Chapter 1 - Learning is Misunderstood

Question 1

What is Learning?

Answer 1

Acquiring skills and knowledge and having them readily available from memory so you can make sense of future problems and opportunities.

Question 2

What are the principles of learning?

Answer 2

1. Effortful - learning is deeper and more durable when it is effortful.
2. Poor Judges - we are poor judges of when we are learning and when we are not.
3. Retrieval Practice - recalling facts or concepts from memory is a more effective practice than rereading.
4. Space out Practice - leave gaps between practice so you get a little rusty.
5. Before - Solve the problem before the solution is taught leads to better learning, even though errors are made in the attempt.
6. Principles - extract the underlying principles or rules that differentiate different problems.
7. Susceptible to illusions - we are susceptible to illusions that hijack our judgment.
8. Foundation of prior knowledge - Beginner, intermediate, advanced - basic accounting before advanced accounting.
9. Elaboration - with elaboration, there’s no limit to what you can learn. Elaboration is the process of expressing what you are learning in your own words and connecting it to what you already know. The more you explain what you are learning in terms of your prior knowledge, the stronger the grasp of your new learning will be.
10. Larger Context - put new knowledge in a larger context.
11. Mental Model - Extract new ideas and form them into a mental model and connect them to prior knowledge. A mental model is a mental representation of external reality.

Question 3

What is cognitive psychology?

Answer 3

Cognitive psychology is the science of how the mind works, conducting empirical research into how people perceive, remember, and think.

Question 4

What are the three strikes against re-reading?

Answer 4

1. Time consuming.
2. Does not results in durable memory.
3. Deception as familiarity with the text comes to feel like mastery of the content.

Question 5

What are the delusions of being able to repeat what you’ve learned?

Answer 5

1. It does not mean you understand the significance of the ideas.
2. It does not mean you know how to apply the ideas.
3. It does not mean you know how they relate to what you already know.

Question 6

What is metacognition?

Answer 6

Metacognition is what we know about what we know.

Question 7

What is mastery?

Answer 7

A gradual accretion of:

• Knowledge
• Conceptual understanding
• Jugement
• Skill

Question 8

What are the two benefits of retrieving learning from memory?

Answer 8

1. It tells you what you know and don’t know and where to focus.
2. Recalling what you have learned causes your brain to reconsolidate the memory, which strengthens connections to what you already know, and makes it easier for you to recall in the future.

Question 9

What is one of the best habits you can develop as a learner?

Answer 9

Regular self-quizzing