How to learn from a book (maybe) | note-taking, visualizations, spacing | history example
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- Does anyone really know how to learn from a book? Here is a record of my first serious attempt to understand and remember what I was reading for the long term, along with various justifications (and rationalizations!) for what I did.
0:00 What I'm trying to do
0:50 What does it mean to learn from a book?
2:27 Writing down themes
4:27 The back-and-forth
6:01 The function of notes
7:01 Taking paths through the material
7:36 Why do my visualizations suck?
8:53 Getting precise
10:20 Why these (bad) visualizations?
11:14 Spacing things out
12:20 What I would do differently next time
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REFERENCES:
The book is China: A History by John Keay.
My practices here come from a variety of sources, but here's some representative work.
This piece is about teaching students higher-level reading strategies to aid deep comprehension (constructing inferences and explanations, self-monitoring, etc.). A useful read that I largely agree with: McNamara, D. S. (2010). Strategies to read and learn: Overcoming learning by consumption. Medical Education, 44(4), 340-346. doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2...
On free recall and retrieval:
Agarwal, P. K., Nunes, L. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2021). Retrieval Practice Consistently Benefits Student Learning: A Systematic Review of Applied Research in Schools and Classrooms. Educational Psychology Review, 33(4), 1409-1453. doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09...
Roediger, H. L., & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(1), 20-27. doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.0...
Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning. Science, 319(5865), 966-968. doi.org/10.1126/science.1152408
On the value of "spacing things out" AKA long inter-study intervals, see:
Latimier, A., Peyre, H., & Ramus, F. (2021). A Meta-Analytic Review of the Benefit of Spacing out Retrieval Practice Episodes on Retention. Educational Psychology Review, 33(3), 959-987. doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09...
Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354-380. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132...
Acknowledgements:
Image of Liu Bang (founding emperor of the Han Dynasty) comes from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Li.... It’s actually a Ming-era depiction
Image of Xiang Yu (Liu Bang’s rival) comes from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xi...
Xuanzang image: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xu...
Xuanzang’s route: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xu...
Zhang Qian’s route: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ha...
Zheng He’s ships: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zh...
Zheng He’s route: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vo... (author: SY)
Topographic map: en-us.topographic-map.com/map...
Benjamin, i have only recently found your videos, and I see that you have been at it for a while. As a teacher of English, I value the insights you bring to the human learning process. But what's really thrilling is to see that you are not static, you are always evolving. You analyze your own mental processes, which become part of the data that informs your persentations, I hope you are beginning to write the book about your personal learning development. Meanwhile, I'll be watching you and doing some active recall as I apply your insights to my own work.
There are a lot of TH-camr, who teach you how to study, and how to learn, and do well in school… I must say with no exaggeration… You are the number one best I have ever seen. I say that as somebody who has been trying to learn from these TH-camrs for 10 years now. You single-handedly have the best advice.
Great video. This walk through of what you are doing and how you would do it differently is really helpful.
Great video! Would love to see updates in the future. Keeping track of various "themes"/"plots" throughout the book in a free-form way that makes sense to **ME** is one of those things which seems intuitive in hindsight but would have taken me ages to figure out for myself. Thank you for making this.
Such a great video. I keep coming back to this now and then to see what i can do better. Thanks Benjamin!
I enjoyed seeing how you learn a book and would like to see more. The humor is great. Thank you. Please make more.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to make this incredible video. I was trying to figure out what's the best way I can learn neuropathophysiology when I stumbled upon this video. Your video was incredibly easy to follow since you provided a concrete example of how you actually apply your techniques. I began using your techniques with neuropathophysiology and not only has the subject become far more sensible but I also find it much more interesting now. If you can make more videos similar to this tackling different types of subjects, it would be an amazing help to students like us. Thank you again!
Great video! I love conversing with myself through note-taking! Identifying themes is great for organizing concepts, and it can also help us emotionally engage as we explore meaning.
