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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 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.
Welcome to academia. If you don't tell people you are important, they won't know and won't care. There is a saying that a PhD is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. An academic career is 10% inspiration, 40% perspiration and 50% marketing.
Thanks to the old system, it was easy.
Not to me.
Endless rote memorization: writing, flash cards, drills, ugh!
Humans naturally want to learn. It's innate in our being and yet, we get to school and hate it - at least 90% of us do. (The other 10% are the A students. )
When we're left to our own devices and learning something that we're interested in, do we learn like we do in school? I don't. It's all one big discovery. And the wonderful thing about the internet, it makes following curiosities even easier - until you tired and head over to Fark.
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.
That might be true, right now. How about after a little bit of practice? You might be surprised to find out that it won't take too long for you to be able to improve your after-class recall ability.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
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.
Thanks to the old system, it was easy.
Not to me.
Endless rote memorization: writing, flash cards, drills, ugh!
Humans naturally want to learn. It's innate in our being and yet, we get to school and hate it - at least 90% of us do. (The other 10% are the A students. )
When we're left to our own devices and learning something that we're interested in, do we learn like we do in school? I don't. It's all one big discovery. And the wonderful thing about the internet, it makes following curiosities even easier - until you tired and head over to Fark.
This is easily the most insightful yet commonsense comment in the entire discussion. Modern schooling sucks the life and soul out of learning and produces factory-style people who have forgotten what curiosity and the joy of discovery is all about.
I believe that's by design. It results in people who can't or won't educate themselves, who were raised to believe that education is something another person must give to you. They're simply easier to rule, especially when propaganda (particularly framing) and soundbites are your major tools.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
One of my father's lecturers said that information was transferred from him to his students notes without going through their brains. I never took notes in lectures when I went to university and I generally did better than people who did. If you don't understand something, go and read a book about it after the lecture. Distracting yourself from the lecturer while you're trying to understand what he's saying isn't going to help.
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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.
Again as with the initial "notes after class". How do you KNOW that you have NOT forgotten something?
Because instead of being a stenographer, you were paying attention and learning. If you listen to the lecture knowing that you will have to summarize it right after, you will remember what needs to be remembered. It's the difference between learning something and memorizing something.
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.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
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.
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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).
I can't speak to how true that is generally, but it's not true here. As a grad student in psychology and cognitive science, I can tell you that Bob Bjork is sufficiently well-established in the field that he doesn't need to tell anyone else he's important - they know it already. I was fortunate enough to hear him give a talk on this topic a couple of weeks ago, and he cited a number of his studies in the memory and learning literature that I'd heard of before without remembering that he was a coauthor on all of them. (It was a bit like that moment where you suddenly realize that a bunch of songs you like are all written by the same band.) In this case, at least, his renown is attributable primarily to the hard work he's put in over the last several decades.
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.
Sounds reasonable to me. Your engineering textbooks contain all the equations, formula, and methodologies you need to learn to get a degree, so why do you go to class? The classes teach you the background of why those methods are used, and when is the proper occasion to use them. When you take extensive notes, half your attention is spent recording the lecture verbatim, and you're not actually taking an active part in learning it.
He's saying don't do that. Pay attention. Think about what is actually being said. At some point in the short term after the class, while all that stuff is still fresh in your mind, replay through the class and write as much of it as you can down. The forced recollection will leave a far better imprint. If there are things you missed, ask a classmate, review the text, go meet the teacher in their office. You've got more than one chance to acquire all this information.