The Art of Manliness - #385： Learning How to Learn

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast when you study

00:00:18.700 for a test or you're trying to learn a new skill what's your typical approach if you're like most

00:00:22.720 people you might repeat facts over and over again or do the same task over and over and over again

00:00:27.340 until you can do it in your sleep while these brute force tactics might make you feel like

00:00:30.960 you're encoding new information in your brain my guest today argues that you're just fooling

00:00:34.420 yourself his name is peter brown and he's the co-author of the book make it stick the science

00:00:38.500 of successful learning today on the show peter and i discuss why typical approaches to studying

00:00:42.540 might make it feel like you're learning but don't actually work we then delve into research back

00:00:46.920 advice and how to really learn something and really retain it some of these insights are going to seem

00:00:50.980 pretty counterintuitive if you're a student someone who's looking to become more proficient in new

00:00:54.600 skill or just dedicated to the idea of lifelong learning this episode is packed with actual

00:00:59.260 advice you don't want to miss it after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is

00:01:03.360 slash make it stick where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:01:07.460 and peter joins me now via clearcast.io

00:01:10.080 peter brown welcome to the show thank you brett i'm a fan of the art of manliness delighted to be here

00:01:27.500 well you wrote a book a co-authored a book called make it stick the science of successful learning

00:01:33.600 it's a book about how to learn which is i mean i thought everyone just sort of picked up how to learn

00:01:38.780 you know just naturally we learn how to walk without anyone telling us how to learn

00:01:42.680 we learn how to spell and write so what do most people get wrong about learning that necessitated

00:01:49.820 writing an entire book about how to do it right well just let me start by saying that the book is a

00:01:56.580 culmination of a decade of research that by 11 cognitive psychologists at different universities

00:02:02.460 across the country funded by the department of education and a private foundation trying to

00:02:07.700 understand what leads to better retention of the of the new learning and what the cognitive

00:02:13.800 psychologists discovered one of whom was my brother-in-law which is how i got involved in

00:02:18.320 writing this book i'm not a psychologist i'm a retired management consultant and a writer

00:02:22.920 but what they found was counterintuitive that what we are drawn to the kinds of strategies we're drawn to

00:02:29.360 are very low yield strategies they're things like well focusing on trying to get new learning

00:02:35.640 into the brain by reading and rereading or standing in front of your golf ball trying to master your

00:02:44.320 20-foot putt by doing it over and over and over again in a masked fashion those kinds of strategies

00:02:51.200 intuitively feel productive because you become fluent in the text of something you've read many times

00:02:58.700 or you see actual gains in your 20-foot putt after 10 or 15 attempts but what you don't understand

00:03:07.080 is that the fluency a the read the material won't stick just by rereading it b you can't really describe

00:03:17.100 the underlying concepts just by rereading something and in the case of a motor skill like your 20-foot putt

00:03:24.940 the improvements that you've seen in that kind of practice are leaning on short-term memory that

00:03:30.920 stuff hasn't gone into long-term memory and that's a real a problem that we're not somehow wired to be

00:03:39.280 aware of as learners yeah i mean i when i read that like sort of the typical things we fall back to like

00:03:44.740 i did that all through high school all through college you you you highlight things that you read

00:03:49.200 you take notes and you just kind of like repeat the notes to yourself over and over and over again

00:03:54.260 before an exam and that's what i did right and and it we find this you know uh university students do

00:04:05.000 that uh they spend all-nighters and in fact you if you do that kind of cramming and walk into an exam

00:04:12.860 the next morning you can do well on the exam but in the studies you look at that person being tested

00:04:19.760 on the same material a week later and more than half of it has already leaked away it's it's it's

00:04:25.540 fallen off we're we're wired to forget we've known that for many years and the issue is how do you how do

00:04:33.420 you interrupt that forgetting how do you lock that learning in but the fact that you can cram and do well

00:04:40.160 on an exam and get the grade creates this illusion that you're on top of the material and on you march

00:04:46.540 through your courses and it is counterproductive it's productive in the sense of getting you a

00:04:51.180 grade but if you're really intent on learning something and have and hanging on to it and

00:04:55.360 building mastery it's not productive so we'll talk about some of these skills that we can do or what

00:05:00.500 what the strategy we need to take in order to actually gain mastery but we this illusion of

00:05:06.500 knowledge that happens when we cram or what's called mass mass studying is one illusion that

