Studying My Masters in 1/6th of the Time
Summary
TLDRThis video script delves into effective learning techniques, emphasizing the importance of a structured approach over a single method. The speaker, starting a Masters in Education, refutes the idea that one-size-fits-all techniques apply, using the 'rate limiting step' concept to illustrate the need for a comprehensive system. They discuss the pitfalls of relying solely on active recall and space repetition, advocating for robust encoding and organization. The script provides a detailed walkthrough of the speaker's study process for a course on autism spectrum disorder, highlighting the value of mental schema organization and higher-order learning for efficient information processing and retention.
Takeaways
- 🎓 Starting a Master of Education: The speaker is beginning their master's program and will be demonstrating effective study techniques.
- 🗣️ Diverse Opinions on Study Techniques: There are many opinions on what study techniques work, especially regarding mind mapping which the speaker defends as part of a broader system.
- 🔧 The Importance of a System: Studying is not about a single technique but integrating various methods into a comprehensive system for effective learning.
- 🚗 Rate Limiting Step Analogy: Just like a barrel's capacity is limited by its shortest plank, the effectiveness of studying is limited by its weakest component.
- 🔄 Active Recall and Space Repetition: While popular, relying solely on these techniques can be unsustainable and may neglect the encoding process, which is crucial for learning.
- 📚 Balancing Techniques: A balance is needed between active recall and the encoding of information to ensure effective learning and retrieval.
- 🧠 Understanding the Brain: The speaker emphasizes that learning techniques should align with how the brain works, and this understanding is essential for success.
- 📈 Incremental Learning Process: Learning is shown to be a multi-layered approach that starts with a basic structure and builds upon it, becoming more efficient over time.
- 🤔 Cognitive Discomfort: The speaker embraces cognitive discomfort as a sign of effective learning and a catalyst for growth.
- 📝 Organization and Chunking: Information should be organized and chunked to facilitate better encoding and retrieval, akin to organizing items in a room.
- 🔑 Higher Order Learning: The speaker promotes higher order learning, which involves actively organizing and relating information for deeper understanding and retention.
Q & A
What is the main point the speaker is trying to convey about learning techniques?
-The speaker emphasizes that learning techniques should not be seen as a single method but as part of a wider system that facilitates other parts of the learning process.
What is the concept of a 'rate limiting step' in the context of learning?
-The 'rate limiting step' is a concept from science, used here to illustrate that learning can be hindered by the weakest part of one's study system, similar to how the shortest plank in a barrel limits the amount of water it can hold.
Why does the speaker argue that relying solely on active recall and spaced repetition might not be effective?
-The speaker argues that relying only on active recall and spaced repetition can lead to an unsustainable study habit, potentially neglecting the encoding aspect of learning, which is crucial for having useful information to retrieve.
What does the speaker suggest is the first important step when starting to study a new topic?
-The speaker suggests that the first important step is to figure out how you will retrieve the information and organize it in your brain, akin to organizing items in a room to make them easier to remember and access later.
How does the speaker relate the process of learning to organizing a room or a warehouse?
-The speaker uses the analogy of organizing a room or warehouse to explain the importance of creating a mental schema for information, categorizing it effectively, and ensuring that related concepts are grouped together logically for easier retrieval.
Outlines
🎓 Embracing a Holistic Study System
The speaker begins by addressing skepticism about study techniques, particularly mind mapping, which they previously showcased in a video. They emphasize that effective studying isn't about a single technique but integrating various methods into a comprehensive system. The analogy of a car with superior rims and engine but poor other components illustrates the importance of a balanced approach. The concept of a 'rate-limiting step' from biology is introduced to explain that relying solely on active recall and spaced repetition can be counterproductive without proper encoding. The speaker plans to demonstrate their study process for a master's assignment, highlighting the importance of understanding how to retrieve information and organizing it effectively in the brain, akin to keeping a room tidy from the start.
