UCLA Professor Says Conventional Wisdom on Study Habits Is All Washed Up 329
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 can corroborate this (Score:5, Interesting)
and college sucks vs real work / tech learing (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
His brain is better than mine (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I have to say (Score:4, Interesting)
... 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.
Mod parent up! (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
Re:His brain is better than mine (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Poultry Science memories (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:His brain is better than mine (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:His brain is better than mine (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're taking many notes, you're not really listening. If you're really listening, you'll remember much more at the end of class and you'll be able to fill in a lot of notes.
Here's what I've found works for most people if they're willing to try it. Listen to the lecture and make very short notes about the most important points and/or details that you want to remember. Then, fill in additional notes at the end of class (or at the next break). Discuss them with other students if needed to fill in what you may have missed. How do you know what you missed? It if seemed important, you should have a brief note about it. Also, in discussing it with other students you'll hear what they noted as "important" and can add that to your notes if necessary.
If you're a touch typist, it's less distracting to type notes, writing requires more attention. That might not apply on touchscreen devices.
Another option is to record the session on a voice recorder to help fill in the gaps you can't remember at the end of class. Of course, it can take extra time to listen again, but for a few people, that might be the most effective method.
Re:His brain is better than mine (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:But why can't we have tech schools with humanit (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
Re:His brain is better than mine (Score:5, Interesting)
But what if the subject in hand is quantum mechanics, or nuclear physics, or subjects that are more conceptual than practical?
I remember learning quantum mechanics. I remember reading a particular paragraph in a textbook over and over, because I knew it was important. I remember that in reading that paragraph, something eventually clicked, and the entire course became more clear. It seemed to happen in a moment. Suddenly, everything before and after in the course made sense in a deeper way. It was exhilarating. I don't use the material so much now, but I suspect that if I went back and re-read it, I would understand it at a much deeper and more lasting level than I did then. I find this has been so with many other topics in my university education.
Re:His brain is better than mine (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was learning those topics (all the ones you listed save for laying bricks) I didn't take any notes in class. Maybe I'm just the target subject, but if I forgot something in QM then I can still remember enough to look it up in my text or even online.
Instead of QM and nuclear physics, I would have used literature analysis or the like, because there you specifically want the professor's insights rather than verifiable points of fact.
My intro quantum professor had very chaotic notes. They were non-linear, jumping around from board to board. I took notes, but I think the notes were more pointers or reminders of points made in class. The professor had a way of referring to material in many other courses, both taken and to be taken by most of the students. And yet it all made sense in a deep way. Going to his lectures was like going on a journey. By the time the lecture was over, you felt as if you had been transported somewhere else.
When I hear educational theorists pronouncing with dogmatic certainty that lectures are an ineffective method of instruction I think back to that course, and find that I am skeptical of their dogma. Lectures are no doubt ineffective in many cases, but I think that such masterful lecturers are the exceptions that disprove their axiomatic claims.
Re:His brain is better than mine (Score:5, Interesting)
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. Since everyone falls asleep after lunch, we should have labs after lunch.
My microbiology classes lecturer had an incredibly boring voice, the was class after lunch and the morning was 4 hrs worth of clinicals, half the class was either asleep or throwing paper-wads at each other and the other half had a funny glazed stare, mostly daydreaming. I aced the class because I paid attention using an Army technique, if you can't stay awake sitting down in class, stand up in the back of the room; nobody falls asleep standing up.
Re:Do Not Want (Score:4, Interesting)
Since you seem to know Dr. Bjork.... TFA mentions using interleaving for learning physical skills like tennis and ballroom dancing. As a former dance instructor I have witnessed numerous students trying to do too much at once (taking classes with multiple teachers, working on numerous skills at the same time). Dance students trying to learn this way become hopelessly confused, suck horribly, and usually quit in frustration. On the other hand, dance students that take the time to master fundamental skills before moving on to more complex ones find it much easier to master new skills. In fact, they eventually reach a level where they can analyze a movement by another dancer, figure it out on their own without an instructor, and master it with some practice.
I would assert that any complex physical skill like dancing, tennis, martial arts, etc. is a learning process, you can not interleave. The student must become proficient at the fundamental physical skills before moving on to more complex ones. There are no shortcuts. In fact, in dance instruction, the instructors claiming to have shortcuts to becoming a great dancer - fast, are the unscrupulous ones that have no clue what they are doing and produce horrible dancers. I suspect the same is true of the field of martial arts based on stories from friends who have studied martial arts for decades.
Re:His brain is better than mine (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine if I drove the way they wanted me to read!
Here is the bottom line for me:
If I have an INTEREST in something, learning is NO problem.
If I have no INTEREST in it, there is little to no way I, consciously or unconsciously, am going to learn it.
If you want your students to learn it, make it INTERESTING.
( sorry for shouting, but most formal schooling was so boring until I finally went to college and was able to take courses in what interested me, Then I did well. )
Trying to ram information into a human brain is like pushing on a string. But if that brain is pulling it in, the string works.
Re:Do Not Want (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Do Not Want (Score:3, Interesting)
I am the exception! (Score:4, Interesting)
We knew for a long time, that games = learning. (Score:3, Interesting)
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?)
Re:Do Not Want (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
I have a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering. I was inducted as a member of Pi Tau Sigma (the ME Honor Society) I rarely took notes. I found that taking notes forced me to concentrate on writing down what the lecturer said. Listening let me focus on understanding what he said. There were exceptions of course, and I wouldn't presume to tell others that my study methods are for them, but they worked for me.