While my husband isn’t always interested in hearing me talk about books, discussing books with others always enriches my perspective and understanding. 😅
Hey Benjamin, I'm currently a physics grad student getting ready to take my qualifying exam for the third time. I have ADHD and struggle with organizing my learning, especially when I'm supposed to cover a broad range of topics. I would be really interested in learning more about your take on applying these learning tools when it's a struggle to organize your learning in the first place. Perhaps you can discuss ways to organize learning technical subjects at multiple levels, such as learning for the first time or refreshing. Anyway, great content and I'm looking forward to diving deeper into your catalog of videos!
good question, I hope he replies
This is a great idea! I hope he responds as well!
Hey Benjamin, just came across your channel and this video is excellent, really insightful and thought provoking. Thank you for making this video 🙏🏻 🙌
Ben, im a hs student whos always been so interested in neuroscience, and it was so fun to see you apply the concepts i knew about learning to learning from books. thank you for the great example!
please make updates to this. you are undoubtedly one of my favourite channels!
Finding this channel is like winning the lottery. If you truly internalize the information learnt here and manage to apply and refine it in a way that works for you, you’ll learn information, make sense of and retain it in a way that you would’ve never thought possible before. I don’t do this often but these videos are genuinely worth re-watching many times to truly get the point.
Hello! Thank you for the video! I'm a med student, and books tend to be my main source of study. I usually take notes from the book I'm currently studying, test myself on that and - maybe the most important thing - I keep updating those notes with new knowledge from other books, my practice and tips from more experienced doctors. I'd very much appreciate new videos about the topic!
OMG , I just started doing the MIRO thing.
it is an incredible software and helps me mind map my knowledge because its how i think . LOVE YOUR STUFF
This video was INCREDIBLE! Thanks!!!
I really enjoy these videos! Thank you very much for sharing your experience!
Yes, please make an update to this video. This was really helpful!
thank you. this system description and reflection is really helpful to my own meta-system development.
interesting video! I am definitely looking forward to your future improvements! I am trying to apply this style to learning language theory, and while it's definitely a different field, I like seeing the overlap.
Very interesting video and would love to see you tackle different subjects and see how you would change things
I see understanding as identifying and connecting different ideas focusing on their similarities, differences and relationship to a larger theme.
I like this video a lot, Benjamin, and I would love to watch more of them from you. Thanks,
I'd be interested if you reviewed apps like Obsidian Canvas (instead of Miro) and Readwise Reader for scheduled recall on book notes in particular! You can combine "writing for learning" with apps that do the visualization for you, or where the connections are done through "linking your thinking" but more through writing than fancy graphics (and can even be coded). It might be an excellent option for your own learning or "sense making through words", with a supportive infrastructure that gives you visualizations as an added bonus while you just write and connect things. You can always use paper to discard recalls but using software for permanent and connected notes!
I'm glad you talked about what's in the notes vs what's in the brain.
That book you have in your hand is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read it is one of my most favorite. It was as if stepping into his fantasy novel.
Yes, I like this kind of thing. I'm older (70) and still a lot of things I want to explore and learn. I've got this kind of long reading list. Because time is now shorter for me, it's very valuable to learn to be more efficient learning from those book. So, more please. Thanks
It was very interesting. I hope there will be another video about the next big book with more details, for example how frequently you are taking notes and do you focus on the chapter you read lately or rather not. And if you always give yourself some time to digest before you write anything. And if you really concentrate only on main themes (sometimes minor information is the most interesting). The next video could be with some tips on how to replicate your process.
Thanks for all this videos. Listening to you talking about all this I started to think that maybe your book could have done a better job helping you understand and remember. A concrete example would be to incluide a map. As a teacher desining my own materials after a decade of using other's, it's interesting for me to try to apply all this technics to designing and writing better material.
Thanks for all the work! This channel has been very useful. Now my tests are interleaved, spaced out, etc.
Great! I would love more videos along these lines (how best to learn from books, especially books that are concept heavy like history, philosophy, etc.. rather than data heavy like science, math books).
wow such a great concept. Please dive deeper into this.
