scabw Wbacs's List: learning with understanding (current favorites)

• Step One: Find the Holes
• Recognize when you’ve just gone over information you don’t quite understand.
• When you identify weak points, you can invest more time in fixing those instead of wasting time with a blanket studying technique of all information.
• Step Two: Repair Weak Points
• strategies to fix weak points
• using the link method
• Memorizing
• Conceptualizing
• try drawing a picture or diagram to combine the ideas
• to connect the abstract information into something you can easily relate to.
• metaphors and vivid examples
• Simply focusing on a piece of information can help you understand it.
• Keep asking yourself “why” until you reach a point where the subject makes sense.
• Link a sensation, picture or story to the abstract details.
• Get the background.A lot of information that seems meaningless makes more sense when given a context.

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• Every time you retrieve something from memory, it appears that the brain makes a copy to process while the original goes on its merry way. The more a piece of information is used, the more copies there are and the easier it is to retrieve it.
• but mere repetition by itself is pretty useless. The repetition has to be in context.

  • Building/Seeing the connections.
• application

  • (Re-)Discover linkages.

  • Connecting the facts/ideas.
• Once you've applied the information, you now have memories of active use  that are much richer in detail and linkages than just a memory of a lecture.

  • This is the full loop:
    1.) sensory input (e.g. class),
    2.) reflection (study) -> leads to ->(your own) new ideas (still abstract),
    3.) use the new ideas to put the information to active use (leads to further integration and motor activity, which again makes the knowledge stick).
• that's the main reason we have exercises

• The good news? If you work continuously at building connections between your course work and other classes, what you see in the newspaper, and other experiences:

    
   
  • You won't need to cram for exams.
   
  • You will find the class more interesting because you can see how it  relates to other things.
   
  • You will find life more interesting because things are no longer  disconnected, isolated events but are part of a larger, interconnected  whole.
   
  • You will find future classes easier because you will retain material from  previous classes better.
   
  • You will find future classes easier because you know how to integrate new  material into your thinking.
   
  • You will find future classes easier because you have more established  connections to tie new information to.
   
  • You will be more interesting because you can talk about something  besides what's on TV.
• In other words, you learn the broad patterns and overall significance of things, plus enough supporting facts to explain how these events came about, how they are related, and why they are significant.

• My philosophy is that facts are worth teaching and learning only if they have some wider significance. Some of the main reasons for knowing facts are:

    
   
  • It's interesting in itself An easy one. If you're fascinated by dinosaurs, you'll  learn about them. It's the other facts people have problems with.
   
  • It leads to bigger facts When glaciers flow over an area, they scrape and polish  rock surfaces and transport debris. The real significance of these tidbits of information  is that we can recognize evidence of glaciation far from any present-day ice. In other  words, the Earth has occasional Ice Ages.
   
  • It leads to some general principle
   
  • It helps illustrate how science works
   
  • The fact has great human significance Volcanoes turn everybody on. It's a lot  harder to work up excitement about soils or groundwater. It's all right to ignore these  subjects as long as you are willing to go without food or water. Even a  modest drought or famine will kill more people than volcanoes do in a  decade. It just does it quietly. 
• Facts enable you to remember broader concepts. Facts enable you to explain and justify ideas.

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• An optimizing approach says that learning everything perfectly is impossible. However, by investing more time on critical details and less time on unimportant ones you can get a better grade with less time invested.
• Importance is relative. Sure you might be tested on it, but will knowing something make up 5% of your test or 50%?

• 1. Identify the testing bias.

   

  A test is a device used to gauge your understanding. All tests invariably have bias, where they emphasize certain concepts or types of understanding over others. Go over past tests and ask yourself what biases are shown in the tests. That can form your template for learning.
• When reading through a textbook, form a priority of information in your mind. Flag important information, but more importantly, assess the degree of importance. Simply using a highlighter might not be enough if you’re unable to distinguish between an idea that forms the basis for a test and one that only accounts for one question.

