What are the BEST apps for Learning? - Q/A (Youtube comments edition)
Summary
TLDRIn this educational video, Dr. Justin, a former medical doctor turned learning coach, addresses a variety of learning-related questions. He discusses strategies for selecting study materials, leveraging apps like Short Form for comprehensive learning, and choosing effective note-taking tools. Dr. Justin also shares insights on preparing for medical school, enhancing study techniques for technical subjects, and the importance of understanding cognitive load. He emphasizes the value of conceptual understanding in mathematics and provides tips for deep work and effective studying. The video concludes with an invitation for viewers to engage in a Reddit community for further Q&A.
Takeaways
- 🔍 When looking for study materials, start with broad sources and then find additional resources. Avoid relying on a single source.
- 📚 For a comprehensive understanding, use apps like Short Form that summarize and link contents across various books.
- 🎨 Dr. Justin prefers using 'Concepts' for personal studying and 'Explain Everything' for teaching due to their non-linear note-taking features.
- 🚫 Dr. Justin advises against using Notion for learning purposes as it lacks the relational and non-linear aspects necessary for effective learning.
- 🧠 Understanding the difference between declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge is crucial for effective learning in technical subjects like engineering.
- 🎓 Before choosing med school, consider alternatives and understand your personality's non-negotiables to make an informed career decision.
- 🎵 For focused studying, Dr. Justin recommends using white noise, especially matching the type of noise to the environment for better concentration.
- 📈 Practice retrieval techniques at different knowledge levels to identify and address weaknesses in learning.
- 🕒 The timing of priming before a study session depends on the available time; aim for broad but shallow understanding to create a good scaffold for learning.
- 📝 It's okay to start with linear note-taking and gradually transition to more effective non-linear methods as you become comfortable.
- 🧮 In math, understanding the conceptual reasoning behind formulas is as important as learning the procedural aspects for effective problem-solving.
Q & A
What are the factors a student should consider before going into medical school?
-Students should consider looking for alternatives to medicine, understanding their personality and non-negotiables, and gaining life experience to truly understand their values and needs before committing to medical school.
How does Dr. Justin recommend finding study materials outside of a set curriculum?
-Dr. Justin suggests finding the broadest possible source of information on a topic, using that as a springboard for additional resources, and not starting with a single source but having at least two to five different sources.
What is the role of short form apps like Shortform in learning according to Dr. Justin?
-Short form apps are useful for summarizing book contents and linking them to other related books, providing a broad reach of information and a springboard for further learning.
What online whiteboard apps does Dr. Justin recommend for studying and teaching?
-Dr. Justin recommends using Concepts for personal studying and Explain Everything for teaching due to their features, but also mentions the potential of Apple's recently released Freeform app.
Why does Dr. Justin advise against using Notion for learning purposes?
-Dr. Justin believes that Notion is not designed with learning in mind due to its linear and clunky relational aspects, and suggests alternatives like Obsidian for better learning experiences.
How can one practice for technical subjects like engineering effectively?
-One should understand the different types of knowledge—declarative, procedural, and conditional—and focus on varied practice, interleaving, and mastering the basics rather than seeking advanced encoding techniques.
What does Dr. Justin suggest for training oneself to do deep work?
-Deep work can be trained like any other skill or habit, but it's more about setting up an environment or structure that facilitates deep work rather than focusing on individual psychological techniques.
What does Dr. Justin recommend listening to while studying?
-Dr. Justin recommends listening to white noise, especially matching the type of white noise to the distracting sounds in the environment, instead of music to maintain focus.
How can one revise for upcoming tests without redrawing the entire mind map?
-One can use retrieval practice, past papers, creating questions for each other, or recreating the mind map in a different structure to emphasize different connections, depending on the level of understanding and time available.
What is the ideal scenario for priming before a study session according to the script?
-The ideal scenario for priming is to have as broad and shallow an understanding as possible, focusing on concepts to create anchor points for later learning, with the depth and breadth depending on the time available.
Is it okay to start with linear notes when learning new concepts?
-Yes, it's okay to start with linear notes and gradually transition to more advanced note-taking forms as comfort and proficiency increase.
How can one study math effectively according to Dr. Justin?
-One should focus on understanding the conceptual aspects of math in words before diving into formulas and equations, and practice procedural and conditional knowledge through interleaved retrieval and problem-solving.