📚 Organizing Information for Efficient Learning
The speaker continues by discussing the importance of categorizing information effectively, like organizing items on shelves, to facilitate retrieval. They explain that understanding the relationships between different pieces of information and creating mental schemas is crucial. The process involves identifying the main and sub-chunks of information and logically organizing them. The analogy of a room or warehouse is used to illustrate the point that a well-organized space makes it easier to find and remember items. The speaker also mentions that they will be applying this method to study about autism spectrum disorder, reading multiple articles and organizing the information into a mind map, emphasizing the multi-layered approach to learning and the benefits of simplification.
🧠 Enhancing Learning Through Active Chunking
The speaker delves into the process of 'active chunking,' where they take 24 points from a text about starting interventions for children with autism and group them into meaningful categories. They explain that this method of learning, which involves evaluating, comparing, and grouping information, is a higher order learning technique that increases encoding, retention, and processing speed. The speaker contrasts this with passive learning, arguing that engaging in active learning makes the process more interactive and enjoyable, despite being more cognitively demanding. They also discuss the importance of taking ownership of one's learning, especially as students progress towards independence in university.
📈 Reflecting on Study Techniques and Cognitive Processes
In the final paragraph, the speaker reflects on the effectiveness of their study session, which involved reading and organizing information from nearly 90 pages of academic material. They describe how the initial stages were slow, but as the organizational structure became more stable, the process accelerated. The speaker also outlines the next steps of their learning process, which include active recall and spaced repetition, but notes that these will be less time-consuming due to the effective encoding done during the initial stages. They conclude by encouraging viewers to develop these techniques and emphasizing that their success is due to practice and systematization of these methods rather than any innate advantage.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Masters of Education
💡Mind Mapping
💡Rate Limiting Step
💡Active Recall
💡Spaced Repetition
💡Encoding
💡Cognitive Load Theory
💡Chunking
💡Syntopical Reading
💡Higher Order Learning
💡Flashcards
Highlights
Starting a Master's of Education and addressing common criticisms about study techniques.
The importance of understanding study techniques as part of a wider system rather than a single method.
Introduction of the concept of a 'rate limiting step' in learning, analogous to a barrel with wooden planks.
Critique of over-reliance on active recall and spaced repetition, potentially leading to unsustainable study habits.
The necessity of balancing active recall with the encoding aspect of learning for effective information retention.
Demonstration of studying for a Master's assignment as an example of applying study techniques.
The process of determining how to retrieve information as a key step in the learning process.
Using the analogy of organizing a room to explain the importance of proper encoding and organization of information.
The application of cognitive load theory to embrace discomfort during learning as a catalyst for growth.
The multi-layered approach to learning, starting with a basic outline and building upon it with details.
The exponential increase in learning speed as the organizational structure becomes more stable.
The practical example of reducing 24 points into more manageable chunks through the process of active chunking.
The benefits of higher order learning for increasing encoding, retention, and processing speed.
The importance of taking ownership of one's learning and developing the ability to organize information effectively.
The demonstration of how to transform a list of 12 points into three main groups for better understanding and retention.
The concept of using mind maps as a tool for visualizing and organizing learned information.
The final consolidation of learned information onto a mind map for review and active recall practice.
Reflection on the effectiveness of the demonstrated study techniques and their applicability to various academic fields.
Encouragement for viewers to subscribe for more content on study techniques and learning strategies.
