Once, a child made a garland by stringing grapes into a thread. He went to hang it on a tree, but all the grapes fell from the other end of the thread. He again made a garland of pearls, but again all the pearls fell from the garland. He was shocked and thinking 'why this happened. He asked a man standing nearby "Uncle... uncle, why this happened. The man answered, "because you forgot to knot your thread".
Maximum students have the same problem that they keep on putting a lot of knowledge into their minds. But the knowledge steps out of the brain as soon as it entered the brain. Because they also forget to put a memory knot same as the child of the above story. So, in this article, you will learn to tie that memory knot, so that you don't forget what you read with proven scientific methods from the book 'make it stick' by Peter C. Brown.
1. To learn, retrieve...
The author says a very few children know the way to tie that memory knot. Maximum students think that learning is when the data enters our brain, and that's why they get nothing. They don't remember anything. Whereas toppers know very well that learning is when we recall all the data after learning.
The author says since 1885 scientists are making forgetting curves, which tells us that we lose 70% of data just after learning. Same as the child's garland our pearls fell instantly. The rest 30% of data steps out of our brain slowly.
Here the question arises ' How data will be stored in our brain'? In 2010, a study was published in New York Times, in which students were said to read an essay, and immediately after reading the essay they were asked to recall what they read.
After one week, a test was again conducted on that passage and surprisingly students remembered 50% of the passage, which means a direct memory improvement of 20% by recalling after reading.
In 1939, one more very famous study took place in which 6060 students participated. In this study, students read a passage of 600 words and they recall the passages at different times as they were asked to do. From this study, two important results came.
The first one was, students who recalled the passages in less time remembered the passage more efficiently than students who recalled the passage after a long time. The second conclusion was, once students recalled the passages than they forgot the very little amount of data and got almost equal marks in the upcoming tests.
So, recalling means we have tied that memory knot.
2. Mix up your practice...
Several students of 8 years practiced throwing gym bags inside the bucket in the gym. These children were divided into 2 groups namely 'Group A' and 'Group B'. The students of group 'A' practiced for 12 weeks by keeping the bucket 3 feels away always.
Whereas Students of group B practiced by keeping the bucket 2fts or sometimes 4 ft. After 12 weeks all students were tested again and the bucket was placed 3 ft away. Now your question is 'Which group performed better...A or B'.
Maximum people will say that team A had performed better as they practiced for 3 feet all the time. But surprisingly team A performed better than team B, who didn't practice for 3 feet not once.
So, the conclusion of this experiment was, to get better results it is better to keep our learning mixed. But many people will say "No, we can't relate gym experiments with brain learning". So don't worry, we have another case study related to this case...
In a study, students were divided into two groups 'A' and 'B'. Students of both the group were told the method to find the volume of 4 obscure geometric solids like a spherical cone or half cone etc. Both the groups were given the same questions to practice. Definitely, both the groups were given the same questions but the secret existed in the sequence of these questions.
Students of group 'A' were given questions in a cluster like the first 4 questions were based on the half cone and the next 4 are based on the spherical cone. But questions were given in random order to group 'B'. When the test was taken after some time then group 'A' scored 60% and group 'B' scored '89'% which means 29% improvement with this simple secret.
3. Embrace difficulties...
The author says that if you will study the work of Neural scientist noble laureate Eric Kandel then you will know that he has proved whenever we learn new things, our brain witnesses real changes. Our brain neurons create new branches to connect with other neurons.
Probably you will have a question that 'how we know this? Actually, scientists take a sea-slug because the size of its neuron is big enough. When the sea slug was stimulated by electric shock, the size of the neurons of his brain changed.
So it means your brain structure will be different after reading this page if we compare it with the brain before reading this page. So, learning changes the brain structure that's why it is a bit difficult to learn new things and you have a put an extra edge to learn a new concept and work a little hard despite skipping it.
4. Explain like I am 5...
This point says when you learn a new concept, you don't understand it until you can't explain it in a very simple language, such a simple that even a 5 years old boy will perceive it well.
Actually, when we learn a new concept, we think until we don't use jargon, scientific words, or complex words others will not realize that we have understood the topic well. In reality, it's totally different. Einstein also said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well".
Based on this concept, there is a very famous page on reddit.com. Its name is 'Explain like I am 5'. Here people ask their most difficult questions and other experts try to explain it in the most simple language possible.
Even when we learn a new concept, we should close our book and try to explain it like we are explaining it to a 5-year-old boy saying no to jargon, scientific words, complex words. Definitely, by doing this you will have a better understanding of the topic.
5. Prime for learning...
This point says, before learning the original content if we see a summary or a brief overview video about the topic. After some time, when we read similar content, our brain gets ready to understand the topic, and neural connections are formed soon. Hence it becomes pretty simple to understand the concept.
It also works in another way. When we are solving a problem and try to solve it continuously and then the solution is explained to us. We understand it easily without any difficulty.
It is the same as we use anchors to stop the vote. That's why scientists also call it the 'Anchoring Effect '.
Share this page with your friends, cousins, and children (if you have...haha) for their well, as exams are also coming...
Here we are done with all the points and below is a brief overview of the page.
- To learn, retrieve...
- Mix up your practice...
- Embrace difficulties...
- Explain like I am 5...
- Prime for learning...
Thank you
by Dhruv Mishra
