Source: Python Programmer
What doesn’t work
Reading something twice
Highlighting
Note taking
This is debatable because if kind of works
What works
Retrieval practice
This is when we try to think about everything we don’t remember about a topic. It is difficult and we can feel the brain straining as we reach into trying to conjur up memories for what we just read. It is more difficult than simply re-reading. Much more effort is required. And the worst is, it doesn’t always feel effective. That’s why people often give it up in favor of re-reading. I noticed this as I was writing the Differences between Catholics and Protestants post. I was having a difficult time trying to remember what I knew about almost all of the points listed, and was very tempted to go back to the origin material (where I learned it) in order to continue my writing. I managed to resist the urge and finish the text with mostly my own words. I need to continue doing this.
How to put it into practice
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Writing
Read something you want to lean, and then instead of re-reading, close the book or source material. Set a timer for five minutes and try to write as much as you can remember about the topic. Keep going through the full five minutes even if it feels like you have written everything you remember or know. Do not look at the source. While you’re writing, try to connect what’s on the text, to what you already know. Put it in your own words. After the five minutes are over, go back to the text, and check what areas of your writing could need fixing or improvements. This is how re-reading can be useful. This is also when we can start highlighting.
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Flash cards
No cheating, you have to come up with the answer and fully explain it.
Elaboration
Describe, explain, and ask yourself questions. This is very similar to the Feynman technique.
Explain things out loud to yourself
Kind of self explanatory. Whenever trying to learn something, you have to make a good effort to explain the full idea to yourself, if possible, talking out loud (althought not completely neccessary). This is a strong reinforcement method. Remember to ask yourself questions, this is very important!
Interleaving
This just means: mix up your revision and learning. We can think of this as trying to mix subjects or topics. If we are studying, for example, mathematics, and we are learning about more than one topic, a useful thing to do is to mix them up. Think about how these topics relate to one another, and to what you already know about the subject. Always trying to build up your understanding and your evaluation, moving away from memorization, into intuition.
Concrete examples
We don’t learn well in abstractions, so it is better to think of concrete examples. Once you are starting to understand a topic, think of a good example that helps you fully understand the idea. Something that sticks.
Words and pictures
We learn better when our learning materials combine words and pictures. Think of a programming concept like for example a Linked List or a Stack. These topics can be understood only by text and examples but they become way easier to understand when the text we’re reading, or the video tutorial we’re watching, shows one of those cute pictures of how the memory of the computer is represented. This reminds me of how in CS50, Harvard’s Introduction to Computer Science, when explaining stacks, they show a graphical representation of the computer’s memory, but they also show a picture of a cafeteria’s plates stacked one above the other, reinforcing the idea that you can’t pick a plate in the middle (well, maybe you can but it would be cumbersome), so you have to pick the plate sitting on the top of the stack. The idea behind stacks sticked in my brain effortlessly after seeing that picture.
When learning a new concept, try to find the visuals, and the words. If they don’t exist, try to make some.
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