Transcripts
so i'm starting my masters of education
soon and um i get a lot of comments
saying like
hey you can't use this technique for you
know whatever
you can't use it to study there so it
doesn't work for me or doesn't work for
that or whatever you know people have a
lot of a lot of opinions about the
techniques um especially when it comes
to the kind of mind mapping thing you
know the video that went
semi-viral so i thought it'd be a rare
demonstration for me
to actually go through and show how it's
not about a single technique it's
actually about how this the technique
is part of a wider system and it
facilitates other parts of the system
like you can have the best rims on a car
you get the best engine but if the
what okay look i don't know much about
cars but if the other parts of the car
are not also good then you're gonna be
held back so there's this concept of a
rate limiting step in science and it's a
really common uh common idea and you
know the way that was first taught to me
was uh in biology class right it's the
idea that you can basically have like if
you imagine like a barrel
and this barrier this barrel is made up
of like
wooden planks but let's say that one of
these wooden planks is only up to
halfway
okay and the rest of this is just blank
how high can you fill it with water well
you can only fill it
you know this high with water because
all the water
is obviously going to leak out the
shortest plank is and that's the rate
limiting step right so if the rate
limiting step is let's say the fact that
you are relying purely on
active recall and space repetition for
which there is this like strange level
of obsession and hype about despite the
fact it can actually make it even worse
because it can become so unsustainable
for example having like 4 000 different
flash cards that they're doing they can
be spending so much time on
justice-based repetition and retrieval
rehearsal that they're actually not
spending as much time on the encoding
aspect of the information which we know
is important so that there is actually
useful stuff to retrieve so
um you know in my experience people that
are relying only on a system of active
recall and space repetition are not
really going to find much success and
actually as you get later and later on
throughout
uh academic careers especially um you
know later university
uh for like maybe like fourth year fifth
year or you know working as a
professional your learning is very
marginally using something like active
recording space repetition most of your
learning will never really happen that
way yes if you're not doing it at all
and you know you've got nothing in in
place that has to do with active recall
and space repetition then yes you are
gonna find it advantageous uh but what
i'm saying is that that's not where it
ends that's kind of where it begins
you have to also have on top of that the
other side of the coin not just the
thing that you're retrieving but
actually being able to uh encode the
information uh at a higher level of
quality to begin with and obviously i've
got a lot of other videos uh that will
talk about this and it's an important
concept so i will continue to make
videos about this anyway
i want to show you how i'm gonna study
for my master's assign tomorrow um it's
a
you know
reasonably you know intense um
sort of course and i'm trying to do
quite well for it so we'll be doing some
pre-study and i'll go through how
uh the way that i
learn fits into a wider system
and it'll be one of the many examples
that i give that shows that this does
work it works for pretty much everything
it works for english maths biology
chemistry physics medicine ecology
accounting
pretty much everything it works for us
it's the way that the brain works so
unless you don't have a brain
it's going to work for you so the first
thing that is always important to do
when starting studying is to figure out
how am i going to be retrieving this
information and how do i therefore
organize it in my brain as soon as the
information goes on it's kind of like
organizing your room it's easier to make
sure that everything is put in the right
place when it goes into your room rather
than throwing everything in your room
seeing that it's a mess then trying to
organize it afterwards if you do even
organize it at all
not even trying to encode it properly
would be like having a messy room and
then just trying to find whatever it is
and then finding it again so many times
that you just memorized exactly where in
the room it was it actually makes more
sense to put it somewhere that's logical
so that it's easier to remember where it
is and then your brain can use that more
effectively
you can see how why uh improper encoding
combined with just lots of active record
space repetition would therefore cause a
very repetitive tedious and
unnecessarily time-consuming learning
process so
i've had a look through the assessment
criteria and i've had to look at the way
that i'm going to be assessed so i
generally understand how i'm going to
need to use this knowledge and right now
i'm learning about autism spectrum
disorder um so i'm going to be reading
this article about autism spectrum
disorder so you can see it's a pretty
decent sized article and that's actually
one of like seven that i'm going to be
reading and i will try to read them all
in one go
uh so because it's such a large amount
of information in order for me to
process that correctly i need to be very
clear about the mental schema in which
i'm going to arrange everything so if