00:05:12.460 that keeps us from learning actually learning the material but you also highlight other illusions of

00:05:17.920 knowledge that prevent us from actually gaining knowledge of you know we fool ourselves in thinking

00:05:24.220 that we know but we really don't what are some of those other illusions of knowledge well uh in

00:05:30.740 an instructional setting there's this sort of temptation to try to make the material easy make

00:05:36.340 it as clear as you can and as easy as you can for the learner a learner then gets this instructional

00:05:44.900 lecture or a video it's so clear you kind of have the sense yeah i think i already knew that

00:05:50.820 um and so you walk out feeling confident that you're on top of that particular material well what's

00:05:58.380 happened is the brain hasn't wrestled with it at all you have an illusion of knowing it but it leaves

00:06:04.340 quickly you but you could have that experience in the morning reading the uh the news blogs reading an

00:06:10.200 article that you want to mention to a friend over lunch and thinking boy this is really compelling you

00:06:14.600 get to lunch you say did you see that article like i said no what did you like about it can't quite

00:06:19.260 remember it it's kind of gone it didn't think it would be gone but it is so you have this illusion uh if

00:06:26.520 it's easy if it looks easy seems easy feels easy you think it'll stick it won't another uh misconception

00:06:34.240 is that if you uh are intentional if you intend to remember something you will you say to yourself

00:06:43.640 boy this is something i really want later i'm locking it i'm thinking about it i'm going to have that

00:06:48.620 later that intentionality also does not help make learning stick yeah and one of the other illusions

00:06:55.480 that i thought was funny because it reminded me of socrates so there's one of the dialogues where

00:07:01.120 socrates wants to prove that you know we have we know everything because we existed you know before

00:07:07.640 we came to earth and we just have to retrieve this knowledge right it's already there in our brain and

00:07:12.020 he like he show he shows this or proves this supposedly by asking this slave child you know to prove like

00:07:18.440 to some sort of geometric proof but like the way socrates does it he just asks him a series of leading

00:07:23.160 questions that if you just answer the questions right you know because you know what the answer

00:07:27.800 is because the questions actually the questioners socrates is telling you what what he wants you'll

00:07:31.960 get that we get it right and like that was one of the other illusions suggestion right the way

00:07:36.240 teachers ask questions makes us think we we actually know this stuff yes although on the other hand that

00:07:44.020 instructional strategy can be quite powerful because we know that all new learning

00:07:50.580 has to connect to something we already know or you you can't learn it so if you start say in the

00:07:58.580 socratic process of asking a student or a learner a question you start with what they know and then

00:08:05.560 you ask them another question that's adjacent to that in terms of the level of knowledge you can pull

00:08:12.680 people through figuring out the material wrestling with it trying different things if they make a mistake

00:08:18.940 give them some corrective feedback becomes a very effective way to learn because you are deeply

00:08:24.960 engaged in the puzzle solving the puzzle if you will your your brain is working on it which is

00:08:31.480 essential for making learning stick for connecting it to the other things you know and having ways to

00:08:38.560 retrieve it again later another thing that gets in our way sort of hardwired for this is the dunning-kroger

00:08:45.740 effect what is that how does that get in the way of our learning well uh david dunning and justin

00:08:53.420 kruger are psychologists who i think the late 90s they were at cornell university and they did a study

00:09:02.960 and they found that some people low-performing people will be given problems in a group where a group of

00:09:13.300 people are solving the same problem and the low performers would do very poorly on it the results

00:09:20.680 come back they can see their results they can see the other people's results and they have a an opinion

00:09:26.800 that they did very well they cannot see is not apparent to them that they did very poorly so they

00:09:33.460 don't have any sense that they need to study more or change the way they go about the problem

00:09:39.220 so dunning-kruger effect basically is that some people seem to be immune to the normal signals the

00:09:48.760 rest of us get from uh other people or comparisons we do between ourselves and what other people are

00:09:53.980 doing to get the signal that i should be doing better i'm not very good at this i have to try a

00:09:58.500 different way at the same time some people who are highly competent at solving this problem and do it

00:10:05.120 quickly have the illusion that other people will do it very quickly too they don't perceive that other

00:10:12.740 people will be struggling more than they are so it's kind of an interesting effect but the the big idea

00:10:17.820 for learning is not everybody has the ability or are naturally drawn to skills of seeing where they stack

00:10:27.940 up in terms of whether they know something or not and this becomes a very important point for learning

