Slashdot Mirror
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."
I do not want to hear about experts in learning from someone who non-ironically refers to one of them as a "massively renowned expert."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Thanks to the old system, it was easy.
God spoke to me
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.
Bjork should stick to making creepy pop music and leave education to the professionals.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Yes College CS is like serves, synchronized swimming, European capitals, and programming in Java. where they mix in lot's of use less skills and stuff that is very far what you want learn.
Now for IT tech work CS is loaded with stuff that is far off from what is the basic of IT some stuff you can only pick up by doing real work.
Take CS and tech school.
Tech school Let's say you take a windows sever / desktop cores line they may Interleaving some cisco, some VB.
But CS has Lot's of theory with SOME (way less then a tech school) of the other stuff Interleaving in to the class plan.
Tech school should be Interleaving real work / on going education system.
... unless you have another class right afterwards, or you forget one of the 10 points he outlined in class. Helping memory recall is a secondary reason to take notes. The primary is to have a complete reference for when you forget.
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.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
... unless you have another class right afterwards, or you forget one of the 10 points he outlined in class.
Helping memory recall is a secondary reason to take notes. The primary is to have a complete reference for when you forget.
That's what I was thinking, as well. Some teachers will post notes after class, though, and that's where his advice would be relevant. In those classes, focus on the material and how you're going to remember it. Then try and reproduce it all after class, on paper. Then compare it against the actual notes that were posted online and pay extra time learning the stuff that you forgot.
yet teachers got it wrong so frequently at my school. I have never been able to learn 'by rote'. I always had massive difficulty in school packing in equations and bite sized tid bits of crap without ever seeing the real picture, while everyone around me seemed to be perfectly happy with it but ended up never applying anything that they learnt. Case in point - math, which I hated at school and was notoriously bad at is now one of my strongest skills and something I really enjoy, and it's because I learnt it, properly, at University where I actually had to *apply* my skills through programming algorithms instead of just figuring out the 2nd order differential of yet another curve. It was through the use of what I had learnt and the application of every skill I had that finally made me 'get' math, and that happened over the course of a few months instead of 10 years suffering a horrendously bad curriculum. I can only hope that teachers continue to 'discover' the obvious so that one day entire cohorts of children won't be turned off 'hard' subjects like Math, and that the notion that Math is hard in the first place, and that it is therefore o.k. to suck at it to the point of not being able to use it for every day tasks, will be laid to rest.
Trying to recall the material AFTER the class means that you WILL forget things.
But it gets a bit worse. From TFA:
And how are you supposed to accomplish that? I'm sure that it really does work in the tests they've performed. But how would you implement that on your own?
How do you know that you're about to forget something if you don't recall it within the next 24 hours? Without recalling that you recall it right now?
Again as with the initial "notes after class". How do you KNOW that you have NOT forgotten something?
I can see how "discovering" this in a "memory experiment" testing situation would happen. But how to apply that information outside of such an experiment?
Traditional education = poor fit for today's world.
We need more apprenticeship like learning for lot's of fields.
Less need college for jobs that DON'T need it.
Move to 3 year system (filler and other stuff is pushing a Traditional 4 year out to five years)
Cut down the theory overload / Make tech / voc schools stand out more.
you could just record your class. another way to do it would be to take notes during class and take another set afterwards after class without looking at your originals. this would be effective due to an effect called the "testing effect."
Damn... I was studying how to wash things.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
ding ding ding we have a winner! record your classes, its not like all but the absolute cheapest of cellphones dont record voice and or video, even then we have these things called micro cassettes that seem to have worked for the last 30 or so years for millions of students
I always found taking notes during very distracting, hm how the hell do you spell that? oh shit what did he say dammit now I am missing 2 parts!
I'm sure I was the only one in lecture theatres of 180 people.