How can one differentiate between cognitive load and simply being tired?
-Cognitive load is associated with engaged and controlled learning processes, while tiredness reduces the ability to tolerate mental exertion. The sensation of being in control and making connections is indicative of cognitive load, whereas tiredness feels like a lack of capacity to continue the process.
Outlines
📚 Finding Study Materials for Self-Directed Learning
Dr. Justin, a former medical doctor and learning coach, discusses strategies for finding study materials when not provided with a set curriculum. He suggests starting with broad information sources and then branching out to additional resources. He emphasizes the importance of using multiple sources to gain a comprehensive understanding. Dr. Justin also highlights the utility of apps like Short Form for summarizing book contents and linking to related resources, which can be particularly helpful for self-directed learners.
📝 Navigating Alternatives to Notion for Note-Taking and Learning
The paragraph addresses the misuse of Notion as a note-taking tool for learning, as it was not designed with learning in mind. Dr. Justin recommends alternatives like Obsidian and Rome Research, which he believes are more suited for learning due to their ability to handle relational aspects of information in a more organic way. He also shares his personal preference for using Google Docs and the app 'Concepts' for studying, and 'Explain Everything' for teaching due to their non-linear note-taking capabilities.
🧐 Factors to Consider Before Entering Med School
Dr. Justin tackles the significant decision of entering medical school by suggesting that students first explore alternatives and understand the realities of the medical profession. He stresses the importance of self-awareness, understanding one's personality, values, and non-negotiables. He advises gaining life experience to inform this major career decision, rather than rushing into it for the sake of certainty.
🔍 Techniques for Mastering Technical Subjects
In this section, Dr. Justin explains the importance of understanding different types of knowledge: declarative, procedural, and conditional. He suggests that mastering technical subjects like engineering involves not just advanced encoding techniques but also a deeper level of skill with basic encoding techniques. He recommends varied practice, interleaving, and problem-solving at different mastery levels to address challenges in understanding and applying technical knowledge.
🎓 Balancing Deep Work and Study Techniques
Dr. Justin discusses deep work, its complexity, and the prevailing theories around it. He suggests that deep work can be trained like any other skill or habit, and emphasizes the importance of creating an environment conducive to deep work. He also touches on the effectiveness of different study techniques, such as retrieval practice and interleaving, depending on the individual's weaknesses and the complexity of the subject matter.
🤔 Addressing Cognitive Load and Study Efficiency
The final paragraph addresses the distinction between cognitive load and mental fatigue. Dr. Justin explains that cognitive load is an indicator of the learning process and should involve engaging in the right type of thinking. He differentiates the sensation of good cognitive load, which is about being in control and engaged with the learning process, from the feeling of being tired, which reduces one's ability to tolerate the mental exertion required for effective learning.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Medical School
💡Learning Materials
💡Cognitive Load
💡Deep Work
💡White Noise
💡Encoding Techniques
💡Retrieval Practice
💡Priming
💡Note-Taking
💡Conceptual Understanding
Highlights
Dr. Justin emphasizes the importance of considering alternatives to medical school and understanding the non-negotiables in one's life before making a career decision.
For learning outside of a set curriculum, Dr. Justin suggests starting with broad information sources and using them to find additional resources.
Short form apps like Shortform are recommended for summarizing book contents and linking to related sources.
Concepts and Explain Everything are Dr. Justin's preferred apps for personal studying and teaching due to their non-linear note-taking features.
Dr. Justin advises against using Notion for learning due to its linear structure and lack of organic relational aspects.
Understanding the different types of knowledge—declarative, procedural, and conditional—is key to effective learning in technical subjects like engineering.
Deep work can be facilitated by setting up an environment that makes it easier to achieve, rather than solely relying on individual psychological techniques.
Dr. Justin recommends using white noise matched to the background noise level to enhance focus while studying.
Retrieval practice should be tailored to an individual's weaknesses, with a mix of lower, mid, and higher-order techniques.
Priming should be as broad as possible to create a wide conceptual net for later learning to connect to.
Starting with linear notes and gradually transitioning to more effective note-taking methods is a practical approach for those not yet proficient.
In mathematics, understanding the conceptual reasoning behind formulas is as important as learning the procedural aspects.
Dr. Justin differentiates between cognitive load and mental fatigue, suggesting that the former is about engaging in the right learning processes.
