It has been roughly 17 years since I undertook any kind of formal education or learning. While attending university, my approach was just about the worst kind you can imagine—waiting until just days (or even hours) before an assessment or examination was due before acting. For an assessment, it was using the pressure of a deadline to force myself to produce something I could submit. For an examination, it was cramming as much information as I could the night before, then relying on short-term memory to get me through it. This was “effective” in the sense that it allowed for passing grades, but not so much for building lifelong habits or a foundation of knowledge to build upon.

Despite how this sounds, I do actually enjoy learning and continue to try to do so. This might be for professional reasons, like becoming a better software developer or learning more about Artificial Intelligence (more on this another day). It might be for personal reasons, like trying to be more productive and get more out of the time I have. Or it might be purely out of interest, like math or science or, most recently, philosophy. In any of these cases, my approach to learning is largely the same:

  1. Pick something I want to learn about
  2. Search for recommendations on the best books about the “something”
  3. Read it from start to finish while taking notes about the parts I find most interesting or relevant—usually typed notes, very occasionally handwritten ones
  4. Occasionally and on no particular schedule, read back through the notes I’ve taken to refamiliarise myself

I’m pretty consistent with steps 1 through 3. I could do a lot better with step 4. Even so, on personal judgment alone, I would say this approach has been largely unsuccessful for long-term growth. I believe that I understand the content quite well at the time of reading, but the information never really seems to “stick” in the way it seems to for others. When I finally acknowledged this, the next step seemed straightforward: repeat the process again, but with “learning” as the very subject I’m learning about!

After some quick searching, the first book I settled on was Make It Stick, The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. I quickly learned two things:

  1. My approach of reading and rereading text is a common approach
  2. It’s quite ineffective

This largely aligns with my personal experience. So what’s the alternative? The book goes into much greater detail than I could possibly do justice here, along with the appropriate citations to evidence-based research. But a rough summary would be as follows.

Firstly, it makes several claims about my current approach to learning and learning in general, including:

  • Learning is an acquired skill where the most effective strategies are often counterintuitive
  • Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful
  • We are poor judges of when we are learning well and when we’re not
  • Rereading text and massed practice are among the least productive methods
  • Your preferred style (e.g. auditory, visual) does not necessarily yield better results
  • Testing is not a dipstick to measure learning—it is practicing retrieval of learning from memory, and is itself a tool for learning

This last point was the most interesting to me. I have always viewed tests in exactly that way; something that takes place after the process of learning as a measurement of success, rather than an integral part of learning itself.

The book goes on to explain that successful learning can be broken down into three key parts:

  1. Encoding - converting sensory perceptions into chemical and electrical changes that form a mental representation of patterns you’ve observed
  2. Consolidation - strengthening these mental representations as mental models for long-term memory
  3. Retrieval - effective retrieval of knowledge and associated material with multiple cues

If this is true, then steps 2 & 3 are where I seem to struggle the most. So what’s the alternative? The book’s answer is to be more deliberate and effortful about practicing retrieval.

If I were to make a somewhat unscientific analogy to computers, I am “writing” information to disk (my brain), but I am not “reading” it afterwards. With computers this is fine as what you do eventually read is a perfect copy right down to the very last bit. But minds—especially mine—are much less reliable.

Instead, more needs to be done upfront to ensure what is learned remains accessible. The book recommends a number of techniques, largely around practicing retrieval through methods like quizzing, flash cards, or reflection; all things I haven’t really incorporated in self-study where there’s no pressure of being tested on what I’ve learned. It goes on to make further recommendations about how this practice should be done:

  • Spacing out, interleaving, and varied practice is better, e.g. completing four lessons a week apart is more effective than the same four lessons in a single day
  • Trial and error with delayed feedback is better than trial and error with immediate feedback, e.g. forcing myself to try and solve a problem or recall an answer before immediately reaching to an external source for an answer
  • Tests that require the learner to supply an answer (e.g. essay or short answer) are more effective than choosing (e.g. multiple choice or true/false)

The idea of interleaving makes sense; when I studied at university, I studied 4 subjects concurrently over 12 weeks, as opposed to doing 4 consecutive subjects in short 3-week bursts. It also conflicts with how I’ve been studying up until now, which typically involves stumbling onto a new obsession, reading a series of books one at a time in rapid succession before moving on to another subject entirely.

While writing this blog, I found that I had to refer to my notes quite regularly to ensure I included the most important and relevant information, rather than being able to rely on recall alone, and that I would rush to my notes quite quickly.

Finally, I never try to quiz or test myself on what I’ve learned; I simply hope that the information will come to mind when it would be most beneficial. This is obviously a fool’s errand.

I now have some great ideas with which to experiment. The types of books I usually study with don’t typically include quizzes or sample questions & answers with which I can test myself, so the idea of using flashcards as a learning aid is of particular interest, as converting a lot of my existing notes into flashcards seems quite possible.

In conclusion, this post is about more than just sharing what I’ve learned. It is intended as a commitment to myself to do the following:

  • Try to space out and interleave the things I’m learning, rather than sticking to a single-minded focus on just one topic at a time
  • Change the way in which I read books and take notes by experimenting with flash cards and self-quizzing
  • Make more of an effort to write about what I learn, as I’ve done here—the process of writing blogs is a form of retrieval that is of great benefit in itself, even if no one else ever reads them

I will let you know how it goes!