Learning how to learn (Part 2)

第三周

-Procrastination and Memory

Tackling procrastination - it’s easier, and more valuable, than you think

Good learning is bit by bit creativity. By taking same amount time into your learning by starting earlier, you will learn better.

1. Unhappy feeling
2. You funnel attention onto a more pleasant task
3. Feel happy (temporarily)

Zombies Everywhere
Chunking is related to HABIT. Habit is an energy saver. It allows free our mind for other types of activities.

“Zombie mode” refers to the relaxed state when you are performing common and habitual tasks, like riding a bike, getting dressed in the morning, and being able to back your car out of a driveway.

Habit

• The cue (routine)
• the routine
• the reward
• the belief

Surf’s up: Process vs. Product
To get over the procrastination, you need to focus on the process, not the product. Process is related to habit, the small chunks of days or even weeks to prepare for the text. Put best efforts for short period.

Harnessing Your Zombies to Help You
To overwrite your habit is to change your reaction to the cue.

The Cue

• location
• time
• how you feel
• reactions

The Routine

• plan (developing your new neutral)

Juggling (歪曲) Life and Learning

• write weekly list of key tasks.
• daily “to-do” list. (Writing the next day’s task list before you go to sleep will help you to be able to complete the items on your task list the next day; otherwise, they can lurk at the edge of the four or so slots in your working memory, taking up valuable mental real estate.)
• mixing tasks
• plan your quitting time. (It is as important as planning your working time.)
• try to finish the most important task that you dislike most first. (This is incredibly effective. Eat your frags first!)
• keep your eyes on the learning goal. Lady Luck favors the one who tries.

Summing up procrastination

• keep a planner journal
• commit yourself to certain routines and tasks each day
• delay rewards until you finish the task
• watch for procrastination cues
• gain trust in your new system
• have backup plans for when you still procrastinate
• eat your frogs first

Diving Deeper into Memory
memorable (turn something into memorable, it will be easier to recall.), repeatable, interleave your learning.

What is Long Term Memory?
Hippocampus (海马)， septum (隔膜)， lobe (脑、肺等的裂片)

HM： 短期记忆，学习新的记忆

Damage to the hippocampus and its inputs leads to inability to store new long-term memories.

Memory is not fixed. Reconsolidation (重新巩固).

Our memory is intertwined with each other. So it’s important to space learning over time rather than mass learning at once.

Astrocyte (星型胶质细胞) [The green ones]

• provide nutrients to neurons
• maintain extra-cell balance
• involve repair following injury

Creating Meaningful Groups and the Memory Palace Technique

The meaningful groups can simplify the material.

• calling to mind a similar place (用熟悉的环境，有意思的文本，有趣的故事，甚至触觉，听觉来记忆) The funnier and more evocative the images you make related to what you are trying to remember, the better.
• memory palace is useful for unrelated memories
• Memorizing helps to convert short memory to long memory.
• useful for creativity

Interview with 4 Time US Memory Champion Nelson Dellis

• Visualization (memory picture)
• To store it somewhere, location (house, a punch of things, a distinguishing picture)
• Back and forth conversation, you can remember the names
• Try to remember new things and be active and social. (these will be helpful for your brain. Fish oil) Be silly, be fun.

Interview with Dr. Robert Gamache, an Award-winning Scientist

• If you study everyday, it will be in your brain.
• When you have a stuck, try to have a break and do something else. The “downtime” is important.
• Do something you love and work hard at it.

Interview with Standford’s Keith Devlin, then NPR “Math Guy”

• Don’t panic.

  • What are you trying to do?
  • What do you want to achieve?
  • What information do you have?

• Use graph or equation to represent the problem

• Walk away your problems and come back with a fresh eye.
• Create the world inside you. Think the math problem as a problem with your family, just like social problem. Get inside the problem.
• Just one thing to focus at a time.
• You don’t need willpower all the time. It just happen to the cue.

第四周

How to become a better leaner

• physical exercise
• practice

Introduction to Renaissance Learning and Unlocking Your Potential

• Learn using metaphor and analogy
• Work profitably with teammates
• Perform well on tests

Create a Lively Visual Metaphor or Analogy

• It’s often helpful to pretend that you are the concept you are trying to understand.
• metaphors and analogies are useful for getting people out of Einstellung - being blocked by thinking about a problem in the wrong way.

No Need for Genius Envy

• The fewer workspace you use, the more creative you may be.
• “Imposer Syndrome”

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

• We can make significant changes in our brain by changing how we think.

The Value of Teamwork

• “Broad-perspective perceptual disorder of the right hemisphere”
• Work with friends and build your understanding
• Group is going well:
  
  • group meets on time.
  • your group keeps its attention on the subject until after you’ve gotten your work done.

A Test Checklist

• Testing is a wonderful way to concentrate on your material.
• Did you make a serious effort to understand the text? Did you work with classmates on homework problems? Did you attempt to outline every homework problem solution? Did you participate actively in homework group discussions?…

Hard Start - Jump to Easy
Final Helpful Hints for Tests

• Tell yourself and face your fears. Have a “plan B”.
• “Good worry” and “bad worry” (waste energy)

Summary

• You have not learnt something until you can teach somebody.
• Change your thought so that you can change your life.
• Passion can broadly change and grow.