you think about again like a room or a
warehouse you're trying to organize
having lots of different shelves with
lots of different organization is going
to make a lot of sense because it means
that i can categorize it more
effectively if i've got a shelf and it
says all of that stuff has to do with
let's say the diagnosis then that's
going to make sense for me to think
about it in terms of that shuffle stuff
to do with diagnosis but then if that
shelf is not organized then it's still
hard to find stuff on the shelf i may
know that it's in that shelf but it's
still going to be difficult to find
likewise even if i know that this
information belongs cognitively
organized in a group called diagnosis
it's still going to be difficult for me
to retrieve that because there is still
too much stuff in a single shelf so i
actually look at what level of each you
know of that entire bookcase or whatever
am i going to assign for each thing and
i'm not talking about a physical vision
of a bookcase or anything i'm using this
as purely a metaphor an analogy so um
not only do i want to figure out the big
chunks but i also want to figure out the
sub chunks and how those subjects relate
to each other so for example you
wouldn't put your
kitchen
towels next to your socks or your shoes
you know it doesn't really make sense
because it's not a logical place to put
them so i wouldn't really put a piece of
concept that i learned in the first page
that
might relate to the treatment i wouldn't
necessarily put that on the first chunk
that i have which might actually be
about diagnosis because that that
doesn't make sense you know the
treatment actually comes later
so
um right now as i'm reading i'm just
going to be thinking about creating this
mental schema i'm thinking why are these
pieces of information important how can
they relate to each other what are the
chunks i can create and how can i make
that as organized as possible once i
have a good understanding of the scope
of what i'm learning and how it can
potentially fit and fit together i have
a basic backbone i'll represent that in
my mind map and then i'll take that
information and then i'll build on it so
it's a multi-layered approach again if
this is a little bit overwhelming then
don't worry i do go this through this
step by step from beginning to end every
single process every single detail in
the course so again if you're interested
you can check that out
so at this stage i have a basic uh
outline of how it looks and you can see
that it's very simple um it's it's very
bare bone but on the skeleton i'm then
going to build all the other information
on top of it so it'll allow it to be
organized a bit more so as i add more
detail i'm constantly trying to find a
way to organize it and simplify it and
create further relationships so you'll
see that this adapts and changes and
grows as it goes and the larger the
topic that you're doing at a single go
the more complicated it becomes and
the longer it takes to simplify but as
it becomes simpler and simpler and
simpler the learning speed increases uh
exponentially well i don't know if it's
exponential but it gets faster and
faster and faster uh because you're kind
of just building on the same thing and
the foundation starts getting so strong
that actually all the subsequent details
and concepts become much easier to
understand much easier to process
because your organizational structure is
not really changing so much anymore
and then you're able to really just
process and learn it and it just makes a
lot more sense so right now you can i
can definitely tell you you know i've
just been reading through like you know
not very in detail at all but just by
framing this it feels overwhelming
there's so much information there's a
sense of discomfort here but cognitive
load theory tells us that actually
maintaining that discomfort is going to
be good for us in our learning that's
going to fuel us to learn this a little
bit more quickly so i'm used to this
discomfort it's not scaring me at all
the confusion is good it's fuel for
growth
so i'm going to work through this
confusion i'm going to figure it out i'm
going to add more details and we'll see
where it gets to
once i've added on more details once i
go through this extremely long
article
[Music]
so it is uh it's been four and a half
hours actually since i last uh recorded
and
uh let me show you what i've got at the
moment
so yeah as you can see there's you know
quite a bit of
chunking and relationships that have
been formed between the ideas
these notes have been taken from
50 pages of a textbook about 40
something pages of a best practice
guideline
uh
11
12 pages from research article and i'm
in the final stage now where there are
four more articles to review about 12
pages in total
and i'll be consolidating them onto this
so uh in total in the last
well and what will eventually become
maybe around five or five and a half
hours uh i will have gone through around
90 pages of
quite academic uh reading i mean you can
have a look at the type of stuff that
this is
um and i feel like i've got very really
good retention on it i had some um
specific questions that i was thinking
of when i was going through this and so
this whole process i was doing was
a combination of those of you going
through our course this is a lot of
order control a lot of um
syntopical reading which is where you
read multiple sources of information
talking about the same topic
simultaneously it allows you to build a