00:10:33.660 which is if you engage in low productive strategies like focusing on cramming and rereading and mass

00:10:40.400 practice and you think you're on top of it you don't have very good judgment of what you know and can

00:10:45.920 do unless later you require yourself to do it again and see in fact can i really do this and compare

00:10:54.180 what you're able to do later with what you thought you were on top of can the dunning-kruger effect

00:11:00.040 be overcome if you have that tendency or is it sort of you're kind of the deck deck stacked against you

00:11:06.040 yeah i think there is some evidence from this study that they did that there was a logic problem

00:11:14.120 involved in this study and that when the low performers some subset of the low performers

00:11:20.520 were taught how syllogisms work and how to evaluate a syllogism to see whether the conclusion

00:11:27.620 holds up based on the argument they actually improved in their subsequent attempts to

00:11:35.500 you know take the test which was a logic test whereas others of their low performing group

00:11:40.820 were given some unrelated instruction did not improve in subsequent ones so some evidence that

00:11:46.760 you can you can teach people how to be more effective in judging their performance and changing it

00:11:54.200 so another i mean i would say call it an excuse that people give for you know not being a good

00:12:01.200 learner is that they'll just say well i'm just not smart i don't have a high iq or you know i'm not a

00:12:05.840 genius does iq limit how well someone can learn or is learning a skill that anyone can develop in and

00:12:13.180 increase in yes i think to both questions i think i i q does have some impact on on your potential but

00:12:23.080 everyone using effective strategies can substantially bring up their mental abilities the more you know

00:12:29.760 the more you can learn and if you get involved if you think about let's say a video game which i've

00:12:37.060 never played but i have some rough idea that you get involved in in a series of challenges that you

00:12:42.720 have to go to different levels and you try different strategies and then you fall back and you try

00:12:47.160 different and you go forward that notion of trial and error and learning from trial and error you begin

00:12:53.320 to build a mental model of what this game is about and how it works and through that mental model you're able

00:13:00.320 to anticipate certain pitfalls and progress in the game so when you become an effective learner by using

00:13:09.880 strategies that help you learn concepts as well as facts and then build on them with subsequent

00:13:16.160 learning you begin to build mental models that increase your intellectual ability regardless of

00:13:20.720 your iq these strategies are effective yeah before we get to these specific strategies one more myth

00:13:27.020 that you you guys talk about in the book is this idea of learning styles i remember learning this in

00:13:31.780 like middle school and you know the social studies teacher i remember there was like whole lesson like

00:13:36.480 some people are auditory learners some people are kinetic learners some people are visual learners and i

00:13:42.480 remember i took some sort of quiz and i found out that i was a visual learner and then you know for

00:13:47.220 a couple years is like well no don't don't tell me this thing i got to look at it because that's what

00:13:51.240 i so the is there anything is there anything true about these different learning styles well the short answer

00:13:59.120 to that is there's no evidence that supports that person's learning preference actually leads to better

00:14:06.560 learning there's been a meta study that is a study of all the studies into learning styles that have

00:14:12.380 been done and looking at the criteria for valid scientific analysis and none of the studies that purport to

00:14:21.940 support this notion that auditory learners learn better when materials presented in an auditory fashion

00:14:27.980 than if it's presented in a visual fashion there's no study out there that's a valid scientific study

00:14:34.960 that supports that case however it's conceivable that i don't think this has been tested but i think

00:14:42.980 we have to say if someone prefers to learn in a certain way and the materials presented in that way they might

00:14:50.740 stick with it longer if you take my meaning and learn more so that's you know i have to give that

00:14:57.380 bit of a hedge but in fact all learners learn best when the material is presented in the form that fits

00:15:04.380 the material best so solid geometry needs to be a visual language needs to be a combination of visual and aural

00:15:11.480 and like if putt you know doing the 20 foot putt that needs to be kinetic obviously you need to move around

00:15:16.660 right okay so let's get into what the research actually says about the best way to learn so so far we said it's not

00:15:24.200 cramming it's not repeating things over and over again it's not reading your notes over and over again

00:15:30.160 it's not practicing that putt from the same spot over and over again listening might you know it might

00:15:35.820 help you stick with it longer but not won't help you necessarily learn things better so what what does

00:15:42.020 the research say on the most effective strategies for long-term mastery of a of a subject or a concept

00:15:48.960 although a fundamental idea is that if you want to make learning stick and you want to build on it