Nearly every lecture gave handouts, so that was my material for revision. If the lecturer said something else, I'd probably remember it because I was thinking about what was said instead of writing down information that's already in any textbook. Even if I didn't, the exams came from the notes not what the lecturer said - they don't want to have some undergrad whining that the exam had something not taught in class, so making the exam from the lecture handouts is good defensive education.
I understand other subjects are different, but for all undergrad science classes, I'd advise not taking notes. Everything you learn will be in textbooks and handouts, (or the Khan Academy) and you're better off sitting there listening, than you are exercising your hand and wasting paper. (Leave the hand exercises and paper wastage to some other time, a crowded lecture theatre isn't the place.)
I have had sub-par memory for as long as I can remember. I'm only 23 and things will probably only get worse in the future, so I spend a few minutes every day doing some memorization using Mnemosyne (free), which uses the SuperMemo algorithm, which seems to be similar to the concepts mention in TFA. It is quite amazing for remembering flash-card style items long-term, and a great memory exercise. Anyone interested in improving their own memory, I recommend checking this out.
I don't know what is changing us, but , I feel dumber by the days passing.
The problem with this approach is that it assumes students are in class to learn.
But that's not the system we live in.
Increasingly, students are in class to memorize material so that they can quickly recall it on one of many tests.
Tests. Memory. That's what we're teaching to these days. Not learning. Key difference.
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.
There's a lot of talk as to what you should do while an after the prof is speaking, but so far very little has been said about what to do *before* the professor speaks it. During my Physics undergrad, I would challenge myself to try to derive results and formulas before the prof finished. I was often wrong, and I usually had to have my notes at least nudged along at least a few times per lecture, but trying to derive on the fly is an awesome way to learn something. There's nothing quite like figuring out a problem by yourself to have it really gel with your overall understanding.
That's my advice: rather than just trying to learn, as much as possible *do your own thinking* in class and you'll be amazed at how little you have to work later to recall it.
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.
As a current CS major at a school you've heard of, I don't take notes. Ever. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it helps, but I find that if I take notes, I lose the point of the lecture. Most of my professors were good enough that their lecture was a sort of a story, and if you paid attention and followed the story, you got more out of that than the the slides and the books. Of course, the books are usually quite helpful, more or less depending on the class, and most-to-all of my professors have posted slides online.
But the biggest help has been lecture recordings that they've started to do. You can watch the slideshow, synchronized with the lecture, and it's a huge help. If you miss something during lecture, you can go and watch that section with the book or reference materials open, pause, rewind, etc. It removes the time constraint, and seems to be making a big difference.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
For a more general set of suggestions on study skills based on cognitive science, see "How to Get the Most Out of Studying Video Series". This is by Steve Chew, who was recently named a "U.S. Professor of the Year" for his teaching ability. For something printed, but not as detailed, see his "Improving Classroom Performance by Challenging Student Misconceptions About Learning". I recommend the video to all my students (I'm a college economics professor).
Because CS!=IT, that all....
CS is someone using is knowledge of theory to suggest adding a bloom filter to a database before performing a membership test in a big set.
IT is the guy who manages, configure and deploy the servers...
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
I looked over half the thread of comments and glanced at the summary, and it seems that everyone is still missing the way I used to study.
1. Diagram/Map/Lay out the book chapter(s) before the class.
2. In class, just put little dots or something that's a repeat of the book.
3. Then when the Prof. goes off into some other topic, then take real notes, sometimes in a different color. A lot of times those notes are the ones that show up on exams when you get a mean Prof. who prides themselves on making exams "that you had to be in class to pass".
Even better, *Record* the lectures! What's with all this "try to recall it later?" On the couple times I tried it, I did better listening to the lecture *three times* and mapping that out on paper next to the book notes.
It was enough to get me B's and B+'s. (I didn't get A's because I'd always miss something, but overall, I didn't mind the half-grade slide once I left college.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
We need more apprenticeship like learning for lot's of fields.
Less need college for jobs that DON'T need it.