Hi Benjamin. Your videos are great. Years ago, I learned a lot from the book Make it Stick, now your videos seems to me as a perfect complement. My two cents: I think that one never is really done with a good book in the same way that any topic has infinite depth. Rereading a book after reading another book on the same topic can be enlightening. I like your way of putting things when you say that a book is a tool to make sense of something. The book per se is unimportant (I am not saying that the work of the author is meaningless, just saying that the important things is how we interact with the world, and the book are just a tool from that world)
WOW ! Some of the things mentioned in this video are so important to keep in mind when we approach books. A challenging book that continues new information is a book we want to engage with in multiple ways, and read it more than once or twice, if we want to increase our understanding of the material.
This ought to help with my book report on War and Peace... given a decade or two
Great great video Benjamin, thanks, help me a lot
Thanks for the video, always insightful. I find memory palaces particularly fun for history subject, since I get to imagine the historical figures and cities. You can track a city history by a fictional building or neighborhood foundation, the path through it can hold a set of cues for the relevant history and how the buildings looks can tell macro details (like economy).
This is an interesting application of memory palaces. Maybe I will play around with that in the future. Thanks for sharing!
Hello Benjamin, thank you very much for the video. I am currently in the process of studying physics and your methods have been helpful. I'm doing free recall and self-studying a lot and on lectures I'm only writing down equations which I come back to later. This video gave me the idea to experiment with semi-flashcards of equations and describing them later. I would definitely be interested in a follow-up video on the book studying topic.
Awesome - good luck!
Amazing video. I really like the concept of learning challenges like these and i have planned many such challenges for myself in the future to increase my learning capability. Would love to see how you update your learning methods as you go forward.
Hi Benjamin, yes this was very helpful, I'd definitely be interested in seeing how you would apply this to a math or science text (I saw your video on textbook reading, but I'd love to see specifics). Also, any thoughts on IT/dev ops/programming books, I find those often encourage code along/follow along approaches that 1) aren't actually helping me remember anything (I've seen people call it "developing muscle memory", as if you're somehow teaching your fingers how to code) and 2) doesn't lead to any sort if deep understanding of the technology itself (e.g. knowing how to fill in a GUI form for building an Amazon AWS server vs actually understanding what it is you've built).
I am so happy that you pronounced the Chinese names in actual Chinese pronunciations!
Yeah Benjamin is back!!!
It would be great to have you layer on this first video. I'm particularly interested in how "learning from a book" would translate when it comes to other genres/topics - for example, what does this look like for medical students?
I second this. I’m looking for a novel way to train Veterinary anesthetists, and rote recitation of facts and sink-or-swim is the common method of training. For complex and integrated systems, it’s hard to find a new way, but I see *such* a need with the lack of application of knowledge
AMAZING Video it,s been very helpful in my personal learn thank you so much
Thank you for another great video!
Edit: and I want to watch update video about this topic in the future, because it's interesting for me
I've been meaning to watch this video for the past week but was unable to carve out the time. Thankfully, I was able to finally do so today.. and gosh, this is yet another phenomenal resource. Thank you so much, Benjamin. Your clarity of thought, consistency in quality, and humour are unparalleled.
Would love to know if you recommend Miro (and if so, which templates you use), or any other tools. I too prefer writing my thoughts, as opposed to using visualisations.
As always, looking forward to all future videos from you.
All the best to you, family, and Elmo.
Well... I think I'll just print up this comment and put it on my desk. Means a lot to hear from people - just happy you found it helpful and really appreciate the kind words.
On Miro: I like it as a flexible visualization software. But, to be honest, I really don't use it that often. I've liked Clickup, too, which has some overlap functions as an organizational tool. I'm just not really a fancy app person. And I don't know if I just don't give myself enough time to figure out how to use them effectively or something else. Mostly it's Keynote or Scrivener or paper and pencil if I want to be alone with my thoughts. Used to use Sketch to prototype visualizations, too. The fancier apps can be good for presenting things, once you've refined them. But my tendency is to use more basic stuff.
@@benjaminkeep I really appreciate your response and thoughts on this! Glad to hear you too are a paper and pencil fan - I find it far more intuitive than any app I've come across. I will have a look into Scrivener as I am not familar with it.
