Boser – Learning to Learn

Boser repeated kindergarten due to ‘learning problems’

Author of Learn Better, listed as one of the 2017 Best Science books of the Year by Amazon

10 Principles for us to think about learning better

1. Make meaning

• learning is an active process
• the “hyper-correction” effect …. when shown to be wrong, you are more likely to remember this in the future
• the bigger error that we make the more that we learn
• explaining something to themselves, or quizzing yourself
• or explaining something to someone else
• management practice – “repeat back”
• summarising

 

2. The blessing and curse of knowledge

• Heath Brothers book
• “The Humming Game” – hard for others to get but you hear it so clearly in your own head!
• Thinking and learning is infused with knowledge
• the way we think is embedded with the things we know
• it is so hard to get out of our heads
• that is the curse of knowledge
• knowledge is also a blessing
• What is the best predictor of learning?
  • Prior knowledge

3. Honour short term memory

• How much can you store in your brain’s working memory?
  • don’t overwhelm short term memory
  • knowledge allows us to expand our short term memory association)
  • why we can’t multi-task
  • on the net during lectures reduces learning

4. Think about thinking (meta-cognition)

• we need to plan what we are going to learn
• when we learning, we need to monitor our learning – could I explain this to a child? and reflecting on this
• model this as instructors

5. Promote feedback

Mark Bernstein – brain surgeon who kept a reflective journal – after each surgery he wrote what he did wrong during the surgery

the power of the tutor

6. Remember to remember

• How much will you remember after 24 hours?
  • around 50%
• “The forgetting curve”
• using highlighters … no evidence for these helping
• the forgetting curve – when you re-learn you retain this knowledge for longer
• we need to know that people will forget and give them opportunities to remember
• some evidence that all experience is stored in your brain
• the problem is retrieval

7. Respect emotions

• think about your childhood bedroom
• when we ask people to think back, they lean back
• when we ask people about the future they lean forward
• you think with your bodies
• how we feel and our emotions is central to us gaining expertise

8. Gain deep features

• Surface features
• details for marketing, to capture attention
• when we learn – what is important is the deeper feature
• mixed approach is more effective for practice e.g ABCABCABC is more effective than AAABBBCCC
• this is after you have developed rudimentary skills
• why? it helps you see the deeper principle

9. Uncover connections

pattern recognition

analogies e.g. we need an Uber for child care, we need an Uber for hair cuts

10. reflect, reflect, reflect

• what is the most effective length of a pause during a presentation – 3 seconds …..
• we are usually in such a hurry to get the information out there
• reflection – we needs these moments of pause to understand
• 3 seconds is long …. awkwardly long …..

Comment

multi-choice questions are not retrieval

• multi-choice is a trade-off
• you can create them so people think deeper
• also hyper-correction effect has value

one thing you can do to help your learning

• test yourself!