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The article is dedicated to all those who:


  • still cannot fall asleep after seeing the pattern of patterns from the book of the Gang of Four

    Scary thing
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  • confused by the number of pages in the technical literature
  • forever afraid that everything read is lost in the backyard of memory
  • still rereading countless abstracts
  • I am sure that when you understand the topic, you have studied and remembered it
  • confident in his knowledge, although there is no reason
  • wants to learn more about effective ways to learn new things and, most importantly, to remember new things.

What does it mean to “learn”?


Before talking about how to learn effectively, it does not hurt to define the word "learn."

To learn is to be able to extract knowledge from the head when it is needed.
So it doesn’t matter how much you spend time learning, if it does not allow you to use knowledge, it is useless.

Here is the main thing that we will talk about below:

  • Knowledge without testing is not knowledge
  • The more difficult training is, the more reliable knowledge
  • Cramming - does not work, we must move on :)
  • Instead of rereading - remember!

The main principles of training


What is the foundation of effective learning? Paradoxical as it may sound, the main engine in learning is forgetting . It is forgetting the material being studied that contributes to its development and memorization.

Let's discuss how the development of new material generally takes place.

Scheme - "Stages of information assimilation"
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Stage 1 - coding


This is your introduction to the material. You perceive some information through the senses, it is interpreted in a form that is understandable to the brain. Now the received information is stored in your short-term memory and to fix it, you will have to make an effort.

Stage 2 - Consolidation


At this stage, short-term memories are fixed in long-term memory. It is at the current stage that the brain structures information, correlates with the old one, creates logical connections.

Stage 3 - Remembering


Remembering is the effort that you make when you try to remember the material you have learned, and it is through remembering that we better learn and remember information . If you allow yourself to forget a little what you learned, and then try to remember - it will give great results. The more difficult we are given to remember, the stronger the effect. Repeated recalls contribute to better absorption of the material - especially if it passes through time intervals. It is important to recall what you already know well. Scientists also found that the easier you remember something, the worse it gets stored in your memory. If recall was given with difficulty, then much will be postponed in memory.That is why you should first try to remember what was learned, than to immediately get a ready answer.

This suggests that the brain is lazy. If we do not peep anywhere, when we try to remember something, the brain will understand that the information is important and should be fixed. And if you immediately look at the answers ... Then the point is to remember it, if you can always peek?
This stage is optional - you can get by with two. And in most cases we do this — we got acquainted with the topic, something fell into our heads (this is if the topic really interested us and emotionally affected!), But most of them are completely forgotten. That is, time has been spent, the topic has been “reviewed”, but there is no knowledge left.

But before continuing, some myths related to learning need to be discussed.

Destroying Myths about “Effective” Learning


To figure out how to learn, you need to figure out how wrong.

So, the basis of the training that is now most popular are the following things:

  1. Intensive training
  2. Cramming
  3. Reread / Review

Intensive learning
Intensive learning is a type of training when you are fully focused on one topic, wanting to thoroughly understand it and, only after you have started to work out everything, you proceed to the next topic. It would seem that what could be ineffective here? But research suggests otherwise.

Study No. 1
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: . , . , . .

. — ( ). : , .

Study No. 2
. : , . . - -. — , .

We draw conclusions.
Intermittent learning would seem to inhibit the learning process. But according to the results, the percentage of acquired knowledge in comparison with regular training was huge. Knowledge acquired in various ways is better absorbed and can be applied in various situations , which cannot be said about one-sided knowledge.

Cramming
This method of learning is familiar to everyone. Also, everyone knows that after we have learned something, then with the same success, everything will be forgotten after a short period of time.

The memorization method has the following problems:

  1. Takes a lot of time;
  2. Knowledge is quickly forgotten;
  3. The illusion of understanding.

The third problem is to pay more attention to our assessment of ourselves. As you know, most often we are not able to adequately assess our abilities. It often happens that we acquire the illusion of understanding the subject under study. A close acquaintance with the text after repeated re-reading gives rise to the illusion that you know its meaning and have caught the material. So, we need techniques that will allow us to bring our own judgment in line with reality. Different testing methods will help us with this.

Re-reading / Reviewing
What do we do when something is forgotten? If we don’t know the methods of effective learning, then most likely we won’t strain too much and, instead of remembering, we’ll go into notes / notes, but this is the problem.If you want to remember the material, then you need to try to remember everything yourself.