more robust foundation in a faster way
because you're not locked into learning
it linearly a big part of it came from
really being able to create that clear
structure and organization and being
able to organize as i went so the first
um you know i've been studying for four
and a half hours the first uh
40 pages of the textbook
took me a long time a long time it took
me like three hours just to do that
but then after that the remaining 40
pages of this other article
took me only about one hour in total um
so it's getting faster and now uh then
the article after that was
very quick just minutes because i wasn't
really learning anything new however
every time i was reading it i was sort
of consolidating and thinking of more
ideas so that's because of the fact the
organization once it's stabilized
doesn't tend to change much and as i
mentioned before the process became
faster and faster so now i'm on the
other side of the fence really and it
feels much more comfortable the
knowledge feels very comfortable i feel
very uh i feel very confident working
with what i've got i definitely know
that there are gaps in my knowledge and
these are the things that i will take to
my tutorial i'll ask someone that's more
experienced and knowledgeable than me
about this and i'm just in the final
section here
now uh
i thought this would be a good
opportunity to to just outline the
technique that i'm going to be using
right now in terms of just more active
chunking so i have here
24 different
points
and
for me
i need to understand what each of these
24 points is talking about so it's
talking about
important things to consider when
starting an intervention for a child
diagnosed with autism so there are 24
important points and i know that there
is going to be a
link between some of these points there
will be similarities between these
points
for me i'm going to go through a process
of chunking i'm going to collect all of
these points and then i'm going to look
through to see if i can find meaningful
chunks
between them and i'll go through that
process and show you how i can turn
those 24 points into something that is a
lot more manageable rather than trying
to just memorize 24 things which most
students would just chuck onto a flash
card and that's it's done not organized
sitting on a pile on the floor of your
of your memory very hard to retrieve uh
likely to be forgotten not really being
encoded into your long-term memory uh
and obviously that's going to be a waste
of time constantly repeating this and i
really don't want to have to repeat this
process very often i want to learn it
and then i want to be able to apply it i
want to be able to use it and have a
high level of competence
straight off the bat
so let's uh let's go through this
process a little bit it turns out
there's actually only 12 things uh not
24 which makes my job easier but the
demonstration is slightly more lame
uh but i basically i just use a notepad
and i just noted down all the um
key things that they were talking about
and the important thing here is that
when i was reading this i wasn't just
reading in order to like make a list i
was deliberately reading in a way that
made me organize information
to think how can i make it into groups
and how can i chunk it so when you read
with a with a clear purpose that is
evaluating an idea and comparing it
against similar ideas and looking for
similarities and differences and
thinking of different ways that they
could fit together uh and be grouped
um it's a different way of thinking it's
what's called higher order learning and
it's a more effective form of learning
it increases your encoding increases
your retention increases your processing
speed it makes learning more interactive
and more engaging and fun it is a little
bit more cognitively difficult but it's
cognitively difficult in the way that
lying on the couch doing absolutely
nothing is not difficult but it's also
not particularly enjoyable or much of
anything whereas you know doing
something that is enjoyable might take
effort like playing a game might take
effort but it's not that the effort is a
bad thing so it's the same thing as that
we're trying to produce good learning uh
and so actually doing it this way is is
a better
uh use of that time if we're gonna be
spending the time anyway we may as well
learn properly and not just learn
passively students that are very young
you know they really struggle with this
but when you're kind of nearing the end
of high school uh last two three years
of high school you really need to start
developing this ability to take
ownership of the learning uh take
control of it and
be the one that organizes the
information yourself not have someone
else do it for you because as an
independent learner in university
no one's going to do that for you you
have to learn that's that skill at sink
or swim
and and it's better to learn to swim in
the kiddie pool aka high school rather
than learn to swim when maybe your
university grades matter a little bit
more on my list of 12 things
how is it related to the other items on
that list and why is this fundamentally
something important for me and how am i
going to use this how am i going to use
this information so if i think about
that you know i let the brain whirr for
a bit and then we'll see what we get to
in terms of this order and we will see
if we can make this make a little bit
more sense intuitively
and there we go uh so it's been broken
down into
one two three bigger groups and chunks
so i i looked at it and i thought why is
