7 Ways to Learn More Effectively

7 Ways to Learn More Effectively

接着上一篇

5. Take notes in class (or while watching an online course video), but work on expanding on those notes immediately after the lesson

In his extremely popular lecture on how to study smart, Marty Lobdell tells his students how important it is to take notes in class. There is no way to remember something you have learned in class (no matter how attentive you think you were) if you weren’t jotting (简短的笔记，记笔记) down notes.

But here is what he says is even more important — as soon as class is over, go back to your notes and expand on them based on the lecture you just listened to. If this is not done, you run the risk of your notes seeming incomprehensible (不能理解的) when you look back at them after a few days.

6. Couple facts with concepts in order to maximize learning

将事实与概念结合起来，以最大化程度的学习

像我们常说的将理论与实际结合

It is inevitable (必然的，不可避免的), during learning, to have to memorize certain facts. Medical students, for instance, need to learn the names of all the muscles in the human body. Lobdell suggests, in the same lecture I mentioned previously, that the students would do better to learn the function of each muscle when they are learning its name.

Human memory is essentially an associative (联想的，联合的) process, so we have a better chance of learning and remembering something well if we learn it in context (在上下文中，连贯). Rather than just memorizing, for instance, that Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in the year 1948, I’d do better if I knew already that India attained its independence in the year 1947 and he was killed just a year later.

7. Use tests as a way to learn, rather than an assessment tool

Not only are tests useful to understand how much we have learned and how well we have learned it, but they can also be excellent learning tools. This again goes back to how retrieving information makes it easier to recall it in the future, compared to just being presented with information.

Studies have shown that taking a memory test post-learning enhances later retention (保留) of the material learned; a phenomenon termed (被称为) the “testing effect.” This is true even of unsuccessful tests, where a person generates wrong answers before going on to learn the correct ones. Rather than confuse a person (as most people would imagine), it seems to be that merely trying to generate the correct answer activates semantic (语义的) networks that are used later to remember the learned fact better.

While it is important to equip ourselves with the tools needed to make ourselves better learners, it is also essential to remember that we are all working with depleting mental resources due to the pandemic and its effects, and to be kind to ourselves at this time.

See you tomorrow