This blog was started as an assignment for the Coursera course called "Learning How to Learn: Powerful Mental Tools to Help You Master Tough Subjects" offered through UC San Diego by Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski. If you are interested in taking the course, it is offered online for free through Coursera. A link to the class is provided in the list of Potentially Useful Links. If you are not interested in taking the class, you can find information and tools right here. The first three topics that will be covered are illusions of learning (or illusions of competence), testing, and sleep.
Illusions of Competence
"I thought I aced that test. I can't believe I got a 'D'! I studied so hard!"
Have you ever said this to your professor? I have had students say this to me on more than one occasion. I believe that they studied. I just don't think that they studied effectively, and they did not know the material as well as they thought they did. They had illusions of learning, and deluded themselves that they had mastered the material. This is a fate that you need to avoid.
Instead of having illusions of competence, you need to be competent! You need to make your limited and valuable study time as productive as possible. According to Dr. Barbara Oakley in A Mind for Numbers, there are several things that make us feel as though we know the material and contribute to the illusion of competence.
- highlighting
- having a book open
- having the computer on
- rereading the book and or notes several times
Multitasking would contribute to the illusion of competence as well.
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The same thing can happen when a book is open or a computer is on. The book or computer is not an extension of your long-term memory. The words are on the page, or the images are on the computer monitor, but they are not (yet) in your head.
Rereading is also a not very effective study technique that can lead to illusions of competence. According to Jeffrey D. Karpicke, Andrew C. Butler and Henry L. Roediger III:
"A majority of students repeatedly read their notes or textbook (despite the limited benefits of this strategy), but relatively few engage in self-testing or retrieval practice while studying. We propose that many students experience illusions of competence while studying and that these illusions have significant consequences for the strategies students select when they monitor and regulate their own learning." (1)
You are a busy person. You are working, attending school, and quite possibly raising a family at the same time. You are short on time, so you try to do multiple things at once. What's wrong with multitasking? According to Jessica Stillman, "One of the scariest thing about multitasking is the "illusion of competence" it creates:
That illusion of competence is one of the things that worry scholars who study attention, cognition, and the classroom. Students' minds have been wandering since the dawn of education. But until recently--so the worry goes--students at least knew when they had checked out. A student today who moves his attention rapid-fire from text-messaging to the lecture to Facebook to note-taking and back again may walk away from the class feeling buzzed and alert, with a sense that he has absorbed much more of the lesson than he actually has."(2)
So, what should you do?
- Avoid multitasking. Get away from your phone and other electronic devices and focus on your studying. If your home is full of distractions, get out of the house and study in a different location such as a coffee shop or library.
- Avoid rereading and excessive highlighting; instead, as you read, jot key words and concepts in the margin of the page.
- Practice active recall. Read your book or notes, then look away and try to recall as many of the key points as possible.
- Use spaced repetition. Practice recall over time at spaced intervals to embed the information in your long term memory. What do I mean by this? Practice recall on Monday, then again on Wednesday, and again on Friday. This practice allows you to strengthen the neural connections that keep the information in your long term memory.
- Start early! If you are going to practice spaced repetition, you can no longer start studying just before an exam!
- Try you practice active recall, try writing what you remember instead of just thinking about it or speaking it. Why? In the NY Times article entitled, "
“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain.“And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize,” he continued. “Learning is made easier.” (3)
Testing
"Your test questions are tricky!"
 |
| Students taking an examination inside a classroom in 1940 |
Actually, they are not tricky, but they are designed to see if you truly know the material...not kind of-sort of be able to recognize material, but actually understand it and be able to use it. So, how can you prepare for tests in a way that will allow you to be successful? How can you take tests in a way that will allow you to be successful?
Let's tackle the preparation first. Professor Richard Feldman has prepared a test preparation checklist that can be viewed here. A McGraw-Hill test preparation checklist is also available. When you study for a test, do you actually do the tasks on those checklists? Notice that pretesting, testing yourself or quizzing among members of a study group, is common to both lists. Should you test yourself before a test? YES! Testing is an effective and efficient way to prepare. Benedict Carey, in his NY Times article entitled "Why Flunking Exams Is Actually a Good Thing", states:
"This is the idea behind pretesting, one of the most exciting developments in learning-science. Across a variety of experiments, psychologists have found that, in some circumstances, wrong answers on a pretest aren’t merely useless guesses. Rather, the attempts themselves change how we think about and store the information contained in the questions. On some kinds of tests, particularly multiple-choice, we benefit from answering incorrectly by, in effect, priming our brain for what’s coming later." (4)
"But the truth is that, used properly, testing as part of an educational routine provides an important tool not just to measure learning, but to promote it." (5)Additionally, this concept is also supported by the following:
"Using a deceptively simple set of experiments, researchers at Johns Hopkins have learned why people learn an identical or similar task faster the second, third and subsequent time around. The reason: They are aided not only by memories of how to perform the task, but also by memories of the errors made the first time." (6)
So quiz yourself. Make yourself answer the questions at the end of a chapter. Quiz yourself using flashcards. Make up quiz questions for yourself and your study partners. If you are one of my physiology students or a student in my anatomy & physiology class, you already have access to quizzes. They are located in Blackboard, and you should definitely be using them. You should try them before you tackle a new section of material and after you have studied that material.