Thank you! All the best.
Great.
This was Justin Sung's one of earlier videos, creation of prior knowledge after each layer of learning one after the other Which is way better than Rote free recall and active recall.
This is what I have been doing for a very long time. But this technique is very hard to teach.
Edit: Follow this by free recall as a revision method. This way you have both encoding and retrieval together
So is it actually better than free recall in your opinion ?
@heythere9554 use both, free recall after this method.
Great video, thank you!
This was very interesting!
When I made Mindmaps, the effort of organizing and reorganizing the map resulted in understanding. I think that's because of the multiple organization principles you're forced to consider
what a helpful video!!
Very good way to think n study n reserch ;) thanks alot
- Consider what understanding means at [0:50].
- Organize and reorganize information to comprehend better at [2:05].
- Write down recurring themes while reading at [2:27].
- Organize knowledge into patterns without initially referring to the book at [4:22].
- Fill gaps in understanding by referencing back to the book or online resources at [4:33].
- Highlight uncertainties for later review at [5:06].
- Utilize notes as a tool for self-conversation, not as an end in themselves at [6:20].
- Explore different thematic paths through the material at [7:04].
- Engage with visualization tools to consolidate complex information at [7:40].
- Use a modified flashcard system for important dates and events at [9:38].
- Schedule future dates to recreate and review your understanding at [11:22].
- Reflect more frequently during the reading process for better comprehension at [12:26].
- Build a geographical map early on to enhance spatial understanding at [13:18].
- Incorporate self-testing earlier in the learning process at [13:45].
- Collaborate with others for deeper understanding and new perspectives at [14:12].
Yes :D Love that video thank you for the good insights
Benjamin, I'd love to listen to your thoughts on "incremental reading".
I would love to see a version of this video on more "idea-books". I'm thinking in the more self-help, pop-psych, productivity genre.
I second this! I'd love to see this applied on a self help book. They mostly tend to give you insights to apply into your life, but if you forget or don't apply that to your life, then is it valuable to free recall? Those kinds of things are the questions that pop up
this makes me realize why my ADHD has actually been helping me with my intellect. A lot it's positive characteristics have resonated into affinities such as for these concepts. Switching interests and tasks in the right conditions is a recipe for a smart child with a good thinking foundation. My understanding of any material to this day is praised. I'm still a nobody tho. Emotional trauma can still stunt many aspects of maturity growth. :p
Wow, amazing video
I found this really useful. I especially liked your comments about '[learning materials] are to learn from' and the point is to "make sense" for them. Please do keep videos like this coming.
Benjamin really appreciate your time and effort putting things down in such a easy to grasp manner. But does it help? Tremendously, I’ve closed few gaps and im completely getting rid of any boundaries around encoding knowledge. Btw hello from Shanghai.
Hey, great video. Could you do a video where you focus on how to maximize the learning process for skill training, like musical instruments (preferably piano). Thanks.
HE’S ALIVE!!!
I saw a book on your shelf in a video from 2 years ago that looked like my book I'm reading but I couldn't make it out. Came to a new video to see if if I'd be able to see it in another video and instead it was actually a video about the book itself. What a strange cosmic coincidence...
Great video
I am in the midst of building the mvp of a learning app that tries to codify what you and others are teaching. I am glad to see you use gpt in a conversational way because that's one of the ways I am also using it because my wife doesn't always have an hour to talk to me and lol many times I can't find anyone interested in my topics of choice. I personally have found if prompted correctly gpt can really act as an interested learning partner. If I can get a mvp I like I'm hoping it will be apart of a platform we're learners can connect.
Yes, I think when you rely on GPT as a way to generate questions it can be useful. Like having a little assistant to prompt you or push you in a different direction than you would have otherwise gone in.
Will write a summary of this video, soon.
Your videos are great. Please let us know the best way to encode into long term memory after all the learning takes place.