The video concludes with an invitation for viewers to join a subreddit for further Q&A and engagement with Dr. Justin.
Transcripts
this video is sponsored by short form
what are the factors that a student
should consider before going into med
school and this person also asks
that's such a big question okay
everyone it's Dr Justin here I'm a
former medical doctor and full-time
learning coach today we are answering
questions that you have posted in the
comments we've got Anna here behind the
camera that's going to be asking me
these questions I haven't heard them
before I'll be answering them fresh
let's go shakiroji asks when you're
trying to learn something how do you
find the right materials to study that
subject when you're letting it outside
of school whether materials are not
provided to you these are like a set
curriculum or course there are a lot of
different ways and it depends a lot on
the context of what you're trying to
learn one of the ways that I would do it
is find the broadest possible source of
information that you can around that
topic and then use that as a springboard
for finding additional resources okay
the old school way that you would
normally do this is you just find a book
that kind of summarizes it because books
are usually written to be a little bit
more Layman friendly than like hardcore
research articles or you know I'd look
for systematic reviews on a certain
topic or something but honestly look in
the Modern Age today if I was doing that
now I'm gonna Chuck couldn't like chat
GPT or an AI I'm just going to ask what
are the main things I need to think
about and then recommend me some books
as long as you have a basic starting
point that's fine one pro tip that I'd
recommend though is never start with a
single Source you want to have at least
at least two but up to five different
sources of information you want that
broad reach I mean I feel like reluctant
to say this because
this video is not sponsored by short
form but short form is actually really
useful for this so
uh you can use you can use apps like
short form which tell you what other
books that you can look for and all the
sort of sources that you might not have
thought about originally they look at
that stuff for you instead you know in
fact actually I changed my mind this
video is sponsored by short form the
Segway was just too good the transition
was too good for me to miss okay so
short form apps like short form and
short from particular what they're
really good at is summarizing the
contents of books and then also linking
it to other books that might talk about
a very similar topic I think a really
really good example of this is a book
like principles by Ray dalio so A Book
Like principles by Ray dalio is really
really dense they talk the book talks
about a lot of different concepts around
personal development and business
management and all these different
things the book itself for those of you
that have read it actually
contradicts itself inside their own book
and it also contradicts or contrasts or
supplements the commentaries that other
quite prolific authors talk about in
related domains what short form would do
is it actually calls out the
contradictions and then it also provides
additional context by relating it to
what other books have said so it allows
you to have that springboard very
efficiently
so
if you want to use short form then you
can check the link in the description
below and you get five days unlimited
access and a discount on your annual
membership shortform.com Justin Sun
all right next question the quick file
one David a Geraldo asked what online
whiteboard do you use okay so I have
typically used an app called Concepts
this is not sponsored by Concepts I ask
questions to sponsor me and it's refused
actually then I have they don't have an
affiliate program but I I normally use
uh concepts for my personal studying and
I use an app called explain everything
for teaching because they have different
features but Apple has recently released
a free form I think is the name of the
app and it's I haven't tested it yet but
it's looking promising but really what
I'm looking for is infinite canvas
non-linear note taking as long as it's
got non-linear note taking Infinite
Canvas and personally I like to make
sure I'm able to draw as well because
having non-verbal expression of
information is is efficient if you know
how to do it correctly so those are the
things I look for there are some apps
that sort of do that but I kind of don't
recommend because the user experience is
a little bit laggy and I feel that it's
not so good so a prominent example will
be like good notes I don't really like
look using good notes because not
Infinite Canvas I don't have any
students that continue to use good notes
really they all move away from it
because it's very limited
I think people that don't drop those
apps probably don't realize how much
benefit Infinite Canvas provides also
one note uh purely because one note I
feel is quite clunky to use actually so
I just don't feel like it's a great user
experience and this is like a very minor
thing but if you're doing a lot of
studying
you're gonna be using this app all the
time having a nice user experience just
makes that process a lot more enjoyable
so yeah those are these Concepts explain
everything and I think free reform is a
great one I know that there are other
apps out there there's not a definitive
list there's some good ones out on
Windows and stuff like that as well but
it's just what I use what other similar
apps can we use instead of notion so the
problem is probably that notion is not
being used in the right way notion is a
great
um reference software it's great for
just putting information in that you
don't need to learn as a reference
source I mostly see students using
