Learning How to Learn: Impressions

I finished the August session of the Learning How to Learn (LH2L) course on Coursera and would like to share my impressions with the community and give some tips and caution.

The postulated goal of the course is to talk about effective teaching methods. Including self-education.

The course took place from August 1 to September 1. The lecturers are Barbara Oakley (the vast majority of the records) and Terence Sejnowski (appeared occasionally). An optional A Mind for Numbers textbook was attached to the course, which the authors diligently advertised.
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Course content:

• Week 1. The brain has two main modes of operation: diffuse and focused mode . Focused mode is enabled when concentrating on the task and following the algorithm. Diffuse mode is responsible for relaxed thinking in the background. To maintain focused mode for a long time, you can use the Pomodoro method: alternate periods of maximum concentration without distracting factors lasting about 25 minutes with short breaks. To maintain diffuse mode, you can use the Salvador Dali / Thomas Edison method : keep yourself on the verge of sleep, sitting in a quiet place with something like a bunch of keys in your hand (falling asleep, you drop them and wake up from the noise). Repetition is important. Sleep badly. Exercise is good.
• Week 2. Crashing the information under study into neat bricks like OOP is called chunking . To form a chunk, you need to concentrate on the idea, understand it and practice with it. Chunks can be generated from top to bottom, starting with the big picture and working through the details, or bottom up, starting with the big details and creating the big picture. Ideally, both processes should be used. Constant self-checking is required. The simplest thing is to pause after learning something new and recreate the picture of what you studied in your head. It is worth complementing this exercise. It is necessary to avoid unnecessary repetition of already familiar things ( overlearning , except when it is necessary to learn how to do something on the machine) and instead engage in problematic (deliberate practice) , trying different approaches (interleaving) . The automatism developed in solving one problem may prevent one from solving another ( einstellung ).
• Week 3. Everyone suffers from procrastination . According to the mechanism, it is similar to taking drugs: the brain prefers quick enjoyment (Facebook, Twitter, pictures with kittens, dose) to long (learning new, money for work, healthy life). Procrastination begins with a trigger (incoming message, a link to a tweet), consists of performing automatic actions (answer, read, see) and is supported by a reward (pleasant communication, interesting news, a funny picture). To overcome it, you need to break the link between the trigger and the actions behind it. Additionally, you can reduce its action, focusing not on getting a result from work , but on anticipating the process of its implementation .
  To memorize anything, it is useful to use visual images and metaphors, connecting as many sense organs as possible. The human brain is well adapted to handling a position in space. The Mind Palace method is based on this. The easiest option: remember a set of weakly related things (such as a shopping list) as a route in a familiar place between fixed points, each of which is associated with some object.
• Week 4. Impostor syndrome is actually a common problem. Seminars with discussions of the material under study are useful if participants prepare for them, start on time and follow the plan, without slipping into joint gatherings. Then followed tips on how to pass exams. It was completely uninteresting to me, and I missed the final part of LH2L.

That's basically it. A month with a margin is placed on one page.
In addition to video lectures, in the course were:

• Interview. At the end of each week, one or more. The most interesting thing for me was Scott Young : among other things, this man completed the four-year MIT computer science program in one year.
• Quizzes. One for each week + final exam. I left a strange impression from them: some questions were formulated in such a way that incorrect answers were eliminated by the keywords in them ( as mentioned in the videos , as the videos specifically mentioned ). A few questions were on insignificant details from the lectures that could not be guessed, either using common sense or additional sources ( was the slippery skin of an octopus a metaphor for how easy it was to forget something? ). In general, as it seemed to me, the tests were useless, as they did not force to think, but, rather, checked the diligent memorization of lectures.
• Peer assignments. Two pieces. The most interesting part of the course. The first implied an essay on the topic: who you are, what you want to achieve, what the greatest difficulties are, what methods or scientific studies relate to your problems, how you are going to apply them . Writing a detailed text in this spirit perfectly arranges the head. The second was a free-form task on an almost free topic: help others overcome their problems with the learning process. It was possible to make a presentation, video, sing from a stool, whatever. I decided to write another text in the spirit of the progress report: at that time, most of the course seemed absolutely obvious to me, but a couple of points were quite interesting. About them later.
• Optional reading. A huge list of references. No, seriously, huge . I have no idea how to navigate in it. While I read the part about memory and memorization.

The most interesting part of the course for me personally was the story about Mind Palace (which immediately reminded me of the BBC Sherlock). This is what I said a little higher. But there is a subtle point: LH2L suggests using Mind Palace, remembering not routes between locations, but the entire Palace as a whole. Accordingly, not separate lists are stored there, but simply information, without reference to the lists. In addition, more details in the course were not mentioned. It's a pity.

It was unexpected to find out that such a simple technique as the Pomodoro has been given a separate name. I try to implement it through Workrave , but it is not well suited for such a task.

Should you personally take this course? The next session will be held in October. If the choice is between going through and not doing anything, I would recommend the first. But if there is a desire to spend time searching and studying more concise and informative sources of information , then it is not worth it. However, LH2L has one important advantage: the course makes you remember, again and again, that much can still be optimized. And this is an important part of moving from a dead point.