Lots of suggestions to use Retrieval, but not saying Retrieval. I like it
glad to see im not the only one making notes in tables
Thank you
I would like to see more of such videos. Could you read topics for which you have to take an exam
Hello, I really like your content and I am trying to improve my learning methods for university. One thing that I noticed on myself is that some of your suggestions are quite difficult to apply to STEM subjects, it would be great if you could do a video on that!
Books are the finest repository of knowledge known to man.
Of course I want more ideas on how to effectively learn from books.
I love your videos! I’d love to learn how I can apply this to drawing textbooks, videos, etc. Do you have any resources that you can point me to?
One idea I toy a lot with lately is that retrieval is the biggest false metric we all fall for in trying to measure our learning. Rather, the best test is the skill you are trying to acquire, which in this case may be explaining Chinese history or using it to add context to and explain aspects of Chinese culture.
I come to this conclusion because in my learning a second language while sleep deprived this past year, I found that sleep deprivation hurt my retrieval but it did not hurt my learning because when I am wakeful I read and listen in the language shockingly well and even understand all those complicated little Chinese characters quite well. So I think that good learning is just making many connections, seeing information in lots of contexts, and thinking about the significance of that information, and less so about the performative skill of retrieval, which while useful and desirable, is ultimately easily cheated if we prioritize it.
I'm still on the fence if the act of transcribing helps much, because as you mentioned the important work is happening in the mind and I quite easily do that work in my mind without the benefit of paper (・∀・)
Uhmm, no. I think you misunderstood the reason of using Retrival Practice while learning... It isn't a metric for the measurement of our learning. Retrieval Practice IS a study method, a way for consolidate or learning inside of our minds. And..., yeah it's one of the best Study Methods known in the field of The Learning Sciences. So...
I hope this is proven true. Butso far researchera seem to be head over heels for retrieval practice.
@@nelson6814 I do not deny that retrieval practice is a study method of some effectiveness. Mainly I am saying that just because we fail to recall something doesn't mean we need to study it more often or aren't learning it. It gets in there over time as we understand it better, so the intervals between seeing a piece of information can be very long indeed even if we find ourselves having to look it up the first 2 or 3 times. The more common response to failing to recall something is to study it more often or give up thinking you're not learning or getting better, something many spaced repetition programs have built in when they reset intervals or slow them down--entirely unnecessarily and with no basis in science.
Great advice!
What is your take on Mortimer Adler’s take on how to read a book?
I wonder if you have any videos like this (or ideas for videos) on retaining understandings of more abstract concepts? I'm a grad student in English/Literature and find it difficult to apply a lot of the examples I find online to what I work with. I'm thinking about philosophical theories, critical theories, economic theories, mostly. I've watched some philosophy PhD's talk about how they slog thru Hegel or whatever but I'm convinced there must be a better, more specific, science-backed way than paraphrasing at the each section...
I also need to figure out a bettersystem for reading poems and fictional texts too but that one's going to have to be my own journey in which I figure out which elements or bits of analysis I personally find most important to pull from the text. The closer it is to my primary research focus, the easier it is to retain because I'm reading FOR something... I do struggle with reading stuff outside of my focus.
Love these videos, though! I read a lot of historical info too in order to contextualize my readings and this is immensely helpful. Flash card methods especially don't work when I'm specifically learning the info in order to connect it to the core literary texts from a specific time period! Thinking about historical info in terms of connections and intertextuality is the only way I've ever succeeded!
my strategy
pretend to teach a 5 years old kid , which means understanding to depths , add some visualisation of concepts
note taking in questions so that it easy use to make like active recall
making relations to the topic you know either similarities or difference
spaced revision
Really interesting! Could you do it with another subject like math for example? And what could be a good way of learning in group or with a group study math? Specially Olympiad mathematics and problem solving
Yes, I would like to do that. I'm not really at Olympiad level, but I love math and have some good books at home that I could work from.
That'd be super awesome, please do one for math
Amazing Video, Benjamin! Out of curiosity, is the any difference between taking notes with paper and pencil as opposed to using digital boards, like an iPad with a digital pencil, when studying?