Er, judging by the above, I'd say:
No, son. You really should keep taking English courses. Really. Trust me on this one.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
of the value of interleaving at least when it comes to learning an athletic skill like serving a tennis ball.
Suppose on Monday only had time to practice your serve twenty times. You'd put all your mental and physical resources into each attempt. Now suppose on Tuesday you had plenty of time, so you set out to do a *thousand* serves. Would your first twenty serves on Tuesday look anything like the twenty you did on Monday? Of course not. You know darn well you've got 980 more to go, so you *hold back*.
The net result of over-practicing any skill this way is that you end up drilling in lazy and sloppy habits. It always feel virtuous to put in a long session at something, but that's easy virtue that everybody can demonstrate under pressure. Consistent practice of moderate duration and extremely high quality has no substitute.
Interleaving a series of drills works better because you exploit fresh muscles and balance repetition with mental stimulation, which is also critical to learning.
Consistency is a virtue in academic study as well, although if you are being genuinely productive it doesn't hurt to keep working as long as it last. But being in the zone is nothing like forcing yourself to cram at the last minute. One is about exploiting an opportunity, another is about making up for lost opportunities.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
When I teach, I prepare a set of lecture notes, mostly an outline with key details. I leave room for notes. Then I give the students a copy of those at the start of the class. That way, they can listen and focus on understanding the information during the lecture. If they need to make some additional notes, they can add to the pre-printed lecture notes I handed out, but since the key points and details are already there, they don't need to add many notes. My experience is that students who spend too much time taking notes don't understand the material and don't remember it, so I make is easy for them to not spend time taking notes.
My classroom time is spent expanding upon the material, having discussions with the students, making sure the students understand it and how to apply it, doing hands on or thought experiments as appropriate, and refining my notes for the next class.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
and The best candidates are those that have done both is nice but college is not setup to trun people out like that.
And that is why lettering in smaller blocks with real skills mixed in as well on going classes is a better way to it and that is why Tech schools with DROP IN classes / apprenticeships is needed.
Also databases, programming, networks, parallelism, etc. may good for all IT people to take on a basic level (in each area) but some areas hare so much in depth that it takes someone to know a whole lot about a specific topic to be able to work with it.
But what does help is all the far off base filler classes now how does ART history, underwater basket weaving, European capitals, swimming (yes some colleges still have the swim test) help you be a better IT guy?
That is one of the by-products of the need to test students for competency. And that is something that needs to happen regardless of how the details of injecting the knowledge into students is going to happen.
For me, a lot of what I got from college was the knowledge that different subjects existed, that I was competent in using the techniques in that class and what those techniques are. This way whenever I hit those topics again or a subject that looks like it will benefit from the application of one of those techniques, I know that the technique exists and what the technique is called. I can then go and look it up for myself. Because I am relearning rather than learning, the learning is much quicker the next time.
The point of university education IMO is not to remember the material long term in order to be able to apply it without a refresher. Wasting brain space hard wiring your undergrad major into your brain is silly IMO and could possibly even have negative consequences. Only remembering a few key points I think potentially allows you to learn and apply a lot more than you otherwise would.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
If you don't take any notes, you'll be in trouble if there something detail-oriented that's not in the book, unless you're really smart.
I wonder if the recommendations depend on how detail-oriented and textbook-centered a course is. I teach philosophy. It certainly happen when I teach more advanced classes that I come up with new arguments and proofs right on the spot. They aren't in the assigned books, they aren't in the assigned articles, and because I came up with them on the spot (e.g., in response to a student question), there is no handout with it. But few students will correctly remember an eight step metaphysics argument or a hard logic proof without notes, or at least without taking a photo of the board.
In that case, using only 10% of it shouldn't be a problem! :)
Joking aside, most of the suggestions in the article make sense.