How should you take an exam? I often recommend that you stay away from your classmates on the day of the exam. Listening to them can ratchet up your anxiety level and make you question your hard-won knowledge. If you are anxious, try to change your mindset from fearing failing the exam to welcoming the challenge of the exam. Ask yourself, "What is the worst thing that could happen if I fail this exam?" Honestly, the worst thing that might happen is that your studies would to be extended by a semester - inconvenient, but not tragic. What if failing meant that you had to change your career goals? Again, this is not a disaster. Many of us are career changers and are actually much better off for the change. :) Now you should see that doing poorly on an exam is not the worst thing in the world, and you can start to relax.
Give yourself a pep talk. Remind yourself that you focused intently on the material, and you do know it. Take a look at this inspiring TED Talk given by Ann Cuddy. She suggests that standing in a confident position, what she calls "power pose", can increase your confidence and your chance of success. There is nothing to be lost by trying it. If you feel silly, you can try it in your car or in a rest room so that no one sees you. Try focused abdominal breathing to promote relaxation, and try chewing gum. 
Dr Oakley suggests the following test strategies in her book
and in the Learning How to Learn MOOC.
Review your test answers from last question to first question so that
you see them with a fresh point of view.
Ask yourself if your answers make sense.
We have typically been taught to answer the easiest questions first and
then go back to the harder ones. She
offers an alternate strategy called “Hard-Start-Jump-to Easy” technique. This approach has you try the hard problems
first. Make as much headway as you can ,
and when you are blocked, step away to an easier problem. While you are working on the easier problems,
your brain may still be gnawing at the difficult problem, and you may gain new
insight into how to solve it. This is an
approach to consider if the traditional way has not allowed you to earn the
grades you desire. Sleep
"We are going to stay up all night to study!"
No!!! That is one of the worst things you can do. Do you remember what the last item on Dr. Feldman's Test Preparation Checklist was??? Why, then, is sleep so important? Of course, sleep is important for good health, but what is the connection to success in learning science?
First of all, try listening to this NPR story called Brains Sweep Themselves Clean Of Toxins During Sleep. Scientists believe that a "toxic" brain is not capable of thinking clearly. Now seriously, do you think it is a good idea to go into your exam with a brain full of toxins - a brain that cannot think clearly??? I think not.
Waste disposal is not the only reason that sleep is important for your brain. Look at The Sleep Memory Connection by Melissa Salpietra and Susan K. Lewis. Barbara Oakley mentions studies that have proven the importance of sleep in memory processing and learning.
First of all, try listening to this NPR story called Brains Sweep Themselves Clean Of Toxins During Sleep. Scientists believe that a "toxic" brain is not capable of thinking clearly. Now seriously, do you think it is a good idea to go into your exam with a brain full of toxins - a brain that cannot think clearly??? I think not. Waste disposal is not the only reason that sleep is important for your brain. Look at The Sleep Memory Connection by Melissa Salpietra and Susan K. Lewis. Barbara Oakley mentions studies that have proven the importance of sleep in memory processing and learning.
"Part of what this special sleep-time tidying does is erase trivial aspects of memories and simultaneously strengthen areas of importance. During sleep, your brain also rehearse some of the tougher parts of whatever you are trying to learn - going over and over nueral patterns to deepen and strengthen them. Finally, sleep has been show to make a remarkable difference in people's ability to figure out difficult problems and to find meaning and understanding in what they are learning."(7)Are you convinced yet? NO? Well take a look at this article on sleep deprivation.
The cognitive penalty affects not only math and language skills, but also emotional intelligence and soft skills. Modern understanding of intelligence holds that each individual has multiple types of intelligence – e.g. interpersonal, coping, analytic. Tests have shown that all types of intelligence fall after sleep deprivation. The tendency to magical thinking and belief in superstition rises.And finally, look at Jane O'Brian's BBC report on the effect of sleep deprivation on learning. Scary, isn't it? The bottom line is that any benefits gained from increased studying time are completely negated by the effects of sleep deprivation on learning and memory. GO TO BED!
Sleep deprivation basically makes you dumber. (8)
Credits
Images:
Illustration of child reading :http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Wilcox.jpg
Photo of highlighter pen: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons /e/e2/Highlighter_pen_-photocopied_text-9Mar2009.jpg
Photo of open Bible: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Holy_bible_book.jpg/512px-Holy_bible_book.jpg
Photo of Computer lab
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Computer_lab.jpg
Photo of students taking an exam:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/StateLibQld_1_100348.jpg
Photo of chewing gum: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Chewing_gum_stick.jpg
Clipart "A+" courtesy of Microsoft
Photo of woman wearing pajamas sleeping in bed courtesy of Microsoft
Clipart teddy bear courtesy of Microsoft
Books/Articles:
1. Karpicke, Jeffrey D., Butler, Andrew C. and Roediger III, Henry L.(2009)'Metacognitive strategies in student learning:
Do students practise retrieval when they study on their own?',Memory,17:4,471 — 479
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658210802647009
2."Multitasking Produces an "Illusion of Competence"" CBSNews. CBS Interactive, n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. ( http://www.cbsnews.com/news/multitasking-produces-an-illusion-of-competence/)
3. Konnikova, Maria. "What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades." The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 June 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?_r=3)
4. Carey, Benedict. "Why Flunking Exams Is Actually a Good Thing." The New York Times. The New York Times, 06 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014 .(http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/why-flunking-exams-is-actually-a-good-thing.html)
5. Roediger, Henry L. "How Tests Make Us Smarter." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 July 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.( http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/how-tests-make-us-smarter.html?_r=0)
6."Memories of Errors Foster Faster Learning." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140814191352.htm)
7. Oakley, Barbara A. A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (even If You Flunked Algebra). N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
8. "Sleep Deprivation." And Its Effects. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2014. ( http://www.sleepdex.org/deficit.htm)
