Day 3: How Learning Happens

Today we discuss why learning how learning works in the brain, the relationship between learning and memory, the different types of learning and memory, and unveiling the techniques we will cover in this course.

Resources for this lesson:

• Transcripts
• Worksheet
• List of Scientific Resources

Summary

What is Learning & Memory?

Learning is a process by which we acquire new knowledge or skills, organizing that information to stick in our memory, so that it may be later access to and used in real life.

Memory is the accumulation of the information we have learned, which can be recalled at any time and put into use.

So when we learn a concept, we need to understand, remember, and know how to apply that concept to.

Why it matters: The goal of learning anything is to be able to apply it in new situations to problems and events that are going to occur in your life, which is known as transfer.

• In school you probably learned something because you were forced to know it for test. When you're a self-directed learner, you learn things because you want to apply it in your life.

How Does Learning Happen?

Whenever you learn something, your just simply connecting neurons [1], which are a basic building block cell in the brain that make up your network of 86 billion neurons.

• The connection point between two neurons is called a synapse. When learning, the axon of the neuron reaches out to touch the dendritic spine of the next neuron.

New knowledge takes form in your brain because you have created a new set of links among a little group of neurons in your long-term memory. [2]

• When you are recalling information you have previously learned, signals travel between neurons, through the synapse you formed previously.
• The more and stronger the neural connections, the better you've learned something.
• The more you practice, the thicker and stronger neural connections become.
• Learning complex information creates robust, longer sets of links.
• As you learn more, you also discover connections and differences between different concepts, linking groups of neurons together, moving towards mastery of a skill.

What Are the Types of Learning?

Active learning: You engage with the learning material, [3] making your brain work hard and think hard, encouraging synaptic connections to take place between neurons.

• In active learning you not only learn skills and concepts, but you actively apply them through doing things like projects, teaching other people, and doing something called active recall.

Passive learning: You read, listen, or watch learning material without any effort into your own thought about the material that you were are being taught.

Declarative learning: Building knowledge [5]in facts, concepts, words, or images which require intently focusing while studying.

• Declarative memories are cross-referenced directly and indirectly via other pieces of information that you hold in your mind.

Procedural learning: Building skills that have procedures or sets of steps that you're going to do over and over again in order make the procedure automatic.

• Procedural memories are typically accessed by the appropriate trigger conditions.

What Are the Types of Memory?

Short-term memory (Working Memory): Where three to four groups of information are consciously attended to and only retained for about half a minute at most.

Long-term memory[4]: Contains everything that we've learned up to this point in our lives, all the facts, words, concepts, images, procedures, ect.

• During learning we are engaging in a process of moving information from short-term memory to long-term memory so that it can be recalled later.
• Recalling means digging out that information from that web of knowledge in our long-term memory, consciously focusing on it so that we can use it and apply it.

What Are The Learning Techniques?

In this course you will learn a toolbox of 18 techniques from active learning that are going to help you become a master of any skill for knowledge set that you want to learn.

The first six techniques will help you when you're first starting to learn something, and beginning the process of creating neuron links in short-term memory and moving them to long-term meory

• Active Recall
• Pomodoro
• Chunking
• Interleaving
• Dual Coding
• Effective Reading

Then the seven techniques after that will help you engage in practice with the skills that you're learning, converting declartive knowledge into procedural knowledge.

• Retrieval Practice
• Elaboration
• Spaced Repetition
• Creating Associations
• Mnemonics
• Deliberate Practice
• Getting Feedback

And then the final set of techniques are going to help you move to that master level. Being able to apply what you learn in any new situation.

• Proceduralization
• Overlearning
• Experimenting
• Generation
• Teaching with the Feynman Technique

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Activity

Start practicing active recall by downloading the worksheet and flashcards that we created of the 18 techniques.

• Inside the worksheet there's space for you to start writing down some of the concepts that we learned about today.
• Trying filling out the worksheet from memory without going back and listening to the audio or looking over any old notes that you've written.

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Skill Lesson Mastered

Demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson by applying it to the above activity. If, and only if, you have a full understanding and have mastered the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson, select the next lesson in the navigation.