00:15:56.340 you have to practice getting out of the brain and not getting it into the brain so all these things

00:16:01.600 you think about in terms of review and that kind of thing after you've read it once or twice

00:16:07.760 what really will help you is putting it aside and asking yourself what are the main ideas of this

00:16:15.160 how do they relate to what i already know how would i put it in my own words explaining it to somebody

00:16:20.900 else this effort to pull it out of the brain really you become a coach to your brain to make it stick

00:16:27.500 so that's one idea and i want to talk a little bit more about that in a minute but the second big idea

00:16:33.420 is there's certain kinds of difficulties that cognitive psychologists at ucla robert bjork and

00:16:41.220 elizabeth bjork have termed desirable difficulties and they're desirable because they require you to

00:16:48.080 wrestle with the material in ways that reflect how you're going to need to call it up again later

00:16:54.140 and apply it so practice at recalling the knowledge later spaced out when it's harder to recall

00:17:03.900 strengthens both the connection of that material in your brain and your ability to recall it again

00:17:11.220 subsequently so spacing out your practice instead of doing it over and over and over again in rapid

00:17:17.500 succession putting some time between it so you've got it's a little difficult you're a little rusty

00:17:22.140 at it and then recalling it another strategy that's very effective is to interleave or mix

00:17:29.840 the practice of recalling different types of problems or questions that are somewhat related if

00:17:37.660 you're studying for example solid geometry instead of practicing five examples of finding the volume of

00:17:46.700 spheroid and then five examples of the volume of wedge and so forth mix up the examples or if you're

00:17:55.140 hitting your golf ball mix it up because each time then you come back to the 20-foot putt after having

00:18:02.080 done some others you have to reload if you will from your memory what's required to succeed at the 20-foot

00:18:09.780 putt and that act of reloading that from your memory strengthens the learning even though

00:18:16.020 you don't do as well it doesn't feel like you're learning as well it's a much more potent way

00:18:21.840 of embedding the skills for your 20-foot putt and being able to recall them again later so retrieval

00:18:29.280 that is spaced out and that is mixed up are very potent strategies for making learning stick

00:18:35.600 and creating the nuanced understanding that you're going to need later to properly identify what kind

00:18:41.780 of a problem you're looking at and picking the right solution all right so there's a lot to unpack

00:18:45.660 there i think another factor i think one of the big points i got from the book you know you're doing

00:18:50.900 it right you know you're doing these things with retrieval spaced out and interleave when if it feels

00:18:56.000 hard right it feels like you're not like you feel like you're actually not making any progress that's

00:19:01.960 actually when you are probably making progress yeah that's really that's a that's a unfortunate

00:19:07.700 if we tend to think if it feels hard i'm not getting it or if it feels hard maybe i'm not smart

00:19:14.740 enough for this and the fact is what you're doing when you're really learning is you're moving material

00:19:20.160 from short-term memory to long-term memory which happens over hours sleep helps it's the brain

00:19:25.720 rehearses this knowledge it tries to isolate the most important pieces find the connection

00:19:31.840 and so forth and the effort actually in long-term memory you're actually physically making new

00:19:39.360 connections between neurons in your brain short-term memory is just electrical and chemical traces

00:19:44.440 but long-term memory is physical change to the brain and that's why it takes time and the kind of

00:19:50.640 effort of mental engagement that makes you think maybe i'm not getting it because it feels hard

00:19:56.280 is part of the process of making those connections between the correct neurons and building that into

00:20:03.780 a long-term memory yeah that little bit i that's been great for my son because you know i think you

00:20:09.460 know when he was learning to tie his shoes we're in the middle of that and he's like oh dad this is so

00:20:14.120 hard and he's just like just do it for me i just tell him hey gus you know because it's hard it means

00:20:18.580 you're actually learning how to do this so just keep at it and like he's like okay dad and so

00:20:22.180 that's been an effective little metacognition thing i've used on it if it's hard it means you're

00:20:27.060 you're learning it brad i have the same situation i if i go to the genius bar or something with a

00:20:33.420 problem with my ipad and then the expert there the genius will will say here it goes like this and

00:20:39.320 just click through a bunch of things oh okay fine well that should have me do it because when i do it

00:20:46.660 and it's hard i'm more likely to remember it again later than if i just see someone do it and it

00:20:52.160 looks easy so same with tying the shoes right you have to struggle with it right um so let's go

00:20:57.560 back to some like specific tactics on how we can do some of this retrieval spacing out and mixing

