Active Recall

The best learning strategies are not intuitive

-Peter Brown, Make it Stick

We have never learnt how to learn

We assume our learning strategy is the best

Fluency V/S Familiarity

We are poor judges of when we are learning well
Repetition and massed practice
illusion of mastery
wastage of time
Familiarity masks as fluency
How to study?

Temporary Learning
Massed Practice
Mindless effort without effort
Passive

Real Brain Change

Retrieval (Active)
Retrieve before reading
Close the book and try to remember

The more effortful the learning, the better the retrieval

More effort while remembering -> Better memory

Easy learning -> Bad Memory

What and How to do?

 Read once, retrieve thrice
Retrieve in random order
This is how exams work
Try to retrieve in similar to exams conditions

Elaboration
Learning happens when Neurons create connections
You need to interlink everything to prior knowledge
Visualise (real life examples)
Pretend that you are teaching

Say NO:
1. Highlighting
2. Massed practice
3. Multiple rewriting of notes

Say YES:
1. Active Recall
2. Interlink
3. Active
4. Repeat the retrieval

Reference
1. indexed_at::29 July 2023 Saturday
2. How to Remember Everything that you read with Active Recall