When we return to the passed material in the form of an abstract, we quickly look through it. It seems that everything is elementary and simple, that the subject is clear to us, because everything is so easily remembered. Unfortunately, this is self-deception.

The process of recalling is a training before a real life situation, when knowledge is needed here and now. If now there are no attempts to recall the information, then the chance that you will someday use the material studied is extremely small. “Train how you play, and then play how you trained.”

Briefly summarize:
  1. Let's try to remember
  2. Let's check ourselves
  3. Let's approach the learning from different angles and in a creative way

Now that we have looked at the main problems in traditional learning, it is time to become familiar with effective methods.

Method 1. "Notches"


You read the text and you meet a fragment which needs to be remembered. What are you doing? Now you have to leave the notch. A notch is a question you have compiled. For example, if we read a book about OOP and come across a definition of the concept of “abstraction,” we put a notch — we put the question “What is abstraction?” In a separate document. and write down the definition. It’s not necessary to write down just definitions, you can ask any questions - the more difficult the better. In general, the practice of writing questions is very important. Ask yourself: “What is the main idea of ​​this chapter?” and after reading, try to give an answer.

Didactic cards


Probably many have already heard that with the help of cards it is convenient to learn English words. On the one hand, we write a word, on the other, a translation of a word into our language. This method is also effective in our case. Moreover, leaving the “nicks” mentioned above, we have questions and answers ready (that's how convenient it is!). Of course, we are all very lazy, so I give the name of a wonderful application for these purposes - Anki, and besides, it's free. In addition to the obvious benefits of testing, Anki works on the principle of "interval repetition." If you want to learn more about this method of training, then the Internet is full of information, I will only briefly describe it.

Interval Repetitions- This is the recall of information at certain intervals, which over time must be increased. Thus, in Anki you have your own set of cards with questions. After a successful answer, you can choose that it was easy to remember and Anki will not show this card for a while. If you cannot remember the answer no matter how hard you try, then indicate this to Anki and now the card will appear more often.

Everything is very simple and effective - what is well known will appear less often, and what is known poorly - more often. Didactic cards - is one of the effective ways of testing, as it does not require a lot of time to compile them. But if you have a desire, then you can use other methods of self-testing.

Mnemonics


Mnemonics is a set of techniques that allow you to recall information. With the help of mnemonics, you create a kind of clue that will allow you to get to some kind of knowledge. The most famous mnemonic rule is a rhyme for remembering a sequence of rainbow colors. On the Internet you can find a lot of examples of how to use mnemonics, but most of all I was impressed by the special method - the “palace of memory”, which is why I’ll tell about it.

The selection of associations is a very effective method of remembering. If we bother to pick up some bright association with the concept we want to remember, then after that it will not be easy to forget. But if we want to remember many related concepts, then they need to be stored somewhere. The memory palace is exactly the place where your associations will “live”. The palace can be anything: your apartment, porch, store, film (!) And so on. The main thing is that the “palace” should be familiar to you. After you decide on the palace, determine the route that you will go through the palace each time. This will allow you to place associations so that everything is not messed up. In this way, you can reproduce the complex concept by simply walking around your palace.

Do not doubt that the above method works. The whole point is to create that clue that will pull the necessary knowledge from our heads and the above method is one of the effective ones. It is worth adding that when knowledge is easily extracted from the head, the need for clues disappears.

Generation


The idea of ​​this method is that you are trying to give an answer even before you have studied the topic. This is very strange, but even if you do not know at all what awaits you, but still tried to solve something, then the susceptibility of information will greatly increase.

Versatile study


If you notice that you have gone headlong into an endless repetition of the same topic - interrupt this trend. Alternate the study of different subjects, the accumulation of different skills. Interleaving the same type of tasks develops your ability to distinguish between them and highlight what is common between them.

That's all. It’s not necessary to apply everything in a row - choose at least something, the main thing is that you stop endlessly peeping at the answers - remember!

PS
Also worth mentioning is an excellent tool for a more meaningful study of the topic - smart cards. Smart cards are like a graph - we establish connections between different ideas, find out what is the main thing and see the whole picture.

Example


The article is based on the book - Remember All. Mastering knowledge without boredom and cramming . For more information about research, contact there :)

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