Learning in 20 minute bursts

: Nose of a Handley-Page manned by three men (Photo credit: National Library of Scotland)

Anyone who is familiar with the First World War will know that in the early stages of the flying part of the war, the aeroplanes were notoriously difficult to fly, and their weaponry evolved from rocks being thrown at

English: Royal Flying Corps Sopwith Camel in 1914-1916 period. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

each other, to the use of hand-guns, and finally to the fitting of machine-guns. The planes then evolved into different types : bombers would drop their deadly load and fighters would protect them. But the life-span of new flying recruits averaged 20 minutes. Hence the name "The Twenty-Minuters". Quite sad. But in our context, 20 minutes is about the best length of time for you to spend studying a section. We have mentioned before, the Amygdalae in the brain are the gateways to your ability to memorize information, but when the neurotransmitters inside the Amygdalae dry up, your ability to learn more information shuts down. That's when you need a change of scenery.

English: St John's church, Hilltown (2) The clock is only two minutes slow. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why Twenty Minutes?

I'm not actually making 20 minutes an exact number here for you. It will vary from one person to another, but the average length will be 20 minutes. These are the steps to follow in the 20 minutes.

1. Gather your chunk of information.

This will be the chunk of information of between 5 and 9 facts. Make sure that they flow in the grand scheme of your studying progress. They mustn't be isolated. If they are isolated they are doomed.

Information overload (Photo credit: Martino!)

2. Connect the information with previous information.

Make obvious connections before learning and memorizing the information.

3. Make sure you understand the information.

It's pointless learning the information if you do not even understand it. Memorizing something for the sake of rote learning makes your brain a simple USB flash-drive. It stores information. It doesn't make it a fully-functional integrating, thinking and solving, living entity it was made to be.

4. Memorize the information in as many ways as possible.

Don't use just one way. If you are good at drawing, draw crazy pictures. For example, when I was studying Psychiatry, when I was learning about the medication called Sertraline, I drew a Search-Light : do you see the connection my brain made? Sertraline sounds like Searchlight? At least it did to me. Maybe I'm just crazy. Anyway. Moving along. If you draw good mindmaps, then use those to their maximum potential. Write a quick rap song. Act out the facts in a small skit. Use multiple ways to learn the facts.

John_Deere_4630_Tractor.jpg (Photo credit: file039)

5. When your eyes glaze over, stop.

Teachers will recognize this point very easily. Eyes become glazed over, bodies change positions and become slumped, people begin looking elsewhere. If you notice your mind start wondering, then stop. If you haven't finished your total number of facts - this has given you an idea as to where to set the bar for how much to learn in one sitting. When this happens, those Amygdala neurotransmitters have been all used up. This whole process usually takes around 20 minutes or so, but can vary widely, depending upon each individual person, subject being learned, and the type of exam being learned for.

Take a Break

This is essential. If you were to try and carry on learning now, your Amygdalae would simply bounce off all incoming information away from your learning centres. This break should be about 5 to 10 minutes and consist of you physically getting up, moving around, refreshing yourself with something to eat and drink (I personally don't have an aversion to good filter coffee here!). Go outside into the sun, stretching your legs. But don't do this for more than about 4 or 5 minutes.

Do the same again but differently

Now that you've given your neurotransmitters a chance to rebuild, you now go back and do the exact same section you have just done. The difference now is that you are going to do it in completely different ways to ways that you have done before. If you learned the facts in , let's say 3 different ways previously, I want to now to find 3 or 4 different ways to revise it. They must be crazy, different, and way-out. You must feel out of you depth and you must feel way out of your comfort zone. This is when you will remember your work.

Keep doing this over and over

Keep this cycling over and over. Give yourself a 30 minutes break for every two hours of studying you have done. After studying for about six hours, you must give yourself at least one hour's break and you must go out somewhere and do something different.

Replica of Vaughn's Camel F.I currently displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Learning by chunking

Information (Photo credit: heathbrandon)

Chunking information simply means learning information in chunks. In my previous post, I spoke about chunking and about how we store between 5 and 9 bits of information in short-term memory at once. Now let's begin a series of posts on applying this to your learning. 1. Skeleton. Grab you textbook. Open to the chapter you are learning. Write down the main headings in that chapter. Most likely there will be about 7 headings or so. Understand those headings and memorize them. This is your chapter skeleton.

2. Each heading. Read the text under each heading. If there are no sub-headings, read to find out the main point of each paragraph. Write these main points out briefly in your own words. Again, you will be left with approximately 5 - 10 sentences. In your mind, connect each sentence to its heading and learn those sentences. 3. Repeat. Do this over and over again. 4. Revise. Go over each chunk of information the next day, then weekly for two weeks, then every two weeks until exams. We will go into more detail at a later stage on the actual memorizing process, including linking to information already known. This post was intended simply to give you a brief overview of chunking.

The myth of true multi-tasking (schooledforlife.com)
How does your brain create short-term memories? [Neuroscience] (io9.com)
What determines the capacity of short-term memory? (sciencedaily.com)

The myth of true multi-tasking

: Via Amazon

I am reading a book called Getting Organized in the Google Era by Douglas Merrill, former C.I.O. of Google. I highly recommend it. He approaches this multi-million dollar topic of organizing your life in a totally unique and different approach. One of the segments of the book that is very relevant is when he talks about our brains and their short-term and long-term memory.

Short-term memory

Your brain is only able to hold between 5 and 9 things in its short-term memory. But, these items need to be related to each other in some way. If you then shift contexts quickly, the new pieces of information entering your short-term memory will push some of those previous memories out before you have been able to put them into long-term memory. Multi-tasking? So, in essence, the concept of multi-tasking in many contexts is going to make you less effective. That's why the good writers and bloggers will create chunks of information in their writing. Then they will tell a story about it. Then they will re-iterate it in different words, then again a third time from a different angle.

Multitasking by stoneystainer (www.flickr.com/photos/stoneysteiner/)

Good Writers? Yes, good writers will chunk the information, paint some pictures of it, then re-iterate it in different terms. Then they will link those 5 to 9 items to a further 5 to 9 items, hoping that you have had time to transfer those first 5 to 9 items into long-term memory. Good Studiers? This is absolutely essential for learners. You learn in chunks of 5 to 9 items at a time. Insert them into long-term memory by linking them to things you already know, and by applying study techniques that work for you. Don't let someone tell you that there is only one way to learn. S4L That is one of the big reasons I am developing the S4L (Schooled For Life) program. My big plans for it are to release a curriculum based on those seven principles. Don't let anyone tell you how you must learn. You decide that for yourself. The S4L program will empower you to do that. Now, where has that novel I was reading whilst writing this post gone?