I think it's the last question I have here: www.benjaminkeep.com/faq/
I really enjoyed it! You are (always!) quite generous (and funny)!
If I would have taken notes... I wouldn't have to play it twice 😁 My brain was already preparing himself to leave a (funny) remark about your beautiful and softly-fluffy red wife... but fortunately I watched your video with more attention during the second time 😅
As an undiagnosed-ADHDer 🤔 I have only wondered about the best approach to achieve the best from a book. Once (upon a time...) I even engaged in transcribing the best parts of a book while reading it (and by hand - considering it would "stick" better)... until I stopped myself from transcribing the whole book. If using an Ebook App, it usually offers that Quotes/Highlight thing... that you can imagine how profusely I'd be using that feature 😵💫
So you can imagine how interesting I've found your free-recall exercise. Quite daunting too! It takes everything to another level. Amazing!
So... I guess I can only say I used some of these methods on... TV series 😑. During the "Dark" series, a timeline-generational "map" was very needed to follow along it from the start. And, very recently, I was watching a National Geographic series. During the second episode - while realising it would cover a different theme - I started making connections with the first episode's interviewed people... that I couldn't even remember their names. Maybe if I had taken notes IMDB wouldn't have been needed 😁
[ Now I'm imagining myself during sex... while hitting perfectly a certain spot:
- Love, just wait a second while I take some notes and draw a map to your "treasure"...
Um... this might not be a very good idea... 🤔]
PS: Now even more seriously, after your collaborative idea with your beautiful and softly-fluffy yellow collaborator, I imagined that you could be The One to create a new social network about books/reading. How about calling it Readdit or Readingit? 😁 It could be the perfect way to build that important community you mentioned about readers, so they could exchange ideas about a book after finishing. For example, they could create a Book-Reading event when they were about to finish a book, saying: "This will be the book I will start in a few days... it is about this... and seems interesting because of that..." suggesting it to others that could be about to start a new one. Others could follow this suggestion and then be prepared to gather together in the discussion with a more fresher mind about its contents. Just an idea...
A reading community like that is a cool idea. Thanks for your thoughts!
Seems useful. Maybe history classes would have been more interesting if it hadn't only been framed as meaningless names, titles, and dates with nothing else to them.
Something watching this brought up is how going back and forth across the same material in different ways can be helpful. Often find it very difficult to go through the same material source more than once. Even if there has been significant time between readings and starting another read through things are standing out as being "effectively new"; they don't often hold the attention enough to continue on.
As if there is some form of importance of the novelty found limiter that has been put on.
Curious if there are studies showing causing such mechanisms to happen; and others for disrupting it to re-engage learning and or engagement in learning.
A different framing question: What effects the required "willpower" portion for the learning process vs the improvements of recall and understanding?
Found getting to see multiple approaches to sensitizing yourself to different aspects a great and rare thing to find. Really like the example and demonstration coupled with framing way of going about things in your videos. Seems like so many act as if in avoidance of: example, demonstration, and developing meaningful discernments in framing; as opposed to a more "I'm telling you" having frames pushed only for trying to control - even to the denial of understanding and its development.
The sensitizing approach reminds me a bit of a quote by Moshe Feldenkrais, "To increase the sensitivity, decrease the contrast."
Would be curious to know more about this "scaffolding" development you mention and examples of what it is like during that process. Most physical scaffolding see is very pre-built and the end aim is a very clear target to assemble and problem solve towards. What kinds of things are useful for when those aren't so clear?
I need you to create a videos about how to find out relationship between concepts in a text , and a several example about what kind of relationship we could find out. And why do we have to comparison concepts to figure out what is similar and different and why it's beneficial for our learning. And about grouping ideal together and how we group them , can I group them by common Or by relationships . I take These ideas from Justin sung video about bloom taxonomy and mind map ( sorry for my poorly English 😅😅 ) and
Hey hey Benjamin! When you're rereading are you starting from the beginning of the book, chapter, or are you flipping through the pages trying to find the information? How do you find what you don't know, 🤣. This sounds like it would be a pain in the ass on an ebook. I'd probably have to utilize my kindle's table of contents and bookmarks. I love this video and I'm looking forward to implementing free recall and the other organization techniques in my non fiction reading.