After years and years of classes, some years off, and going back to taking classes (and doing much better in them), this is the advice I have. It is not free -- you are required to give me $5 if you ever find me in real life:
0) Understand the material. Keep a laptop connected to the Internet open during class. Google whatever you don't understand immediately, fill the gaps in your knowledge, and get back to the lecture. Bookmark or transcribe the info down if necessary (this helps me with definitions, acronyms, etc.). This will keep you from getting bored, since boredom generally results from not understanding. If you understand the material and the instructor is truly being boring, the tangential information you discover during this process may be more useful than the class itself!
1) Understand the material! I mean really -- even if you're behind. Do reading before class if you can. Check Wikipedia. Consult the Khan Academy. Do the homework, and spread it over multiple days, making sure you get some sleep in between the days. All-nighters, while they make for great stories, are not as helpful as you think. (My record was 36 hours straight -- I got the A -- but I wouldn't do it again if I had the chance!)
2) Avoid early morning classes, if possible. Unless you're a morning person -- in which case you probably don't need the advice.
3) Take notes during class. On paper, with indelible pen, in a bound notebook, writing/drawing only the points which seem relevant to you. The point of doing this is to help you focus and summarize, not to record the lecturers words for posterity. I've found that typing, while faster and more legible, does not aid my recall as well. Recording the lecture may be helpful if it's an exam review, but is pointless if you're not paying attention while there.
4) Teach someone the material right afterward, if you can. Tutor someone, or bore your significant other to tears...
5) Find a way to extend what you learned. Right down your ideas. Implement them if practical. Post them on Halfbakery if not...
I see already a pattern familiar from when I taught in learning labs as a graduate student. I taught writing. I would diagnose a troubled student, using what I'd learned in classes in which we studied composition researchers. I would then tell the student, "What you're doing is a partially effective strategy. But, as you've noticed, it has these negative side-effects. If you do ______, you'll struggle at first, until you get used to it, and then writing will become much easier." The student with then reply, "Oh, no, I've heard about that/tried that, I'm an exception to the rule. I only write well when ________." And the blank would be "it's the night before," "music is blaring," "I've waited until the pressure motivates me," "I do it all in one inspired go," or something like that. What Bjork is talking about is old, old news. Like the article says, most of this stuff has been around since Ebbinghaus. It's very unlikely that anyone who is reading that advice is an exception to these well-studied facts about how human adults learn. But most people who read the advice will go on doing what they do, each assuming that he/she is exceptional. I'd suggest that instead that people who still study (and all technical/professional people should) give interleaving and delayed review a shot.
It's a well-known fact, that schools are not designed for learning. Bismarck specifically requested a "military-like" system for children, when our current system was invented. Because back then, sitting still and obeying was seen as the ideal.
They are designed to train as much stuff into you by heart as possible. It is very wrong to call this "learning", since the pupils don't actually understand the concepts. They can perfectly recite the formulas, rules and textbook paragraphs, and follow them like a computer. But they could never come up with a new way based on the core concepts of an idea. They become mere drones. NPCs.
If you observe, how animals learn naturally, you see that with smart animals, it is always through playing. Dogs, raven, dolphins, primates... they all show this behavior. This playing is a simulation of real-life situations. In a non-dangerous and at the start easier environment.
This is the root of games. True games. Not that EA shit. Not Crap of Duty.
See, games are what you get, when you combine storytelling, art, learning and sports. They are the mother of them all. (Yes, the discussion about if games are art is very very silly. Art itself is only a mere subset of games.)
And there even is a indicator for how good that learning is: Fun! (And inspiration.)
Yes. That's the purpose of fun. To show us that. Every good game designer, who studied the psychology behind this, knows this.
Plus, fun is the key motivator.
So any sane person would go and let our kids play games. Good games. Games that give us all the useful experiences and knowledge we need in life. Games that are insanely fun.
Notice how children naturally want this? They think they hate learning, but actually, it's the thing they love the most. It's just that the word "learning" is tainted by that torturous drill we call "schools".
So this whole pseudo-intelligent discussion is mere "oil lamp improvement", and as silly as questioning whether games are art.
Let's make some games! Now!
(I'm already on it. What about you?)