00:21:02.740 it up so retrieval so you mentioned a few things you can do if you're reading material you close the

00:21:07.420 book and you ask yourself some questions what's the main topic i mean what are some other things

00:21:12.600 you can do besides that to integrate that retrieval process into your learning method

00:21:17.280 well of course it depends on the on the subject if it's semantic learning if it's mathematics or

00:21:26.120 history something like that you want to elaborate on it when you learn it you want to pause and ask

00:21:33.760 yourself how does this relate to what i already know is there any way to visualize this because

00:21:38.880 memory it requires not only having it wired in your brain but it requires

00:21:43.540 cues pathways to call it up when you need it and so part of improving or making it stick when you read

00:21:52.420 or hear a lecture or exposed to something abstract is to try to make it less abstract by thinking through

00:21:59.240 how it connects to what you already know or thinking of some kind of visual example in the book i was

00:22:05.100 thinking about different ways of heat transfer and how you would illustrate that and you know that

00:22:09.000 conductive if you're holding a cup of warm coffee you can feel that heat conducting through and radiant

00:22:16.140 you can feel this the warmth of the sun coming through the windows and the den on a winter day and

00:22:22.020 convective you can you can feel that cold blast of air from your uncle's air conditioner in the car when

00:22:27.000 you're going through the steamy streets of atlanta so you need to a have ways of stopping and not just

00:22:33.080 trying to memorize radiant conductive and convective heat transfer but imagine it and explain it and

00:22:41.380 relate it to your life another thing you can make flashcards flashcards are very potent and there are now

00:22:48.680 many websites where you can download an app and you can either find flashcards already constructed or

00:22:55.660 you can make your own flashcards and program the app so that periodically it gives you a little quiz

00:23:03.820 and then you can space out how often you're asked certain kinds of questions so that they they come less

00:23:13.440 and less often as long as you can still recall them you want to space it further out so it continues to be a

00:23:18.760 little bit difficult in the case of golf or basketball i was talking to a friend of mine who coaches

00:23:23.820 basketball and i was talking about mixed practice and he said oh we do that we have uh the players

00:23:29.000 run a circuit on the court and at each different station they they make a different move well that

00:23:35.860 isn't exactly mixed practice because if you're always doing a free throw from a certain spot it's

00:23:41.060 like the old lps we used to have where you always knew what was coming up next when you heard this song

00:23:45.800 you need to vary it you need to scramble it you need to go random so if you're trying to improve your

00:23:51.300 your basketball game or your golf game or your bmx bike stunts you need to mix it up those are some

00:23:57.980 quick things low stakes quizzing and if you're an instructor you're working with your kids or you're

00:24:04.220 working with students low stakes that is low anxiety quizzing is a very powerful way to help learners lock

00:24:13.560 in something and carry it forward over time and when you have a quiz three weeks from now it should not

00:24:20.060 just be about recent stuff it should have a few questions from earlier so that gets carried

00:24:25.000 forward and updated with the new material when i was in law i went to law school and by the time i got

00:24:30.720 to law school i kind of started figuring things out intuitively on how to study better and i actually

00:24:34.720 started doing some of this stuff just intuitively like for the retrieval what i one of my my routine

00:24:40.260 was i'd have class i'd take notes and after class i would take 20 minutes to sort of put my notes

00:24:46.580 into an outline then i would close everything up and i'd answer these hypothetical questions

00:24:51.240 based on the material that we learned well that's great how did you come to that because that's

00:24:55.780 really an excellent way to do it i don't know i just decided that was what i needed to do because

00:24:59.760 like well what i what what it was was i i knew i learned from the beginning that your final grade was

00:25:05.180 determined by these essays right these three-hour essays you write where you have to unpack all these

00:25:10.840 legal issues and analyze them and come out with a solution so i just started doing these little

00:25:14.900 practice ones for just little discrete topics within law so if it was like tort law you know

00:25:20.380 we learned about battery i would learn about battery do my notes shut everything down then

00:25:24.880 answer this like three or four hypotheticals about battery and analyzing that and what was

00:25:29.900 interesting and this was kind of interesting point too sometimes the hypotheticals had issues that

00:25:33.920 i had no idea about but i still tried to answer it and that's one of the i was really surprised

00:25:39.400 to see that one of the the suggestions was for retrieval is you actually want it's a good way

00:25:45.200 to good way an effective way to teach people things is quiz them before they actually learn the material

