Hey guys!
I hope you had a splendid week!
Last week, we discussed the challenges of relying on bad advice from top-performing students, how it's not their fault, and how to obtain better advice from them. This week, we'll delve into the depths of how to learn new things. We'll explore why we easily forget information, how to absorb information better (encoding), how to retrieve information when needed (active retrieval), and the relationship between encoding and retrieval.
Why do you forget everything?
We all know that frustrating feeling when you are in the exam hall and the invigilator hands you the exam paper, you see the questions and you feel a sense of familiarity wash all over you but you are struggling to remember anything concrete.
You mutter to yourself, “But I studied this part” and spend the entire exam trying to remember what you studied. However, time runs out, and you're left painfully wondering why you forgot what you know you studied.
I know, I know, I didn’t mean to bring back bad memories.
This situation is a primary reason why many of us struggle with our grades—we forget most of what we studied. We beat ourselves up after the exam and start to believe there's something wrong with our brains. Well, I'm here to tell you that your brain is perfectly fine. Your brain is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, which is to forget irrelevant things.
I know what you are thinking, “Doesn’t my brain understand that I need to remember this to pass my exam?” “Why does it not consider my study materials relevant?”
Here's the thing: the brain is a magnificent organ optimized for problem-solving. It only stores the information it considers relevant to solve problems and discards everything else. Unfortunately, your desire to pass your exam isn't enough of an indication of relevance to your brain. So, the question is, "What tells my brain to store information?"
Let's do a test: On May 4th, 2016, what did you have for breakfast?
If you can't remember, that's perfectly fine. I would guess that over 90% of people reading this would struggle to recall what they ate on a random day, 7 years ago. Many of us even struggle to remember what we ate three days ago. The only people likely to remember this random piece of information are those who have a significant attachment to that particular date. Maybe it was the day they tried a particular food for the first time, or maybe it was the morning of a special celebration, or perhaps something sad happened that day. Regardless, something significant must have occurred to make the memory of that particular breakfast vivid and accessible. This is what I mean by relevance. Your brain only holds onto information it considers relevant, and sometimes this relevance stems from emotional or situational significance.
Of course, that doesn't mean you have to be emotionally attached to your study materials to learn them. But you can convince your brain of their relevance in other ways. This is where encoding comes into play.
Encoding
Encoding is the process of convincing your brain of the relevance of learning something. To keep things simple, let's define it that way. Technically, it refers to how information is transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory. As mentioned earlier, this process can occur automatically when something significant happens. But we can also force our brains to encode new information by utilizing two principles: Relevance and Relationships.
Before we discuss these principles, let's talk about the status quo for many students.
It's exam season, and you need to get serious about studying. So, you pull out all your study materials for a particular course and start reading through the information. Soon enough, you feel overwhelmed by all the new things you're seeing, and you reach for a pen to underline the "important points," or perhaps you use colorful highlighters. Alternatively, you decide to write those “important points” down in a notebook as you continue studying. After a couple of hours, you close the books and move on to a different course with the exact same approach.
If the above approach is how you study, unfortunately, you are priming your brain to forget most of the information you studied. You are treating your materials like a newspaper article that you would forget all about in a couple of hours. To reasonably retain most of your materials, you must encode. Now, let's dive into the principles of Relevance and Relationships, which are crucial for effective encoding.
Relevance
Relevance is how you tell your brain to pay attention to something. Your most vivid memories are often those that have significance in your life, and the same principle applies to learning. To create significance in your study materials, you can approach it in two ways:
Think about the big picture: Ask yourself why it is relevant to learn this material. For example, as a medical student studying the anatomy of the heart, you can think about the importance of knowing the location of arteries to avoid mistakes during surgeries. By imagining a future where this information becomes crucial, your brain becomes more motivated to store it for future problem-solving.
Think short term: Before diving into the study material, familiarize yourself with the types of questions you might face in exams. You can do this by looking through past papers. This signals to your brain the types of problems it needs to solve, making you more attentive to relevant solutions while studying. You can even create quiz questions for yourself to identify areas of knowledge gaps and engage your brain in active learning.
