How To Read And Remember What You Had Learnt
July 3, 2007
How often has this happened? You just read an article or a book about a certain subject, but yet 2 days later, you can only remember 10% of what you had read. Does this sound familiar? Effective learning is a very critical skill in today’s world, in order to stay relevant, competitive and for life-long employability, we need to constantly upgrade ourselves.
From the book “Accelerated Learning for the 21ST Century” by Colin Rose, Malcom J. Nicholl, I learnt about the 6 steps ‘M-A-S-T-E-R’ plan for accelerated learning as follows:
1. Motivate Yourself for Learning - In order to learn effectively, you must first be motivated to acquired the knowledge. You must see that the knowledge in concern is relevant, useful, or beneficial to you. Is it something that will solve a challenge at work or in personal life? The question WII-FM (What’s In It For Me?) can be used to judge the level of motivation for the learning task at hand.
2. Acquire The Information - This is the process of gaining the ‘raw’ information. There are generally 3 methods of acquiring information (remember V-A-K), and each works for different people and under different circumstances. Find the method which works best for you as follows:
a. Visual - Using sight as the primary means of acquiring information. Examples includes reading, watching a demonstration.
b. Auditory - Using hearing as the primary means of acquiring information. Examples includes attending seminar, listening to tapes/CDs, listening to experiences of other people.
c. Kinesthetics - Using physical and emotional experiences as the primary means of acquiring information. Examples includes coding tutorials, basketball drills practices etc.
3. Search for the Meaning - This is a VERY important part of the learning process. It means that you must make sense out of the information acquired, rather than to simply memorize the facts. By memorizing facts only, chances are that you will very soon forget them. It is not effective to remember isolated facts, facts have to be linked/associated with other facts to be retained into long-term memory. The recommended way is to associate new information to current knowledge pool (this is the context of learning), and to build onto knowledge from there. The key is to “understand” how the new information fits into the context and what new knowledge can be derived.
For example, in project management, it is taught that stakeholders’ involvement are very important (facts). Think if there was any experiences in which a project failed due to poor stakeholders involvement. Recall the misunderstandings that resulted from the lack of communications between stakeholders, and requirements that did not match expectations (associating facts with current knowledge). Think of how involving stakeholders could have avoided many misunderstanding and how you would do better the next time (deriving new knowledge).
This is the reason why people who fare well in rote learning and MCQ tests, may not necessarily do well in practical applications. A lot of these tests ability to memorizes facts, not applications. Scenario-based questions instead test the applications of knowledge.
4. Trigger the Memory - This involves some memory techniques used to remember knowledge gained so that they can be recalled when required at later time. The M-A-S-T-E-R mnemonics to remember these 6 steps is one such example. Mind mapping is another example.
5. Exhibit your Knowledge - A key to retaining knowledge is to use it often. You should find opportunities to exercise the knowledge gained, such as real-life applications at work. However, it can also include discussing with people what was learned, teaching someone else etc. In terms of knowledge, it is said ‘use it, or lose it’.
One method which is very useful is to rephrase what was learn in your own words. This exercise tests your understanding of what was learnt, and also the ability to output the knowledge for application. Very often, learning via input of information alone is less effective than input coupled with output. Don’t be surprise to think you have learnt, only to find that you can’t explain what was learnt in your own words. Try it out, by trying to explain your thought or what you have read, you will attain better clarity.
6. Review on the Learning Process - Reflect on the how learning was done. It is important WHAT was learnt. Yet it is equally important to think about HOW the learning was achieved. Is it effective? Can it be more effective next time?
So with these 6 steps, I hope all of us can become more effective in learning and retaining what we’d read. Try it out, and let me know how it works for you.
One thing I’ve noticed since I’ve started blogging is that I now view everything I learn through the lens of “how am I going to write about this on my blog.” When you learn with the idea of teaching someone else down the road it forces you to break the knowledge down, summarize and process. One of my best friends grew up in Malaysia and would go to the library with his family every weekend. Later that night, sitting around the dinner table, each member of the family would be asked to teach the rest of the family what they learned that day. This weekly ritually paid large dividends for my friend because he has developed an incredible way of processing information that serves him to this day.