Hi Benjamin. Your videos on free recall really helped me study for the first CompTIA A+ exam, and, though I think the second will be easier, I think the strategies in this video might be helpful for it as well as consolidating all of the information.
I really appreciate your videos and newsletter. Please keep up the great work.
Appreciate the kind words.
Meteor Man had one of the most extraordinary superpowers of all the superheroes, in my opinion: touching a book and absorbing and integrating the information. Oh, yeah!
do you plan your days or intentionally build new habits? I've read some books about it, but the sources of information in those books are rather outdated, I am curious about your opinion on this. And this video is really helpful, thanks.
Uncle Ben the GOAT
1. **Understand, Don’t Just Memorize**: Focus on really getting the ideas, not just memorizing facts. This means putting the ideas together in your head in a way that makes sense to you.
2. **Sort Your Info**: To get a topic, arrange and rearrange the info you have. This helps you see patterns and big ideas, which makes it easier to remember and understand.
3. **Start with What You Know**: Begin with the main ideas and what you already understand, then look up anything you’re missing. This creates a strong starting point for more learning.
4. **Mix Your Ideas with the Book**: Combine what you think with what the book says. This way, you see things from different sides and understand better.
5. **Think Critically with Notes**: Your notes should show how you're thinking through the material. Asking questions and analyzing the info helps you learn in a deeper way.
6. **Use Pictures and Maps**: Draw diagrams or maps to connect ideas visually. This can make it clearer how things fit together and help you remember.
7. **Look Back and Reflect**: Regularly think about what you’ve learned and how you learned it. This helps improve how you study.
8. **Apply What You Learn**: Use what you know in new situations. This shows you really understand and remember it better.
9. **Teach and Talk About It**: Explaining things to others, or even to yourself, really boosts your understanding. Talking with others can also give you new ideas.
10. **Review and Use Tools**: Go back to the material from time to time and use tools like ChatGPT or join discussions online. This keeps the learning strong over time and makes it deeper.
Hey, may you create a video about how to cue recall when you need it?
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 📚 Approaching Learning Chinese History
- Understanding a book goes beyond memorization.
- It involves making sense of patterns, themes, and conflicting evidence.
- This video explains the speaker's approach to learning from a book on Chinese history.
02:03 📝 Organizing the Material
- Organizing information helps with understanding and memory.
- Themes in Chinese history, like famous explorers and dynastic patterns, are identified.
- Major dynasties and eras are noted to create a structured framework.
05:06 🔄 Going Back and Forth
- Bouncing between personal reflections and the book deepens understanding.
- Changing one's prior knowledge enhances comprehension.
- The importance of taking notes as a tool for reflection is highlighted.
08:32 🗺 Utilizing Visualizations
- Visualizations and organizational frameworks aid in learning complex information.
- Different types of maps for different purposes in understanding.
- Visual aids help in seeing relationships and connections in the material.
09:38 📅 Flashcards for Precision
- Flashcards with important dates and events are used for self-testing.
- Dates are crucial for understanding cause-and-effect relationships.
- A modified flashcard testing system is employed for specific recall.
11:58 🕒 Stretching Learning Over Time
- The speaker plans to revisit the material after a few months to reinforce knowledge.
- Consistent engagement with the material over time prevents forgetting.
- Learning is a process that requires continuous effort and revision.
12:24 ❗ Potential Improvements
- The speaker acknowledges that their approach may not be perfect.
- Suggestions for improvement include more frequent note-taking, geographical knowledge building, and collaborative learning.
- Collaboration with others can lead to deeper understanding through discussions.
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nice
Thanks for this post.
how do you think about building a second brain? could you make a video showing how to PNM more effectively? thank you so much
please do more videos like this
i'm also especially interested in how to self study math books or computer science books, but i don't know if that's something you would want to make content about
I plan to do a math version of this and a science version of this, too. No promises on the time frame, but they'll be in the works. Thanks for the suggestion.
Could you talking about focus and diffuse mode please
Hi! I participate in high school policy debate which is an activity where I have to research/learn a lot about a certain topic and policies related to it (this year it's basic income, job guarantee's, and social security). I want to understand the literature as deeply as I can so I can make nuanced arguments, rebuttals, and questions. However, it's not feasible for me to do free recall on every single article, paper, book I read. It would take too long. Do you have any recommendations on when to incorporate active recall and how in this context?
This is the kind of content I really think you're better at. Absolutely keep note taking and learning from notes as a topic, generalize more or use other examples instead of speaking so much from your experience with this specific history book. Would be VERY interesting to see more on how to use Miro, other apps like it, and how to preserve and combine this information with other topics through a permanent and evolving system of notes! (thinking of other use cases) Really huge potential here!
Good shit.
Are you ever going to release your own course like Justin Sung's ICanStudy? I would be interested.
Yep, working on it.
Absolutely love the content! I am binging all of your content! As well as reading all your replies in the comments. I am also trying to immediately put this in practice, which is why I have watched this one for the third time. I have a question that only popped up on the third rewatch, and I haven't been able to find the answer in your other resources yet. If you have answered this question somewhere already, please direct me to it and apologies up front. If not:
The context of the question is as follows. In this video you state: "You want to find different paths through the material." And then proceed to list a few paths as examples. As an expert wanting to find different paths is probably so obvious to you, that it doesn't make sense explaining it. I do not see it and am curious to learn.
The question I would like to ask: Why do we want to find different paths through the material? and then: How do we find viable paths that will help our understanding? (I am assuming here that not every path is going to be useful, in the same way that your blog example of the fire juggling mathematician isn't a helpful increase of cognitive load).
So I found the answer to my first question in the video titled '3 forgotten studying techniques from a 1979 Memory expert.' Study secret 3 for the interested. We want to find different paths through the material, because it helps us remember it, which is shockingly uninteresting.
Once again however, we only get examples of perspectives that we could take, as well as a question of possible paths as well. I still think that the second question is the interesting question here however. We know that experts structure their knowledge differently from novices. Which would point to the idea that some structures will be more usefull than other. And the question remains: Which structures are the most usefull?
Are you able to give us an example using a scientific subject? Im struggling to understand how to find a "different angle" to biology / chemistry
Hope this helps me read my chapter about tutankhamun
Let us know if it did
One more thing: I'd love to see how you would apply some of these ideas to fiction. I'm an amateur fiction writer. If you wanted to learn as much as possible about how to write fiction from a given piece of fiction, how would you, Benjamin Keep, go about it?
Bump.
I think you would want to sample more than one piece of fiction, but you could probably get a lot out of just analyzing one.
I would want to have the experience as a naive reader first, to have some understanding of what the piece of fiction "does" - how I feel suspense or sadness or realization or excitement.
Then I would think of it as a process of reverse-engineering. The "different paths" idea might come up again: you can look at characters and character arcs; plot, plot points, and chapter/section divisions; themes, morals, or points of the story; writing style, characterizations, etc. Go through the piece just focusing on one angle or one part o things.
I might consider what would change if a character made a different decision - how that might make the story more or less engaging; more or less meaningful. How a lengthier description of an event might make things better or worse. All kinds of hypothetical things you could do to change how the piece of fiction affects a reader or alters what the story says.
At some point, either within the piece you're analyzing or looking at multiple pieces together you have to identify what "works" and what doesn't work for you as the reader/experiencer. And, like the hypothetical exercise above, you have to figure out why something works here, but why it doesn't work there.
I might also think about how to replicate certain feelings or ideas or write certain kinds of characters or describe things. Not to imitate things exactly, but more like practicing little bits of fiction writing. A person goes into a coffee shop and gets into an argument with a stranger. That might be a single scene that gives you practice at writing an argument (perhaps with one character who's already on edge). And compare that to a scene that you've analyzed, which would give you more insight into the decisions that the writer made.
Those would be some initial thoughts, anyhow. Good luck!