00:25:50.060 because then it causes them to pay attention more when they actually hear the material so they can learn

00:25:54.620 it yeah it has a potentiating effect in the mind so it yes it causes them to pay attention

00:26:00.180 but if someone asks you to name the capital of you know montana and you search your mind for the

00:26:08.080 different cities in montana even if you get it wrong when you're told the capital is helena

00:26:15.940 ah you're right oh helena yes you will remember that better because you have wrestled with that

00:26:22.020 question and when the answer comes it fits in there the mind is ready for it so the scientists call this

00:26:29.400 a generation you're trying to generate an answer you and there's there's been fear in education for

00:26:35.700 years that if we let students make mistakes they'll learn the errors well this has been researched

00:26:40.220 quite thoroughly and it's not the case if you let students make mistakes on their way forward and they

00:26:46.780 get corrective feedback it's a very effective way of learning and you don't remember the error so the

00:26:54.120 old-fashioned trial and error turns out to be very effective but we don't like to get things wrong

00:27:01.560 so we don't like making mistakes we want to know what this is about and not be embarrassed because

00:27:11.180 we think mistakes are an indictment of our abilities so uh for retrieval sort of some quick takeaways if

00:27:17.120 you're a college student i guess after your lecture find ways to get that information out of your brain

00:27:23.020 either writing a summary from your brain you know don't looking at your notes of what you learned in

00:27:28.360 class that day could be just a paragraph to spend 10 minutes or it could just be quizzing yourself

00:27:32.920 really quickly that's some really easy things you can they college students start doing today right and

00:27:39.800 then look back after you've made your list or your paragraph or your statement and check what did i miss

00:27:46.460 and put that in or did i get this a little bit wrong that you could even go to the the questions at the

00:27:53.080 back of the book if there's chapter questions and try answering those at the end of reading your chapter

00:27:57.020 so going to that other tactic of spacing things out so typically with cramming like you're just

00:28:03.340 you're waiting until like the last few days before the exam and then you're just like putting all that

00:28:07.920 information to your brain so you can dump it out onto you know your your exam yeah binge and purge

00:28:13.200 binge and purge right that's it's a great way to describe it with spacing things out say you one week

00:28:18.600 you you learn this one topic and you review that stuff and you do sort of the retrieval things there

00:28:24.140 immediately after you'd want to wait another week and see if you can retrieve that stuff from memory

00:28:29.920 again correct yeah one of the questions we get is how long how far should i space this stuff out

00:28:36.800 and it depends on what it is if you go to a party and you learn someone's name you know you need to

00:28:41.600 repeat it in your head very quickly thereafter then use it a couple more times maybe associate it with

00:28:47.080 an image so you when to retrieve when to practice retrieving spaced retrieval really depends on how

00:28:54.620 hard it's going to be for you to get it you don't want to have to relearn it so some stuff you might

00:28:59.380 recall the next day some stuff you might want to wait for a week and the easier it is to recall the

00:29:05.660 longer you should wait to try recalling it because we haven't really talked about consolidation of learning

00:29:11.000 long-term memory but it's a very central to this whole discussion that when the brain has to work

00:29:17.540 to reconsolidate something that you've learned that you're trying again that's hard again it does

00:29:23.420 an even better job of knowing what are the key ideas and what they connect to that you already know

00:29:30.120 and getting rid of the stuff that you don't need to remember so that's why spacing out retrieval practice

00:29:36.620 helps you lock it in embed it and have the cues you need to recall it again later and there's

00:29:44.060 actually flash card systems that that do this um like algorithmically right i think i've used them

00:29:49.900 before online where you create your flash cards and it'll show you the ones that you have the most

00:29:56.700 difficulty with like more frequently and the ones you don't have any problem they won't show them to

00:30:01.460 you but then right you know as you progress and you add to the flash cards you're going to see

00:30:06.020 flash cards you studied you know three weeks ago enter come back again every now and then i remember

00:30:12.160 when that happened to be like oh i don't really know this stuff and i had to work to remember it

00:30:16.760 right that's exactly right and you want to make sure the flash cards come randomly yeah not in a set

00:30:23.080 pattern not yeah well that goes back to mixing things up yeah which is an important thing and you

00:30:27.880 made this interesting point the way typically we teach things here in america is like if you're in math

00:30:33.160 you're going to do you know if you're in algebra you're going to do uh you know certain things

