[9] Accelerated Learning Flashcards
What does the term “Spaced Repetition” mean?
Spacing your study intervals so that you can build long term memory.
What does the term “desirable difficulties” mean in the context of accelerated learning?
The effort we spend in recalling or memorizing information…the deeper and faster our long term learning will be.
Desirable difficulties are small things that you do to make your recall slightly more difficult like :
- writing it down instead of just recalling it from a flash card - self testing by writing down all your PAO (instead of just recalling it verbally)
- explaining a concept to a friend (instead of just reading about it and moving on)
What is “interleaving”?
Interleaving is a process where students mix, or interleave, multiple subjects or topics while they study in order to improve their learning.
So….the more you mix it up…the better your learning.
It’s slower in the short term….but MUCH faster in the long term.
Example 1: A tennis student practices her backhand, forehand, serve and volley all in one session.
Example 2: A student practices math fractions by doing problem sets turning decimals into fractions, fractions into decimals, multiplying fractions, etc one after the other.
The opposite of interleaving is blocking…where you work on your forehand then backhand then serve…one after another….not a mix. This is how most schools teach and it has been proven to be much less effective than interleaving.
What is “disfluency” in relation to accelerated learning?
It’s a process of making learning SLOWER or more difficult. (ie. less fluid )
Example:
Students who take hand written notes (in class, from their reading, from videos, etc…) score 2 or three times better than students who take laptop top notes … and 5 to 10 times better than students who take NO notes.
What does “chunking” mean?
It’s a process of putting your leaning into small packages of information that your mind can easily access.
What are “illusions of competence”?
This is when you pick a study method that makes you “think” you have competence (mastery) …but you actually do not.
Example: a student reads a textbook and highlights the words. Then goes over the highlighted words before the test
What is “overlearning”?
It’s when you spend too much time studying. There are diminishing returns on your effort after a certain point of mastery.
What is the difference between the “focused mode” and the “defuse mode”?
Focus mode is where you apply your thoughts to a single activity. (ie. putting concepts into a memory palace, taking notes in a lecture, studying a chapter of a textbook)
The defuse mode is when your brain is not thinking about anything in particular. (ie. taking a walk, playing with the dogs, taking a shower)
What is meant by the saying: “neurons that fire together…wire together”?
It means that when you learn a fact (like the melting temperature of Beryllium is 3,459F) it creates a neuro-pathway in your physical brain.
The more you encounter this fact (hearing it on the radio, reading it, memorizing it, seeing a billboard of it…etc) the more that same pathway “fires” …and it makes your brain “wire” that fact into a perminant structure in your brain.
Its exactly the same process as building a superhighway:
You and your neighbors walk down a game trail. Then it gets wider after use. Then you all decide to ride horses down the path - it gets wider…then you decide to drive cars - gets wider. Then at some point ….someone says…hey…we use this path a lot…lets make it into a 2 lane road. Then you use it more and more…and say hey…I’m using this so much….I better just make it into a superhighway so we can get from here to there faster.
Your brain is saying “hey….this information is obviously very important to the owner…..we better make improvements to this neuro-pathway so we can get the information to where it needs to go much FASTER.
