9 Tips to Facilitate Faster Learning
Have you ever wondered about the science behind how we learn? It’s the skill of learning itself that affects our ability to take in and retain information. Cognitive science is devoted to studying how people actually learn, and the discoveries made in the field to date have had a great impact on shaping methods in academic institutions the world over. Here are 9 tips to help you and your kids learn faster:
1. Skills are easier to pick up as individual parts.
Let’s take the example of learning how to
play the guitar. This process starts by an individual learning a few
easy chords first, as well as how to strum the instrument correctly and
put the chords together. As more and more chords are learned and the
individual’s technique improves, this process gradually adds up to them
learning the entire guitar-playing skill. This concept is applicable to
both mechanical and fact-based learning.
2. Multitasking doesn’t work for storing new information.
Although many believe otherwise, multitasking is actually a myth. The
human brain is simply incapable of paying equal attention to two
simultaneous tasks. Using the above reasoning, the best way to go about
learning is to break a task down into individual steps. In addition,
it’s also absolutely crucial to devote your full energy and attention to
each step. Note that when you get distracted, it can take you
approximately 25 minutes to regain your focus on the task at hand.
It’s better to do things step by step
rather than attempting to multitask. If you attempt to multitask to
learn something new, you’re likely to only gain a partial understanding
of various different skills or concepts without acquiring a mastery of
any.
3. Write down what you’ve learned for better recall.
A 2014 study found that students who took
the time to write down what they were studying or learning actually
managed better recall than their counterparts that typed notes on their
laptops. Not only were they better at recalling facts, they also were
better at sorting out complex ideas and synthesizing information.
Researchers theorize that physically touching pen to paper creates a
much stronger cognitive link to the material being written about than
typing does. This is because the act of typing occurs much too quickly
for retention to take place. The act of writing something forces you to
confront ideas head-on, and thus better recall.
4. Mistakes are cause for celebration.
Fundamentally, the learning process is concerned with making attempts,
failing at those attempts, then finding a lesson about what caused the
failure and how to avoid another one when a new attempt is made in the
future. Cognitive science has shown that the brain actually reserves a
space for the mistakes we make. This is to allow us to recruit memories
to do better at our next attempt.
5. Optimism will help you attain success.
It’s highly important that children are
taught to see learning as exploration. This will help to instill a sense
of determination, which will help them when the going gets tough for
them in the learning process. On the other hand, if the learning process
is conducted with lots of negative reinforcement, children can end up
being filled with self-doubt and anxiety. These two things are the
antithesis to positive learning.
6. Make topics for learning as exciting as possible.
Educators should always go out of their way to tie cold, hard facts to
something weird and wacky. If there’s a sense of fun that’s coupled with
the actual core of the learning, then there’s a greater chance for the
things being learned to be memorized.
An example of this is when a former US memory champion named Joshua Foer
memorized a full deck of playing cards in under two minutes by tying
each card to a weird image. The same can be done with children for
things such as times tables.
7. Reading faster = learning faster.
Training one’s brain to process words more
quickly is great for getting them accustomed to reading entire strings
of words, rather than imagining each one individually, which slows
everything down. The premise of this idea is simple – faster reading
allows for faster learning. The best way to achieve this is to pick up
the pace of reading gradually.
8. Practice makes perfect.
Scientific studies have shown that a strong work ethic can have a highly
positive impact on the brain. For example, a 2004 study showed that the
act of juggling produced more grey matter in the brain. When the
individuals under observation ceased to juggle, the grey matter
disappeared.
In neuroscience, this process is known as pruning, and it refers to new
pathways that are formed in the brain as a result of doing an act over
and over again. At some point, the newly-developed neurological
connections become a permanent fixture in an individual’s brain.
9. Use what you know to learn what you don’t.
Sometimes, children have problems wrapping
their heads around a new area of learning, so it’s always a good idea to
help them by associating it with an area of learning they’re already
familiar with. This is a practice known as associative learning.
An example of this is a student who likes football. Although he may find
it hard to understand the concepts related to differential calculus, he
may be able to grasp them more easily if the similarities between a
spiraling football pass and the slope of a curve are outlined to him.