PERSONAL LEARNING SPECIAL Six Brain Hacks To Learn
Anything Faster
Research proves
there are ways to learn new skills and concepts with speed and ease.
Whether it’s a new technology, a
foreign language, or an advanced skill, staying competitive often means
learning new things. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. workers have taken a course or
sought additional training to advance their careers, according to a March
2016 study by Pew
Research Center. They report that results have included an expanded
professional network, new job or different career path.
Being a quick learner can give you an even greater edge. Science
proves there are six ways you can learn and retain something faster.
If you imagine that you’ll need to
teach someone else the material or task you are trying to grasp, you can speed
up your learning and remember more, according to a study done at Washington University
in St. Louis. The expectation changes your mind-set so that you engage in more
effective approaches to learning than those who simply learn to pass a test,
according to John Nestojko, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology and
coauthor of the study.
Sleeping between two learning
sessions greatly improves retention.
"When teachers prepare to teach, they tend to seek out key
points and organize information into a coherent structure," Nestojko
writes. "Our results suggest that students also turn to these types of
effective learning strategies when they expect to teach."
Experts at the Louisiana State
University’s Center for Academic Success suggest dedicating 30-50 minutes to
learning new material. "Anything less than 30 is just not enough, but
anything more than 50 is too much information for your brain to take in at one
time," writes learning
strategies graduate assistant Ellen Dunn. Once you’re done, take a five to 10
minute break before you start another session.
Brief, frequent learning sessions
are much better than longer, infrequent ones, agrees Neil Starr, a course
mentor at Western Governors University, an online
nonprofit university where the average student earns a bachelor’s degree in two
and a half years.
Changing the way you practice a
new motor skill can help you master it faster.
He recommends preparing for micro learning sessions. "Make
note cards by hand for the more difficult concepts you are trying to
master," he says. "You never know when you’ll have some in-between
time to take advantage of."
While it’s faster to take notes on
a laptop, using a pen and paper will help you learn and comprehend better.
Researchers at Princeton University and UCLA found that when
students took notes by hand, they listened more actively and were able to
identify important concepts. Taking notes on a laptop, however, leads to
mindless transcription, as well as an opportunity for distraction, such as
email.
"In three studies, we found that students who took notes on
laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes
longhand," writes coauthor and Princeton University psychology professor
Pam Mueller. "We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial,
laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than
processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to
learning."
While it sounds counterintuitive,
you can learn faster when you practice distributed learning, or
"spacing." In an interview with The New York Times,
Benedict Carey, author of How We Learn: The
Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens, says learning
is like watering a lawn. "You can water a lawn once a week for 90 minutes
or three times a week for 30 minutes," he said. "Spacing out the
watering during the week will keep the lawn greener over time."
To retain material, Carey said it’s best to review the information
one to two days after first studying it. "One theory is that the brain
actually pays less attention during short learning intervals," he said in
the interview. "So repeating the information over a longer interval—say a
few days or a week later, rather than in rapid succession—sends a stronger
signal to the brain that it needs to retain the information."
Downtime is important when it comes
to retaining what you learn, and getting sleep in between study sessions can
boost your recall up to six months later, according to new research published
in Psychological Science.
In an experiment held in France, participants were taught the
Swahili translation for 16 French words in two sessions. Participants in the
"wake" group completed the first learning session in the morning and
the second session in the evening of the same day, while participants in the
"sleep" group completed the first session in the evening, slept, and
then completed the second session the following morning. Participants who had
slept between sessions recalled about 10 of the 16 words, on average, while
those who hadn't slept recalled only about 7.5 words.
"Our results suggest that interweaving sleep between practice
sessions leads to a twofold advantage, reducing the time spent relearning and
ensuring a much better long-term retention than practice alone," writes
psychological scientist Stephanie Mazza of the University of Lyon.
"Previous research suggested that sleeping after learning is definitely a
good strategy, but now we show that sleeping between two learning sessions
greatly improves such a strategy."
When learning a new motor skill,
changing the way you practice it can help you master it faster, according to a
new study at Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine. In an experiment, participants were
asked to learn a computer-based task. Those who used a modified learning
technique during their second session performed better than those who repeated
the same method.
The findings suggest that reconsolidation—a process in which
existing memories are recalled and modified with new knowledge—plays a key role
in strengthening motor skills, writes Pablo A. Celnik, senior study author and
professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation.
"What we found is if you practice a slightly modified version
of a task you want to master," he writes, "you actually learn more
and faster than if you just keep practicing the exact same thing multiple times
in a row."
STEPHANIE VOZZA
https://www.fastcompany.com/3063173/work-smart/six-brain-hacks-to-learn-anything-faster
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