Learning Strategies That Work | Harvard Extension School (2023)

How do we learn and process new information? Which learning strategies really work and which are just myths?

Such questions are at the center of the work ofMarkus McDaniel, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Integrative Research on Cognition, Learning, and Education at Washington University in St. Louis. McDaniel is co-author of the book.Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning.

In this question and answer session adapted from aPodcast-Episode des Academic and Career Resource Center, McDaniel discusses his research on human learning and memory, including the most effective strategies for lifelong learning.

questions and answers

Harvard extension:In his book, he discusses strategies designed to help students learn better inside and outside of the classroom. They write: “We deeply believe that we learn best through single focus and persistent repetition. And those beliefs are reinforced time and time again by the visible improvements that occur during practice, practice, practice.”

McDaniel:That judgment that repetition is effective is hard to shake. There are signals that your brain picks up as you reread, when you repeat something that gives you the false impression, metacognitively, that you have learned these things really well.

Older students shouldn't feel like they're definitely disadvantaged because they aren't. Older students really want to try to build on their prior knowledge and use it as a basis for structuring, framing and understanding new incoming information.

And two of the most important keys are familiarity. The further you read, the more familiar you will become with the material. And we mistakenly assume that familiarity means solid learning.

And the second sign is fluency. It is very clear from many reading tasks and cognitive processes during reading that when reading again, the processes are more fluid at all levels. Word identification is smoother. Analysis of sentence structure is more fluid. Idea extraction is smoother. Everything is more fluid. And we misinterpret these fluency signals that the brain receives. And these are accurate signals. It's more liquid. But we misinterpret that to mean I actually have that. I really learned that. I won't forget that. And that's really misleading.

So let me give you another example. It's not just rereading. These are situations, say, in STEM subjects or anywhere you need to learn how to solve certain types of problems. One of the standard ways that instructors present homework is to present the same type of block problems. Maybe you found that in your own math class, your own physics class.

For example, you might be solving a specific type of problem in a physics class. And the parameters in it, the numbers can change, but in your task you try to solve two or three or four of these working problems in a row. Well, it's getting more and more liquid, because what formula to use. You know exactly what the problem is. And as you get more fluent, and as we say in the book, it seems like you're getting better. You get better at these problems.

But the problem is, can you remember how a week later you can tell what types of problems go with what types of solutions when you are asked to take a quiz where you have different types of problems? And the answer is no, you can't after doing these block exercises. So, although the instructors think that their students are doing the block drills very well and the students feel that they are doing very well, they do this type of block drill very well, but now they are not good at all information about what specifics or Problems indicate specific courses of action.

What you want to do is build practice into these problems. You happen to want to have a problem of one type, and then solve a problem of a different type, and then solve a problem of a different type. And in doing so, it feels difficult and does not feel smooth. And the signals to your brain are:I do not understand that. I'm not feeling very wellBut actually, when I encounter a different type of problem, this effort to figure out what kinds of approaches I need to take for each problem leads to learning. That produces solid skills that stick with you.

So this is an enticing thing that we need to understand, both teachers and students, and we need to go beyond those initial judgments. I haven't learned much, and I trust that the harder the schedule, the better the learning.

And since then I've written more about itlet it stick. And one of my strong theoretical tenets now is that in order for students to truly embrace these techniques, they must believe that they work for them. Every student needs to believe that it works for them. So I put together demos to show the students that these techniques work for them.

The net result of adopting these strategies is that students don't invest more time. Instead, they have a more effective time. you work better. You work smarter.

When students take a test after doing a lot of makeup practice, they see how well they did. The class will be very exciting. Student acceptance is high. There is a lot of energy. There are many incentives to want more of this recovery practice, more of this difficulty. Because trying to retrieve information is much harder than reading it back. But it leads to solid learning for a number of reasons.

I think the students have to trust these techniques and I think they also have to see that these techniques work for them. You create better learning. And then, as a learner, you are more motivated to replace those ineffective techniques with more effective techniques.

Harvard extension:you talk aboutTips for studentshow to glue it. And there are several methods or tips that you share: elaboration, generation, reflection, calibration, among others. Which of these techniques is better?

McDaniel:It depends on the learning challenges you face. So retrieval exercises that attempt to retrieve information from memory are actually very effective when your course requirements require you to reproduce factual information.

For other things you might want to try to generate understanding, to create mental models. So when your exams require you to draw conclusions and work through new types of problems that illustrate principles but are new problems that you have never seen before, a good technique is to try to connect the information to what i would do. call mental models. This is your representation of how the parts and aspects fit together, relate to each other.

It's not that one technique is better than the other. It is that different techniques produce specific types of results. And depending on the desired result, you can choose one technique or another.

I truly believe that to the extent that you can make learning fun, and to the extent that a technique actually sounds like more fun to you, that can be your technique of choice. I teach a learning strategy course and make it very clear to the students. It is not necessary to use all of these techniques. Find a few that really work for you, then put them in your toolbox and replace re-reading with these techniques.

Harvard extension:It relates to lifelong learning and lifelong learning. You talk about the brain being plastic, the mutability of the brain in a way, and you give examples of how some lifelong learners approach their learning.

McDaniel:In a way, the more mature students, the older students, have an advantage because they have more knowledge. And part of learning is relating new information that feeds into your prior knowledge, relating it to your knowledge structures, relating it to your schemas, how you think about certain types of content.

So, older adults have the advantage of having this richer knowledge base with which to attempt to integrate new material. So older students shouldn't feel like they're definitely disadvantaged because they aren't. Older students really want to try to build on their prior knowledge and use it as a basis for structuring, framing and understanding new incoming information.

Our challenge as older students is that we have these study habits that aren't very effective. We turn to these habits. And if these aren't overly effective habits, we can blame our failure to learn on age or a lack of innate ability, etc. And indeed, that's not all. As you use more effective strategies at any age, you will find that your learning is stronger, more successful, and more relevant.

You can learn these strategies at any age. Successful lifelong learning is about implementing these effective strategies, trusting them, and making a habit of how you approach your learning challenges.

The net result of adopting these strategies is that students don't invest more time. Instead, they have a more effective time. you work better. You work smarter.