Relationships
Relationships play a vital role in making the encoding process more effective. There are two types of relationships to consider:
Foundational relationships: These relationships are based on the knowledge you already possess. As you learn, it's crucial to identify the connections between what you already know and the new information. Strengthening these links enhances the encoding process. For example, to understand the Pythagorean theorem, you need a foundation of knowledge about triangles and right-angled triangles. More importantly, to effectively learn this theorem, I must make the connection between the new concept (Pythagorean theorem) and my base knowledge (knowledge of shapes and right-angled triangles).
Association-based relationships: These relationships involve linking different aspects of the content together and connecting them to the big picture. Every piece of information is connected to a broader idea. Your brain loves structure and categorization and it hates isolated seemingly irrelevant random facts. Therefore, actively thinking about the relationships between concepts, their similarities and differences, and how they fit into the overall topic helps in better retention. Passively reading random facts without connecting them leads to quick forgetting, while actively synthesizing the information ensures better memory retention.
The value of encoding lies in fully engaging your brain in the learning process. By considering relevance and building relationships between concepts, you stimulate your brain to think deeply about the material, its importance, its connections to existing knowledge, and its relationships with other concepts. When your brain is fully engaged, the information sticks better and lasts longer in your long-term memory.
However, it's important to note that you may still forget encoded information due to retrieval failure, which occurs when stored information cannot be accessed. This is where active retrieval comes into play.
Active Retrieval
Active retrieval or Active recall is the process of using retrieval cues to remember information stored in long-term memory. This particular technique had the most significant effect on my grades in school. There are various ways to do active recall, for example, Cal Newport explains it as
“Explaining a concept out loud, in complete sentences, without looking at any notes.”
The key aspect of active retrieval is that you don't look at your study materials while recalling information. This allows you to assess how well you encoded the knowledge during the encoding stage. You don’t have to say it out loud like Cal Newport says, even though it is the most time-efficient way to do it. If you are afraid of weird looks from your friends, roommates, or strangers passing by, then you can always write down your recalled knowledge.
A helpful approach to active retrieval is to use the quiz questions you created during the relevance stage. Try to recall everything you learned by answering these questions without any assistance. If you get stuck, make a note of the areas where you struggle, consult your study materials to refresh your memory, and then attempt to recall the information again. Continue quizzing yourself until you no longer face difficulties in any section.
Active retrieval highlights your weak areas and helps you focus your attention where it's most needed. By quickly filtering through the content, it reduces your study time significantly. Active retrieval is the final step of learning, the "test yourself" phase. Once you can accurately recall the information from memory in response to all your retrieval cues (quizzes and past papers), you can confidently say that you know the content.
Afterward, during each study session, review your quiz questions and past papers. Correct any mistakes or retrieval failures and reinforce your knowledge. Ensure that your quiz questions are comprehensive, covering as much content as possible. Practicing active retrieval for 2 or 3 study sessions will yield surprising improvements in your grades.
Encoding and Retrieval
Finally, Encoding and retrieval go hand in hand. Without proper encoding, your retrieval would not be as effective and you would need to do it more times to make up for your surface-level learning in the encoding stage. Without Retrieval, you might end up in the same nail-biting situation at the beginning of the article where you experience retrieval failure in the exam hall.
The best learners incorporate both encoding and retrieval techniques into their study sessions. These two simple steps can make a world of difference in your learning process, reducing the time you spend studying and making it a more active and engaging experience.
Remember, encoding and retrieval are powerful tools for effective studying. They require you to think deeply, consider relevance, establish relationships with existing knowledge, and actively recall information. By embracing these techniques, you'll approach your studying with more confidence and intention.
Thanks for reading! Like, share, and subscribe for more content like this. Comment your thoughts as well. I would love to hear from you. Have a lovely day!
You make brain science look cool 💯💯💯
Wow! I really love these tips you’ve shared because I’ve actually used them unknowingly in some occasions. I love the encoding idea and trying to identify the relevance for that topic being learned as knowing the “WHY” would definitely make it stick better in the brain. Plus when I already know the potential questions to expect in an exam, choosing a section to read becomes much easier and extracting key points that are needed.
Also, another scenario of me practicing active recall is when trying to memorize some verses of the Quran. After reading it continuously multiple times, I eventually close that page and try to read aloud what I’ve been memorizing as it helps with retaining the verses well.
Thanks a lot👌🏾