notion as a literal like note-taking
tool for the purposes of helping them
learn that information but it's not very
good because the relational aspects of
it very very clunky and the relational
aspects are actually not organic like
your brain doesn't create those
relationships in the same way as notion
Traxxas relationships the representation
of the information is very linear it's
very clunky it's nothing about it really
feels like it's designed with learning
in mind because it's not it literally
isn't like notion was designed for
startup entrepreneurs and people that
have Team flows and just personal
Knowledge Management type things and
it's great for that
it's just not good for learning it's
just I have beef with the fact that they
started just marketing it for like
students this is the app for learning
it's like it's kind of not not from an
actual cognitive science perspective it
doesn't doesn't make sense
so depending on how you're already using
notion that makes a difference if you
are using it the way that it was
intended to be used then there are a lot
of good Alternatives um like obsidian uh
Rome research even I probably lean more
towards obsidian I think is actually a
better app
um in a lot of ways than the notion is
if you're using it just for literally
like taking documents you could use any
app really I don't use notion anymore I
am someone that used to use notion
extensively within my business and my
personal life I should not use it
anymore I use a combination of obsidian
and just good old Google Docs and then
for my actual learning stuff I have
those other apps according to you and as
per your personal experience what are
the factors that a student should
consider before going into med school
and this person also asks how do you
know if med school is right for you
that's such a big question okay
factors to consider
I think the first thing is that
you're probably not going to know enough
about medicine
before you actually do the job I would
recommend first of all look for
Alternatives as well a lot of people get
very fixed on medicine medicine and they
don't think about the Alternatives they
don't think about it realistically look
for Alternatives try to find reasons
that you actively wouldn't like medicine
we often do that for the fields that we
don't want to think about like oh I know
all the reasons I wouldn't want to be a
lawyer an accountant or whatever do that
for the ones that you feel like you do
want to do as well there's always going
to be reasons it's better to understand
the reasons you wouldn't want to do
something and balance and consider that
realistically because what's important
is not for you to just have the security
of being like yes I finally picked a
career I want to go down what's
important is for you to make a
legitimately good decision for your
career so that's one thing the other
thing I'd say is really get to know your
personality what is and is not
acceptable for you what are the
non-negotiables and negotiables in your
life you're probably not going to know
that unless you have enough experience
under your belt so game life expect
variants do lots of things be involved
in lots of things start understanding
where your values are what you really
need to have in your life and then what
are the things that you think you need
to have but you probably don't need to
it might not be as important as you
thought it was
so very very big answer I will probably
have an entire video on this at some
point anyway but that's as concise as I
can make it for now so this question is
by runesola Knight D6 Justin is there
any advance including technique which we
can practice for technical subjects like
engineering stuff I think to answer this
there has to be an understanding of the
different types of knowledge in terms of
the difference between declarative
knowledge procedure or knowledge and
conditional knowledge
in a very very concise nutshell
declarative knowledge is a concept the
knowing what procedural knowledge is
being able to obser the how being able
to do it and conditional knowledge is
knowing when it's appropriate to do it
so for something like engineering the
the declarative knowledge is knowing
about the concepts and formulas or
whatever depending what type of
engineering you're doing the procedure
and all is being able to use the right
formulas in the right way actually
executing on them and using them
correctly and the conditional knowledge
might be knowing what approach to use or
what type of situation or application
so it depends on where the difficulty is
if you're having difficulties and
understanding the concepts then it's not
really about having more advanced
encoding techniques it's it's more about
just having good Mastery and skill at
whatever encoding technique that you're
using if the issue that you're
understanding it but then forgetting it
very quickly afterwards that that would
still fall under issues with declarative
knowledge it probably means the way you
encoded it was too isolated but if what
the issue is is not remembering the
information and understanding the
information but it's applying it
especially in complex situations or out
of context applications then that's
going to be more something that you can
address with varied practice uh
interleaving at different types of
Mastery levels different types of
problem solving it's a very very big
question the short answer is no it's
probably not about having a more
advanced encoding technique it's either
about a different type of technique
testing retrieval or it's going to be
about having a deeper level of skill
with the more basic encoding techniques
it's by Blaze and he says how do you
train yourself to do deep work deep work
is very very complicated phenomenon and
we don't really even know exactly what
