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Study Tips - How to learn new content

2018-12-22 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 12:24 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Learning and studying · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Evidence-based framing, Aimed at students, Lesson from a book

Ali says learning has two components, understanding and then remembering: understand a subject well enough to explain it to a friend instead of rote-learning it with flashcards, use active recall as you first read the material, and keep it with active recall and spaced repetition.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Introduction and recap of his active recall and spaced repetition videos

  • ★ Ali says hundreds of students around the world have messaged him that his active recall and spaced repetition videos changed their study techniques and marks. — 00:00:00 · active recall, spaced repetition

00:00:58 — How do you learn content for the first time: understanding plus remembering, and the mistake of relying on memorisation

  • ★★★ Ali splits learning content for the first time into two components: first understanding it, then remembering it; together they make good learning and good exam performance. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ The biggest mistake students make, one Ali says he used to make, is turning everything a lecturer says into Anki or Quizlet flashcards: they get too many flashcards and rote-learn instead of understanding. — 00:02:14 · Anki, Quizlet
  • ★★★ Ali advises relying on understanding a subject and using rote memorisation only for random, arbitrary facts that cannot be understood; before making a flashcard, ask whether you really need it. — 00:02:43

00:03:12 — Understanding: can you explain it to a friend, the Feynman technique

  • ★★★ Ali knows he understands something when he can competently explain it to a friend and answer their questions about it. — 00:03:12
  • ★★ Ali loves teaching partly because running a teaching session for students in the years below forces him to understand the subject well beforehand. — 00:03:12
  • ★★ Ali says the Feynman technique, as he believes it is called, extends the test of understanding: can you explain the subject to a five-year-old, meaning a layperson? (hedged) — 00:03:45

00:04:14 — Active recall is also the best way of learning; the medical student in Make It Stick

  • ★★★ Ali's main takeaway: active recall is not only for revising but is also the best way of learning, as the research and the authors of Make It Stick recommend. — 00:04:14 · active recall, Make It Stick

    “active recall is not just for revising, active recall is also the best way of learning”

  • ★★★ Instead of reading passively, Ali advises stopping after every couple of paragraphs, looking away and asking what you have just learned, what the key ideas are and whether you can rephrase them, then checking the book where you are unsure. — 00:04:43 · active recall

  • ★★ Young (quoted): The medical student in Make It Stick says quizzing yourself while reading is uncomfortable and slower at first, but you have to trust the process; trusting it was his biggest hurdle. — 00:07:02 · Make It Stick, active recall
  • ★★ Ali reads from Make It Stick the story of Young, a medical student without a basic science background who, after switching from rereading to retrieval practice, rose from the bottom of his class of 200 to the high performers by his second year. — 00:07:02 · Make It Stick, active recall

00:08:02 — Remembering: active recall, the forgetting curve and spaced repetition

  • ★★ Ali says the method of active recall does not matter (his spreadsheet of questions, flashcards or a blank-page spider diagram): what matters is testing yourself, since retrieving knowledge strengthens its encoding. — 00:08:32 · active recall
  • ★★ Ali describes the forgetting curve: over time you forget everything you have learned unless you revisit it by testing yourself. — 00:09:30 · forgetting curve
  • ★★★ For spaced repetition, Ali advises testing yourself the next day, again after a week and again a month later; after three or four repetitions over a month or two the forgetting curve is very flat. (hedged) — 00:09:59 · spaced repetition, forgetting curve

00:10:21 — Summary, Make It Stick recommendation and sign-off

  • ★★ Ali recommends the book Make It Stick to every student because it explores the evidence behind effective study techniques in an engaging format. — 00:10:21 · Make It Stick
  • ★★ Ali sums up that the key to learning is understanding, in your own simple words without jargon, and says memorisation does not work consistently over the long term. (overstated) — 00:10:51
  • ★ Ali asks for specific questions about study techniques in the comments and says he will make shorter videos addressing them in depth. — 00:11:20
  • ★★ Ali all but guarantees that students unhappy with their results who add more self-testing and spaced repetition will see their marks improve almost overnight. (overstated) — 00:11:49 · active recall, spaced repetition

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Mentioned

Central: active recall · Make It Stick · spaced repetition

Also: Anki · Cambridge · Feynman technique · forgetting curve · Quizlet · Young

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