Chapter 1: Learning How To Learn

First chapter of my book Effective Learning

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I hope you enjoy the first chapter of my book Effective Learning. Chapter 2 will be available on November 4th for paid subscribers only.

Feel free to comment and suggest changes :)

In this chapter, you will learn:

• What is effective learning.

• What is the illusion of learning.

• How our brain learns.

Learning is a superpower. 

I discovered this as an undergraduate studying for my Bachelor's in Psychology. After finishing my first semester, I realized I wanted to become a neuroscientist. This branch of science is tough, as it includes knowledge from many fields: biology, psychology, physics, philosophy, computer science, mathematics, engineering, etc.  I had double pressure: getting good grades to improve my GPA for scholarships and learn many more skills (Neuroscience, programming, etc). 

Many people experience this. We live in a competitive world where skills are valuable for our dream opportunities. Some others would learn something new as a hobby or because they want to improve something. Most people would say they are not smart enough, but I want to prove this is false. 

Learning how to learn is a skill. And in today’s world, learning efficiently is a superpower. Whether mastering new skills for your career, absorbing knowledge for a hobby, or diving deep into a subject for personal growth, understanding how to learn effectively is key to unlocking your full potential.

This is not magic. It is science. It is the core to learn anything you want.

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Effective Learning

Learning can be defined as the process through which we acquire new knowledge, skills, behaviors, or understanding through experience (Carlson, 2007). This definition is common in many psychology and neuroscience textbooks. 

But more deeply, learning is about linking information from your short-term to your long-term memory (Oakley & Sejnowski, 2021). In neuroscience and cognitive psychology, memory can be divided by how long information can be retained in our brains:

• Short-term memory (working memory): lasts from seconds to hours. 

• Long-term memory (implicit and explicit memory): lasts from hours to days, months, years, and even a lifetime.

Let’s illustrate this with an example. Imagine you invited your friends to a party in your house. You ask what they want to drink. Excited, everyone starts telling you their preferences: “Coke, Fanta, Coke, Coke, Seven Up, Coke, Fanta, Fanta, Water”, etc. In a matter of seconds, your brain gets overwhelmed with information. However, you managed to understand something and go to buy their drinks. But things suddenly changed. At the front door, you realize you forgot almost everything they said. This is short-term and working memory. The main brain region involved with this is the pre-frontal cortex. 

Fig 1. Our short-term memory can retain information for seconds, minutes, and hours. That’s why you always forget when they ask you to bring or buy many things.

In contrast, long-term memory lasts from hours to even a lifetime. Our mother tongue language is an excellent example of this. We’ve been using it for years, so we learned it well. Riding a bicycle is an almost automatic behavior (of course, once we learn how to drive it). After trial and trial, everything clicks and makes sense, even for our brains. We don’t think about how to ride it; we do it. Learning how to play an instrument is another example. After hours of practice, you don’t need to think about how to play the piano. You just play it. This is implicit memory, and the brain region involved is the basal ganglia, a structure related to motor learning that requires no conscious effort. 

Explicit memory, another type of long-term memory, involves semantic and episodic memory. Think about this as events and words you learn through your life. For example, when recalling a past event, you use episodic memory. When recalling how to speak a language, you use semantic memory. This separation is useful because many disorders affect very specific types of memory. In contrast with implicit memory, explicit requires conscious effort. The hippocampus is the main brain region involved in explicit memory, and it has strong neuronal connections with the pre-frontal cortex. 

Effective learning is about sticking information to our long-term memory, enhancing understanding and retention, actively recalling it, and studying it effortfully. This goes far beyond simple reading or highlighting texts, two of many students' most used studying methods.  

Understanding this is crucial for your life. For some students, knowing this can significantly improve their mental health, as anxiety exam, depression, and stress is a serious problem. A review published in scientific reports found that test anxiety was negatively related to educational performance (i.e., university entrance exams and grade average system), with results more pronounced at the middle grades level (Von der Embse et al., 2018). 

One reason is that many students don’t know how to learn effectively. They are victims of a serious learning problem: the illusion of learning. 

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The illusion of learning

Pedro is studying for an upcoming big exam. To master the topic, he uses 2 of his favorite study strategies: highlighting and rereading. He opens the book and starts highlighting it to reread it later. Then, he tries to repeat what he highlighted while constantly checking the correct answers. He gains fluency and understanding. He reads the highlights faster. It is working! He’s learning. The topic wasn’t that hard. 

When going to the exam on public transport, he tries to recall what he studied once again, but now without his book, notes, and highlights. He starts recalling, but … silence. His mind goes blank. He can’t remember well. Chaos. He realizes he doesn’t know almost anything. His anxiety increases. He manages to arrive at the University, takes the exam nervously, and barely passes it. What happened to Pedro?