A while back my mom became very excited over a Learning How to Learn course she had decided to start with Coursera. I was on break then, so that meant that I somehow ended up registering for the same course. A very natural sequence of events, because mom. But I was genuinely drawn to the idea myself--perhaps something in the back of my mind recognized the same 'How to Read a Book' vibe from my Mortimer Adler experience!
Free online course sounds dull, I'm afraid--such is the height of our first-world expectations and sense of entitlement--but honestly, they did a great job trying to make sure every video tutorial was short, simple, and interesting. Even if that meant utilizing really ugly cartoon zombies. (there, that's a hook. Go and sign up and you can see them for yourself, if you are one of those people whose passion for zombies I could never understand.)
I got quite fond of Barbara Oakley, who teaches this course in most of the short video tutorials, and my siblings and I learnt to perfectly reproduce her well-cadenced 'I'm Barbara Oakley, thanks for learning how to learn' signoff.
Besides that significant accomplishment, however, quite a few of the main points really stayed with me and influenced the way I approached learning. This course got me all excited the way Cal Newport's series did (but I'll save that for another post.) One of those great-white-light, epiphanic feelings which make you feel you have unlocked the key to life.
Well, almost.
The first and greatest thing I learnt from that course was that there are 2 diff ways of thinking/learning: focused and diffused.
Both are important. Focused learning is the type of learning we normally identify with--no distractions; conducive studying environment; sit down at the table, wall yourself up from the outside world with your textbooks, and be as engrossed as if a portal has opened up and sucked you in.
However, the good news is that diffuse learning--a lot less painful--is supposedly just as important for our brain. And--here is the real game changer--diffuse learning INCLUDES SLEEPING!
*wild cheers from almost every student alive*
Of course, that's not all there is to it, or I'd just be happily sleeping my life and GPA away. And--I kid you not--diffuse learning is important regardless of whether you're studying in a left or right brain field. Both Thomas Edison and Salvador Dali, apparently, used a similar method to encourage diffuse thinking (and subsequently, more ideas)--they would sit in a chair and let themselves doze off, holding a bunch of keys/a ball bearing in one hand, so that the moment they really lapsed into sleep, the sound of the object hitting the ground would wake them up. After which they would immediately write down whatever ideas had been floating in their head just at the threshold of falling asleep.
I was very impressed by this anecdote from the course, even though all the half-sleep thoughts I have ever had when I jerked awake were not exactly brilliant ideas. (particularly, I remember one seminar where, desperately sleepy but trying to stay awake writing notes, I woke up to discover I had unconsciously scrawled something almost unintelligible about a curry puff. I think I was hungry.)
The diffuse learning approach enables us to enhance how we absorb and process information (somehow this description sounds like a paper towel commercial; but 'enhance neuronal circuits' sounds worse) through different techniques which the course discusses.
Not just sleeping.
Want to study better? (and now I sound like an education marketing gimmick) Here are a ton of interesting tips, from when to take breaks, how important repetition is, something called 'chunking,' and something else called 'overlearning' (continuing to review what you've already mastered, which develops a type of automaticity, useful in combating nervousness. Did you know that a 20 minute TEDx talk takes 70 hours of practice? Or something like that.) I'm not quite a science person (which is probably why I'm so easily impressed) but I thought the scientific explanations behind these tips were really cool.
And a concept called 'Einstellung' (which is so fun to try to pronounce): when a formula you've learnt prevents you from using or discovering another, better way. To free yourself mentally, you have to unlearn what is a legitimate method, but has become a mental crutch, preventing you from coming up with creative alternatives.
And perhaps most attractive of all, how to overcome procrastination, unbelievable as it sounds. What I really liked about this was that they gave a breakdown on the scientific aspect of procrastination--what goes on in your brain when you procrastinate, and subsequently what you can do to help your brain. I can't include everything here, though that would be handy for you; but mainly, understand it as a four step process:
1. the CUE (or the trigger; neither harmful nor helpful)
2. the ROUTINE (our habitual response to the cue, which is either harmful or helpful; important!)
3. the REWARD (the reason why we develop this response to the cue)
4. the BELIEF (the mindset or logic behind this)
The problem about procrastination is that we usually set about trying to get rid of it via will power--something which is not in very abundant supply after you've been working hard for a few hours, or when you're dreading something. Hence the interesting suggestion:
instead of focusing on the PRODUCT, which is what most people do (myself included, given my box-ticking obsession) try focusing on the PROCESS. In other words, when you're tempted to procrastinate, instead of telling yourself 'just finish this!' try 'just give it another 20 minutes!' since thinking about the PRODUCT tends to trigger your negative response, whereas thinking about the PROCESS tends to elicits an automatic response that doesn't require a whole lot of will power.
Convinced yet? Go check it out. Let your brain learn about itself.
Weird and only partially related fact that I learnt--not from this course, as you might assume, but from Paul Auster's Ghosts--did you know Walt Whitman donated his brain for scientific research after his death? Only to have a lab assistant accidentally drop it on the floor. It broke and had to be thrown away.
I'm not sure why but I found this grossly fascinating, maybe because of all that self-reflexive brainception...