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• You may not think of it deliberately, but learning is very similar to storytelling. You need to give yourself vivid, memorable and emotionally descriptions of the information. When you learn with compelling metaphors, information seems to stick easily. Without metaphors, ideas are dry and slip through your ears without a second thought.
• Holistic learning is based on the principle that learning works as a whole and not through rote memorization. When all of your ideas are connected together, it becomes far easier to remember them. When you have many different associations to the same idea, you can still retain the information even if you forget one association.
• The storyteller’s art of metaphor is crucial in holistic learning. Remembering mathematical concepts is easier when you have metaphors that relate them to real life events, not just symbols and equations. Becoming a storyteller with your subjects and using powerful metaphors can make even the driest subject stick.
• Coming up with metaphors isn’t as difficult as it sounds, but it requires that you drop your search for the perfect description and look for multiple, simplified images.

  • ABC-list?
• Repeating this metaphor exercise improves your ability to naturally see possible descriptions and images when you encounter new ideas.

  • connections

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• I try to organize information in a way that makes it easier to recall.

  • categories, structure, order, hierarchy, hitlist

  • diagram: flow chart, etc.
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  • • idea cluster
• Instead of forcing ideas into your skull, you focus on the relationships between information. Linking ideas together to see the whole, instead of just the parts.

• Learning is a process similar to building a house. You aren’t fed the complete picture. Limitations on communication prevent the instantaneous transmission of knowledge. Instead you listen to lectures, read textbooks and take painstaking notes to try and comprehend a subject.

   

  You are fed building supplies, bricks, mortar and glass. It is up to you to assemble the building. Unfortunately, most learning strategies fall into two basic types:

   
   
  1. Memorization – Instead of building anything you simply stare at each brick for several minutes trying to record its position.
   
  2. Formulas – This is the equivalent to being blind, fumbling around a new house. You can’t see the building itself but you learn to come up with simple rules to avoid walking into walls.
• formulas no longer work if the questions they are designed to solve change scope.
• The alternative strategy is to focus on actually using the information you have to build something. This involves linking concepts together
• Use All Your Senses - Abstract ideas are difficult to memorize because they are far removed from our senses. Shift them closer by coming up with vivid pictures, feelings and images that relate information together. When I learned how to do a determinant of a matrix, I remembered the pattern by visualizing my hands moving through the numbers, one adding and one subtracting.
• Build a Large Foundation - Reading lots and having a general understanding of many topics gives you a lot more flexibility in finding patterns and metaphors in new topics. The more you already know, the easier it is to learn.
• I don’t spend much time studying before exams. Forcing information during the last few days is incredibly inefficient. Instead try to slowly interlink ideas as they come to you so studying becomes a quick recap rather than a first attempt at learning.
• Learning is in Your Head – Having beautiful notes and a perfectly highlighted textbook doesn’t matter if you don’t understand the information in it. Your only goal is to understand the information so it will stick with you for assignments, tests and life. Don’t be afraid to get messy when scrawling out ideas on paper and connecting them in your head. Use notes and books as a medium for learning rather than an end result.

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• music by Johann Sebastian Bach
• brainstorming can help you   not only come up with sacks full of new ideas, but can help you   decide which is best
• if you are struck by an idea, you can quickly note it   down
• open a dictionary, randomly   select a word and then try to formulate ideas incorporating this   word
• define your problem   in detail. You'll probably find ideas positively spewing out once   you've done this.
• change of atmosphere
• gentle exercise
• Don't watch TV.
• Books exercise   your brain, provide inspiration and fill you with information that   allows you to make creative connections easily.

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• Organize your thoughts
• comprehension
• Restate ideas in your own words
• Space review over time

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• Hinweise für den situationsgerechten Einsatz

   
   
  1. Mehrkanaliges Hersagen scheint für einfaches Verfahrenswissen sinnvoll; für Wissen über Begriffe und Zusammenhänge ist dagegen das anschließende, vertiefte geistige Verarbeiten entscheidend 
  2. Lautes Hersagen fördert mehr die Aufnahme von Detailwissen; das leise Lesen oder bloße gezielte Zuhören fördert das Aufnehmen von Zusammenhängen 
  3. Je anspruchsvoller, d.h. je komplexer die Informationen sind, um so tiefergehend muß der Aufnahmeprozeß sein.