Success is in the Struggle

We find ourselves only if we are searching within.

We know that active learning and effort enhances your study sessions, but today let's focus on the value of recall and retrieval. Many studies have shown that the processes of recall and retrieval enhance learning (even if you don't get it right). It's the act of trying to look around your brain and search for an answer that enhances learning. In fact, the gains from this method is rather astounding.

In one experiment, students studied a list of words on their own. They found that the words the students were proficient with earlier on were often neglected in later practice. Since the students thought that they "learned" it the first time, there was less retrieval later on. The result was that these very words (which students had much confidence with) did not yield performance as well as those words which were difficult earlier on.

As it is in life, we shouldn't leave ourselves to be comfortable with what we think we are already good at. We should always strive to push forward while making sure we retain what we have learned in the past.

Why You Should Skip Class: The Data Stream Argument

Stay home or go to school?

Throughout years of school, I've always sought the most efficient way to study. And I decided that my ability to learn from the textbook was good enough such that I have to weigh the utility of going to class against my self-learning abilities. Eventually, I realized that it was almost always more efficient to study alone with the book rather than to attend lecture (with some exceptions). One justification for this is the data stream argument based on a measure of words per minute.

The Wikipedia page on Words Per Minute (WPM) gives us a few well-sourced metrics. Audio books are typically around 150-160 WPM. We can assume this is representative of optimal comprehension speed while listening because that's what audio books are for; slide presentations are typically slower than this. 

Contrast this with reading where the average adult reads at 250 to 300 WPM, while proofreading at around 180-200 WPM. If we factor in the commuting time it takes to go to school and all the miscellaneous questions and pauses that occur in lecture, the answer is clear. As long as the content in lecture is reflected well enough in a book, you should probably skip class.

Update: Some have mentioned that they often have issues of comprehension when reading. And when this happens, they often have to re-read things. Two subsequent posts attempt to answer this concern: Never Read Anything More Than Once and Active Learning.

Taking Charge of Learning (cont'd)

"The standard pace is for chumps" - Kimo

Entrepreneur Derek Sivers wrote about his own story when talking about taking charge of learning. At an early age, he figured out that institutionalized education was catered to the average person. There is no reason why you have to learn at the exact pace that people tell you to. As Derek says, "the system is designed so anyone can keep up." So why waste all that time surfing Facebook in class when you know that you can do so much more?

I'm keeping today's post short because I really hope you will click the above link and read Derek's story. Even to this day, it is still one of the few lessons that I keep reminding myself of each day. It allows me to push myself and not waste time on things that I will regret on later in life.

Taking Charge of Learning

Learners have more incentive to learn when they have control
over not only how they learn but also what they learn. [1]

When I try to decide whether I should skip or attend a class, I always ask, "how much learning will I get out of this?" In university, because most of the professors are not instructed on proper pedagogical (teaching) techniques, the lectures vary drastically in quality. In some classes, the concepts were so complicated that all we could do was take notes and try to figure out what it all meant on our own time. In other classes, the professor would slow down the class in order to make sure the slowest person would not get left behind. I found this to be pretty frustrating as it takes away my control of my learning.

This made me think. Who made these rules about how we should learn? Who says that they are the best? Even if they work for most people, who's to say that it works the best for me? In answering these questions, I think it's important to note that all throughout history, most people have done things the way they were taught simply because they were afraid of authority. I think it's important that we take a step back and take charge of our learning.

[1] J. Scott Armstrong (2012). "Natural Learning in Higher Education". Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning.

Studying is Cheating

What is school really for?

All the way up through high school, I was known for saying the phrase "studying is cheating". It seemed to me that if the major occupation of our time as kids was to spend time in the classroom, then we should make the most of it. Exams, I thought, were all about evaluating long-term knowledge and skills. So what seemed strange to me was that all of my peers would go home and review/study/cram all the knowledge relating to a particular subject before a test.

This seemed absolutely absurd to me, because I always thought that school was for learning and home was for rest and play. And if people were always cramming last minute before an evaluation, then can we really say that the evaluation is a fair representation of meaningful long-term knowledge?

What I found was that most people (including many university students) often rely on rote learning rather than a full understanding of a subject matter. No doubt, this is helpful when you need to memorize some dates for a history test, but it can also remove the necessary mental component of critical thinking. So I had to ask, is school really a place of learning?