00:30:38.040 for like a chapter and that's all you do it's only things you see but then when you get to the test

00:30:42.680 like you see multiple chapters all mixed together and it really throws i mean it threw me off i didn't

00:30:49.400 do very well in math and i think it was a lot of a lot of that to do with because i was suddenly put

00:30:54.960 into this position where i had to recall information and it mixed up matter than i that i hadn't seen

00:30:58.820 before it's it's true that the traditional ways that we've taught various topics is by blocking them

00:31:09.660 by units a unit on this it might be solid geometry it might be whatever different units and you march

00:31:16.100 forward through that but then you get to the the end and you're quizzed or tested on stuff from way

00:31:23.720 back earlier and that's not a good way to teach we need to find a way to intermingle these topics

00:31:32.220 get a little bit on one then go on to another and bring the earlier one forward and get on to another

00:31:37.220 one and bring them forward through low stakes quizzing and other forms of active engagement in the

00:31:43.760 classroom so that you don't like leave it behind and go on if you think about football players

00:31:50.980 preparing for saturday night's game in that week of practice they're not only practicing plays for

00:31:59.000 this particular opposition they're also periodically refreshing their core moves that they have that

00:32:07.460 are important as a team and this is what we need to do in the classroom is a practice like we want to

00:32:13.720 play at the end of the term when we have the exam which is retrieving those ideas and concepts and

00:32:20.960 demonstrating that we we're on top of them as we go along yeah the football example uh brought back a lot

00:32:27.720 of memories i played football in high school and the schedule that you you showed i think it was the

00:32:31.780 university of georgia that you know kind of yes vince duly was the coach right like we follow that so

00:32:37.180 you know you start off practice in your individual positions and you'd practice you know basic

00:32:41.960 movements if i was alignments we practice blocking and then we would get together with the linemen and

00:32:47.660 maybe the running backs and practice running plays that we would use in the play and then and then by

00:32:52.240 the end of the practice the whole team was together and we were running full place full speed with the

00:32:57.860 team in mind we were playing that saturday yeah so if you take that a metaphor and apply it to

00:33:03.200 to classroom learning and think of yourself as the team you're the whole team that means you want to

00:33:08.820 take the different parts of the material you're learning and continue to engage them in in the

00:33:15.000 learning and the testing going forward one thing we haven't mentioned you had asked about the dunning

00:33:20.680 kruger effect of people who are not aware of their low performance and therefore don't work to bring it up

00:33:28.140 a really valuable part of spaced retrieval or low stakes quizzing which is basically the same thing

00:33:34.600 is we're often poor judges of what we know and can do and quizzing or flashcards the spaced practice

00:33:45.220 where you actually you don't just look at the question and say yeah i know it you actually answer

00:33:49.360 it you actually do the play on the field you actually do you know play hit the 20 foot punt or

00:33:55.220 whatever it is that is really important because we're always needing to recalibrate our judgment of

00:34:01.500 what we know and it can do and where we discover it's difficult for us we're not quite getting it

00:34:06.800 then we know that's something i need to practice more often to bring up to snuff all right so that

00:34:11.820 this is really important yeah if you feel like you're an expert like you've been doing something

00:34:15.120 for years to occasionally go back to the basics because you might discover no you've actually had

00:34:21.720 some skill degradation can improve on that one little aspect and you see some of the hyper most

00:34:26.360 high performing athletes do this like they'll that's why they have coaches to help them spot those

00:34:30.560 little things that they might not see yeah i i interviewed a political economics professor at

00:34:36.580 washington university in st louis who had heard about this research and uh he threw out his midterms

00:34:43.280 and his final exams and he told his students this is a survey course of about 175 students

00:34:48.580 there's going to be nine quizzes each quiz is going to be worth 10 of your grade and these are the

00:34:53.940 dates that there's going to be a quiz and at the end no final but i'll have the last 10

00:34:58.900 percent discretion in terms of your grade and he said that the the students by midterm his his quizzes

00:35:05.740 by the way reached back so in the third or fourth week there's a quiz about what happened last week

00:35:11.660 but also a couple of questions from earlier in the semester by the middle of the semester they're doing

00:35:16.880 end of semester work by the end of the semester they're doing upper division work he he says as good

00:35:21.540 as a lecturer i i might be i think how much opportunity i've lost to bring students along

00:35:28.300 because i didn't realize the importance of their constructing their own understanding of the material

00:35:33.820 through this kind of retrieval practice so besides these specific tactics of retrieving spacing things