it is there are a lot of theories but
one of the prevailing ones is that deep
work can be trained in essentially any
way that any skill or habit can be
trained anything that's going to help to
improve your focus anything that's going
to help to expose you to Greater levels
of immersion figuring out what allows
you to enter deep work states and then
facilitating that as much as possible to
gain more exposure into it
but one of the things about deep work
that seems to be a recurring pattern is
that it's not so much about how you can
just train yourself into deep work but
it's more about how you can set up your
environment or your structure in such a
way that deep work becomes easier to do
in the first place what's very
interesting is that research at larger
scales has shown that the impact that
deep work has on your productivity is
almost completely overshadowed by how
efficient The Wider environment or
system you're operating is so if you're
able to do really really focused work in
a single go yes that's okay in that
instance but if you're not able to
create those opportunities for yourself
sufficiently it's kind of irrelevant so
it's a different type of priority and
that's actually interesting because um
that's kind of a slightly more recent
finding and so the shift is now that
more people are focusing on how to
create the structures that enable deep
work to be easier and there are less
people really doubling down on how an
individual like psychological level you
can enter into like this mythical deep
work Flow State so much because it
apparently not as mythical as we have
all hoped it would be and trust me I
really hoped that it would be you know
magical but it just it just as a human
brain it's not only so good I guess okay
cool Ty Sam says what do you listen to
while studying uh I basically only list
the white notes oh I've got my laptop
right here so I'm going to show you
really yeah so I've just got this uh app
here yep yep but um yeah so it's just
called White Noise light
you can also use whatever White Noise
app that you want
um I don't like listening to music when
I'm really trying to focus
there's been some research on this
generally speaking it feels like the
research is pending towards the fact
that listening to music probably doesn't
help it can't help with certain types of
procedural tasks that don't require like
deep work but when you really need a
focus it seems like it's not very
helpful I know that there's all the
stuff around like classical music and
whatever but actually it's sort of been
busted now I listen to White Noise one
thing a pro tip if you're going to use
White Noise try to find a white noise
generator where you can adjust the type
of white noise so for example if you are
just at home like I might just have like
thunder or rain sounds but if you're
working in like a cafe where there's
people talking around you you can play
like thunder or rain sounds but you need
to crank that volume up way too high to
drown out the speaking so what makes
more sense is that you play like Cafe
sounds like people speaking so their
sound just murmurs in and then you play
other sounds like you could play rain on
top of that so you want to match the
White Noise with the distracting sound
alternatively if you're somewhere where
there's like a lot of traffic noise just
add way more traffic noise onto that and
then some like brown or white noise on
top of it yeah yeah so the idea is that
you want to make whatever is distracting
you feel just homogeneous
conferences
basically
if it's what's a better way to revise
for his upcoming tests without redrawing
the Mind map you can retrieve do
retrieval practice in many many
different ways and it depends on your
weaknesses so if you have weaknesses in
the lower order retrieval aspects the
simple you know I'm gonna say it flash
cards are great for that I think people
feel like I'm on like a personal mission
against flashcards I'm really not you
know in fact in my program I teach
people to use flashcards I just teach to
use appropriate I don't misuse it or
abuse it
um so if you're struggling with a lower
order levels then anything that's
testing at the lower order so flash cars
just direct retrieval direct testing uh
just creating explanations linear brain
dumps these are all great techniques if
you're struggling with mid-level
application simple past
papers just
um just testing yourself creating friend
groups where you're creating questions
for each other and quizzing each other
based on that
um you can also end them with the high
levels you can also take an existing
mind map that you've done and then you
can also redraw but you don't redraw it
the same way because that would be a
lower order just to retrieve exactly
what you had what you can try to do is
you can try to recreate the same
knowledge but in a completely different
structure so instead of creating the
same mind map you actually create a
completely different mind map for the
same topic but emphasizing different
networks and connections and so that's a
great one for higher level
higher order learning that would be like
a you know a mind map brain dump in a
form of interleaving there so it really
depends on your weaknesses there are
like hundreds of different interleaving
techniques that you can use it depends
on where you see your weaknesses as
being but you really should be using a
mix of all of these and this is also a
reason why uh you can only gain so much
benefit when you're cramming really
really late because you just simply
don't have time to do all these
different levels if you're in that
situation where you don't have too much
time left I would opt for that mid to
high level one because if you do the
mental high level really well you can
usually guess the lower level ones and
you increase your guess rate from like
25 like 50 and that might be the best
that you can do and the limited time
you've got available
but if you don't do the high level ones
when it comes to questions that require
you to have high level knowledge you're
just screwed and you lose more points
that way
just like a personal experience
so this year
objects biology was a subject I gave up
on and what that meant was at the end of
term three I gave up on the subject did
not study at our group and in class for
Bio I will do other subjects and I did a
total of three exams uh for buyer like
practice exams and my initial my proper
study for my Bio exam was the day after
my English exam which was the day before
the buy exam and I ended up storing 90
on bio just by doing admit to Hype like
I just didn't study the details powerful
yeah so one of my papers when I was in
medical school I had to study basically
like that because I kind of forgot that
the entire paper existed
it's a long story but anyway yeah it can
be more effective than than you realize
just it and yes there's like insecurity
and missing these details but I mean if
you're in a position where you're either
going to do terribly or you're at least
have a chance to maybe do slightly less
terribly you're gonna do the best that
you can yeah like with me and I buy my
whole mentality was I just want to get
me majority of the mocks like I know I
know like I didn't study so I can't
expect but yeah just focusing on those
higher level that would have been way
more beneficial and was way more
beneficial than if I just memorize the
facts there's a lot of my friends did
yeah Roswell Morgan says this is a
question on priming should you prime a
couple days before or a couple of hours
before your main study session or
lecture like what's the ideal scenario
there's not really an ideal scenario to
be honest
um if you're doing your priming at all
that's that's already a good thing I
guess it really depends on how much time
you have ideally when you're priming
something you want to be able to create
a pretty good scaffold but you want to
have a good big picture understanding of
the entire topic that you're studying to
create lots of anchor points for
Relevant if you kind of Imagine like a
fishing net you want a very wide fishing
net and it can be the gaps between the
neck can be very large but when you
throw it into the ocean you're still
going to catch like a lot of those big
fish whereas if you prime very very
small and your knit is like very very
tight but it's it's very small like you
know yes you'll catch like the Plankton
or like amoeba in the sea but you're not
really gonna be able to catch too much
it's the idea you should have for your
priming so I would always aim for as
broad as possible but very very shallow
focusing on the concepts and the points
that you feel allow your later learning
to be more relevant and have more things
for you to connect it to if you've only
got like 10 minutes before a lecture
you'll only be able to maybe say okay
well here are some of the main Concepts
and just get a very very very general
gist of it if you've got like an entire
hour that you're able to spend on it the
night before you can obviously go a
little bit deeper into that or a bit
broader uh or if you've got an entire
weekend then you should actually study
like the entire week's worth of material
and prime it in advance so it's more of
a logistical decision than what is ideal
because I guess ideal is as wide as
possible and as as high quality as
possible it's more of a practical
constraint
here says hi Justin is it okay to begin
with writing linear notes for Concepts
that we understand if we're not yet
proficient in other forms of more
effective note-taking okay I like this
question because it's recognizing that
there are more effective forms okay but
with any learning technique it's always
okay to start with where you're
comfortable and then gradually
transition to the forms that are more
advanced you don't want to ever and I
see this on my program all the time
because we teach so many techniques in a
short period of time people are like oh
I'm just gonna like scrap my entire
system and it's building entire new one
from scratch and it's inevitably gonna
fail because it's just too many things
to keep track of you'll be spending so
much time trying to do the right
technique that you won't have any
cognitive resources left to actually
think about the literal thing that
you're meant to be learning so it's kind
of like when you're trying to read very
quickly so you're so focused on reading
fast that you don't actually have enough
Reserve to process and interpret the
information always start with where
you're comfortable and just push that
limit step by step by step you can start
with linear you can then start to
process little parts of it the typical
progression that I introduced in my
program is if you're really struggling
to go from linear to non-linear then you
do a crush step in between where you
basically have part of it linear and
then you process and make it as
non-linear as possible piece by piece
and then you eventually get to the point
where the non-linear Parts become
default and you can just completely drop
the linear aspects of it so there's a
there's a series of transitions you can
go through Alberto says that first stick
is a very big family us and secondly
he's really struggling with Calculus and
trying to apply your methods to map
because he feels like that's a bit
different so basically could you
provided me with some advice on how you
can study math effectively okay two
things the first thing is that math has
a lot of procedural components but
procedure and conditional components to
it so a big part of maths will be
dependent on being able to do good
interleaved retrieval so having the
problem solving being able to use the uh
the rules and the the equations and
things correctly and then knowing in
what situations to use that in okay
however
there is is another big part that's
challenging for mass is that mass is
typically taught with only a procedural
Focus procedure and conditional Focus
the declarative aspects of maths are
often either not taught at all or like
very very understated but if you go like
literally just like go on YouTube and
like listen to these math prodigies and
and establish professors of mathematics
talk about the best way to learn math
they all say that before you learn how
to use the equation formulas you should
understand in in words what it is that
you're learning and why you're learning
it the difficulty is that when you first
receive the information when it's taught
to you it's taught you in a way that is
far removed from that level of
conceptual understanding and that's
where the effort comes in
but again in the modern era you can
literally just ask an AI bot like I'm
learning this topic tell me why it is
relevant and important and what are the
other connections and Concepts that it's
related to
build that
non-numerical like verbal understanding
about what you're learning why you're
learning it how it's connected how it's
relevant spend a bit of time doing that
and what you'll find is that you know
the equations of things that you know
you still have to do the procedural
Parts but when you go to solve problems
you'll have a better idea about what
approach you can use
I see this often in um like mostly in
secondary school I don't see it so much
in my people that are doing like math
majors at University a common approach
to solving questions and maths is do you
kind of just span all the different
formulas that you think will fit and you
just find the one where like it just
fits like oh there's this letter here
and I see this letter here as well like
I'm just gonna use every possible you
know and that's why there's so many
instances where there might be one
formula that has a specific letter but
it's like lowercase compared to like an
uppercase but they don't realize that's
actually like a different concept
completely a big part of being able to
solve complex problems like a lot of
stuff in calculus is understanding
conceptually how to approach the problem
before you even think about the numbers
and the formulas as part of it I'm not
an expert mathematician but I teach
expert mathematicians and they say this
works great so you know last question
for the video and it's by Snippets he
says how do you know when a cognitive
load isn't just you being tired like how
do you find that balance between you
knowing that you're tired and that this
is not you being tired it's actually
you're calling to load
I think it should be fairly fairly
straightforward to know the difference
between the two so that that probably
comes around from not understanding
where the cognitive load is going to
come from uh a misunderstanding with
cognitive load is that what we're trying
to do when we're learning effectively is
not directly increase the cognitive look
like that's not the point if our point
was to just increase cognitive load we
would like study you know like balancing
on a ball was like one eye closed you
know having our friend like Snap Us in
the face while we're studying but that's
that's not the point the point is to
engage in the right type of thinking
process and that right type of thing
process naturally involves more like
mental exertion which is perceived as
cognitive load the cognitive load is an
indicator of the process
when you're mentally tired the cognitive
load is not increasing right so if you
imagine you're like working out the
weights are not getting heavier as you
are getting tired what's changing is
your ability to tolerate that exertion
and that may seem quite nuanced but it's
actually a very different sensation when
you're using the right type of cognitive
load right type of process and you feel
the good cognitive load then you know
that you're trying to do this back and
forth comparative learning you're using
those higher order learning principles
that I talk about in all my other videos
we're constantly going back and forth
and there is this idea that I'm in
control and engaged with this learning
how I'm forming this network and schema
of knowledge and that's where our
attention and our brain power is whereas
if we're trying to do that but we're
tired we're still trying to do that but
we'd find that we're not able to do it
for as much information or it's taking
us longer to find those relationships
and build those networks and build those
structures so it's still on understand
that the form is correct you just feel
that you're not able to
tolerate it and and just keep going with
it for as long so it's quite a different
sort of sensation great so thanks for uh
your attention and going through these q
and A's if you've got questions of your
own then you can either leave them in
comments or what we actually introduced
is a subreddit so you can go to Reddit
the subreddit is called Dr Justin sung
and what we'll be doing is we'll be
using that as a platform to have a
little bit more conversational
engagement you'll be able to ask some
questions and we'll be going through the
subreddit and reacting and answering
questions from there because it's a
little bit hard to just draw through
like hundreds of YouTube comments to
find all of these comments and the
upload system redditors are here very
handy for that so we've set that up you
can feel free to check it out the links
in the description and we'll do another
one of these q a videos very shortly
thanks for watching and we'll see in the
next one
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