental physical skills before moving on to more complex ones. There are no shortcuts. In fact, in dance instruction, the instructors claiming to have shortcuts to becoming a great dancer - fast, are the unscrupulous ones that have no clue what they are doing and produce horrible dancers. I suspect the same is true of the field of martial arts based on stories from friends who have studied martial arts for decades.

Re:Do Not Want

[solidraven]

PhDs in psychology aren't hard to get. Actually, psychology is what we commonly call the trash can of higher education. If you want to get a degree and are useless for everything else then you're ready for studying psychology. His methods all sound nice, "don't take notes!". Well, he should go and try that in engineering. Lets see how long he'll last.