this important for me to know and i
thought okay so we've got three main
reasons of importance uh and then within
the third one the second one there are
three sub reasons for importance you'll
notice that when you do this you'll find
that actually
the
retention and the understanding and the
depth of understanding from
the you know all the concepts that you
do this activity for will be much
greater than if you just read it purely
to try to understand it or memorize it
or recall it so when your brain is
reading or learning something for the
for the specific purpose of trying to
evaluate it and chunk it and group it
and it does that what's called higher
order learning
it will
automatically allow you to understand
and memorize it faster than if you would
actually deliberately try to just
directly memorize it and understand it
which means that to try to to try to to
memorize and understand something in the
fastest possible way you actually need
to not try to memorize and understand it
which is counterintuitive i understand
but this is how your brain works so you
you activate higher order learning and
it fills in all the gaps on the way kind
of automatically and so if you try this
you will find that it's actually a
an engaging and unique way of thinking
that most students aren't really used to
high level learners will already do this
automatically and if you are already
doing this that's good for you uh but
try to use it even more uh more actively
even at a deeper level so once you're
aware of it if you've already got the
basic skill down automatically which a
lot of high-level learners already do
then then use it to another level you
know really create a system out of it so
that's one of the things about the
system that i've created that's in the
course again link below if you care
uh is that it takes the way that your
brain works and then it fundamentally
fundamentally creates the system around
how the brain works
and then we can supplement it with other
things like memorization aids and
flashcard techniques and all that sort
of stuff but you know we really want to
get our basic cognitive process first
otherwise we're constantly just fighting
an uphill battle so let's just take all
of that stuff that was on the computer
and we will just chuck that onto the
mind map
and here we go so
i've added on this little blue part in
there
to the original mind map so it was just
like this before and now it has this
part added so this is the representation
of
that and uh you can see that that is a
lot
i mean less pleasant to look at and
harder to process than this now it's
going to be easier for me to process
because i'm the one that thought about
how to draw it so it makes sense to me
so even if it doesn't make sense to you
trust that it is effective for me and if
you were to do a similar process it
would be effective for you too and that
concludes my study session it did go a
little longer than i expected um just
under five hours but i did cover around
about what like 90 pages worth of pretty
intensive reading and i'm quite happy
with where i'm at um and i will likely
look at this again sometime in the next
few days just to refresh myself because
once the encoding is done the next step
is everyone's favorite active recall and
space repetition but now i don't need to
do so much space repetition and it's not
going to take up too much time because
it's naturally already encoded pretty
well all i need to do is remind myself
where all the different boxes sit on the
different shelves and
the rest is
kind of
sort of automatic and it really honestly
it makes it a lot easier
so a bit of a demonstration um on
the the system now if there were
additional things that i wanted to
memorize i don't need to retrieve this
knowledge in terms of pure factory core
so i don't need to really put any of
this stuff onto flashcards but if i did
need to then i would simultaneously at
this point have put things into flash
cards but uh even if i did need to
retrieve through pure factory record
there's probably only about 10 15 flash
cards i'd have for this whole topic um
hopefully you were able to use this as
an insight into how the process kind of
works once it is refined i don't expect
you to take this video and suddenly know
how to do all the techniques but i do
want you to be able to look at this and
think okay so once i develop the
techniques this is how it can be used
and i want to be there as proof that it
does actually work and it is completely
all in the techniques it's not like my
brain is anything special i just use
techniques that i've practiced thousands
of times and my students naturally are
able to achieve you know pretty good
results from using the same process as
well so hopefully you liked that if you
did if you found this useful please
leave a like if you have any comments as
usual leave them down below if you've
got any questions about how the
technique can be applied um if you're
interested to learn more about the
theories and the techniques and all of
that sort of stuff then check out my
other videos i will plan to put out as
many as possible uh covering different
aspects of the system and different ways
of doing things like mind maps and
improving your memory and reducing
repetition and uh
using different parts of your brain more
effectively and things like that so stay
tuned if you want to hear more about
that sort of stuff
make sure that you subscribe but
otherwise i'll see in the next one
[Music]
you
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