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Study with Me + How I Learn New Content

2019-11-20 · Study with me · Ali · recording, 6:39 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Learning and studying (also: Tools, apps and tech) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Aimed at students, Evidence-based framing, His medical past, Sponsor segment present

Preparing a Cambridge physiology supervision on muscles, Ali scopes the subject in Microsoft OneNote before learning anything, says the choice of note-taking or to-do app rarely matters (Notion excepted), and writes active recall questions instead of notes, calling testing yourself the single most effective study technique.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Getting home after work and procrastinating with tea, a new beanie and a shave

00:00:29 — Scoping the subject before reading, understanding or memorising anything

  • ★★★ Ali scopes the subject before trying to read, understand or memorise anything: he goes through the whole topic and sorts it into headings, so specific facts can be hung in the right place in the overall structure. — 00:00:29 · scoping the subject
  • ★★ When he was younger Ali liked to jump straight into a topic from page one; now that he takes the time to scope the subject first, he finds he understands it a lot quicker. — 00:00:58 · scoping the subject
  • ★★★ Though a sucker for productivity apps, Ali thinks the specific app rarely makes much difference: GoodNotes or Notability, OneNote or Evernote, Todoist or Things are basically the same; what matters is applying the general principles of productivity and effective studying. — 00:00:58 · GoodNotes, Notability, Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, Things 3

00:01:10 — Which app you use makes little difference, Notion the exception

  • ★★ The only app Ali can recall that made a difference is Notion: he thinks its design encourages the brain to think in more interesting ways. — 00:01:27 · Notion
  • ★ To scope the muscles topic, Ali types all the headings and subheadings of the lecture notes into Microsoft OneNote, with the lecture notes and projector diagrams side by side in PDF Expert on his Mac. — 00:01:27 · Microsoft OneNote

00:01:50 — Headings in OneNote, questions in Keynote, and why active recall instead of notes

  • ★★ Preparing his physiology supervision in Keynote, Ali builds up the basic story of neuromuscular transmission and, for each point, writes questions for the students to answer during the supervision. — 00:01:56 · Supervision

  • ★★★ Ali writes questions rather than notes for his students because they already have the notes and because active recall, testing yourself, is in his words the single most effective learning technique ever. — 00:01:56 · active recall

    “active recall i.e. testing ourselves is the single most effective learning technique ever”

  • ★★★ If you are unhappy with your grades or with how much time studying takes, Ali says, chances are you are not testing yourself enough; focusing on testing yourself with the book closed will improve your grades. — 00:02:26 · active recall

  • ★★ Ali says the effectiveness of active recall is not just his opinion: it is backed by decades of research published in peer-reviewed academic papers. — 00:02:55 · active recall

00:03:05 — Ordering dinner and Skillshare classes (sponsor read)

  • ★★ Ali is working on making his own productivity system as app-agnostic as possible, so that if Evernote, Notion or Todoist shut down he could easily move it to another app or even pen and paper. — 00:03:24 · Evernote, Notion
  • ★★ Ali goes through the lecture notes really slowly, first making sure he understands everything in them, then writing active recall questions in Keynote for his students. — 00:03:53 · active recall

00:04:25 — Going through the lecture notes slowly and writing active recall questions

  • ★★★ Even when not preparing teaching, Ali would still write down active recall questions, in OneNote, Notion, Evernote or whatever note-taking app he was using that month, because he calls it the single most effective study technique ever. — 00:04:41 · active recall, Microsoft OneNote, Notion, Evernote
  • ★★ One of Ali's friends ranked second in medicine in the whole University of Cambridge, out of 350 students, and the only thing he did to study was write active recall questions for himself and go through them repeatedly. — 00:04:41 · University of Cambridge, active recall
  • ★★ Ali says he is working on a video explaining in depth the strategy of writing active recall questions for yourself and going through them repeatedly, and will try to speed it up if viewers comment. — 00:04:41 · active recall

00:05:24 — Pizza, and reading Nerve and Muscle in Notability

  • ★ Lying on the sofa, Ali reads the PDF of the book Nerve and Muscle in Notability, making occasional notes in the margin to help him understand it. — 00:05:24 · Notability
  • ★ In bed Ali reads on his Kindle for around half an hour; he is reading the fantasy book Ruin, part of John Gwynne's The Faithful and the Fallen series. — 00:05:53 · Kindle

00:06:00 — Reading Ruin on the Kindle before sleep, and sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: active recall · scoping the subject

Also: People: John Gwynne · Mike Vardy · Thomas Frank

Works: Nerve and Muscle · Ruin · The Faithful and the Fallen

Organizations: University of Cambridge

Concepts: Supervision

Products: Evernote · GoodNotes · Keynote · Kindle · Microsoft OneNote · Notability · Notion · PDF Expert · Things 3 · Todoist

← Previous: Arrogance, Expectations & Inspiration - Personal Q&A with my Brother · Ali & Taimur Abdaal · Next → How my friend ranked 1st at Medical School - The Active Recall Framework