00:35:41.340 out and mixing things in there's also sort of this upper level this higher level thinking we need

00:35:46.540 to do or metacognition which is just our mindset about learning and the approach we take because

00:35:51.700 that can affect whether we learn or not so what role does mindset have in our ability to learn

00:35:57.160 we're still figuring that out but i i think that dr carol dwack at stanford university is has pioneered

00:36:04.940 some research into what she calls a growth mindset as compared to a fixed mindset a fixed mindset

00:36:11.780 is one where you say this feels hard i don't think uh it's probably right for me i'm not really a math

00:36:17.900 person if this is hard for me i'll stay away from math a growth mindset is one that says this is hard

00:36:24.460 for me i'm not i'm not getting it yet but i understand that mistakes are information and i'm going to try a

00:36:30.580 little harder try a little different strategy and that when in her tests uh her research studies when

00:36:37.900 students understand they're actually trying to build new connections in the brain and that over

00:36:44.000 time that those connections will increase their mental abilities those students tend to pick tougher

00:36:48.900 challenges and persist longer at them so i think it's really important for people to interpret is how you

00:36:56.720 interpret difficulty and setbacks the difficulty isn't the problem it's how you interpret it that's the

00:37:02.260 problem the difficulty is information but if you interpret it as personal failure or a lack of

00:37:08.860 aptitude you know you don't have the chops really for this field you're not gonna you're not gonna do

00:37:15.280 very well at it so mindset's very important and there's more research ongoing about what kinds of

00:37:22.060 interventions with students can help them embrace this kind of a mindset that will cause them to be

00:37:28.760 more comfortable with difficulty and persistence and also you need to be look on lookout for you

00:37:34.980 know i in your own kids or yourself it's like well this is easy i'm i'm i'm really smart but i i really

00:37:40.860 know this stuff because that can actually prevent you from going on to become you know learning more

00:37:46.000 than you than you do it that right now all right so i think we all love a challenge we like puzzles

00:37:51.680 we like the video games we like various kinds of challenges so we can see we get kind of hooked on that

00:37:58.220 can i do this what would you know how does it work what's another way to do it and get it done

00:38:03.080 but when we're set in a position of having to learn something in particular we don't like that we want to

00:38:10.860 hear what it is and we want to be able to do it and if we're having trouble with it it feels icky

00:38:16.000 and one of the issues that dweck talks about is praising young people for effort not for achievement if

00:38:24.040 you continue to praise people for achievement that you know every time they ring the bell

00:38:28.560 they're going to pick problems they know they can achieve and ring the bell if you praise them for

00:38:34.380 effort and for thinking through setbacks for the information that helps them understand what's

00:38:41.540 important for learning it isn't so much whether you get it in the end as it is that you are pursuing

00:38:48.700 it and you are trying different strategies and trying a little harder uh towards your goal in

00:38:54.140 most cases you'll be able to achieve your goal so uh how we how we praise and how we talk about

00:39:01.480 difficulty has a lot of influence on how students feel about themselves when they go into a learning

00:39:09.700 situation i would just like to say um i was very struck when leonard cohen the musician died

00:39:15.940 recently and i was re-listening to a lot of his music he has this a great stanza in one of his

00:39:22.740 songs he says ring the bells that still can ring forget your perfect offering there's a crack in

00:39:31.300 everything that's how the light gets in so when we're out trying to find our way and we stumble

00:39:40.460 instead of feeling like we're losers we gotta say ah there's some information i can use there's light

00:39:49.300 there there's information i'm going to use that and give ourselves a break and press on that's a

00:39:56.820 fantastic way to end peter where can people go to learn more about your work in the book well make

00:40:02.300 it stick the science of successful learning it's of course on amazon thank you so much for your time

00:40:08.380 it's been a pleasure my guest today was peter brown he's the author of the book make it stick

00:40:12.240 the science of successful learning it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can also

00:40:16.540 check out his website at make it stick.net where you find more information and also check out our

00:40:21.160 show notes at aom.is make it stick where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into

00:40:25.880 this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips

00:40:42.380 and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com if

00:40:45.820 you enjoy the podcast i've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate it if you give us a review on

00:40:48.700 itunes or stitcher helps out a lot and if you've already done that thank you please share the show

00:40:52.300 with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of it as always thank you for

00:40:56.240 your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - March 06, 2018

#385： Learning How to Learn

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript