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How To Learn A New Skill And Make It Stick
Whether you are in school, preparing for a new job, building a career, or just living your life, learning new skills is a way to grow and improve the outcomes.
The problem is that learning can be hard, especially the way it is often presented to school-age children. This is starting to change, but too many teachers attempt to drill information into young brains by force, encouraging rote memorization.
It technically works; repeating something enough times will help you remember it longer. There are mnemonic devices to help with certain things (songs, rhymes, acronyms, etc.), but you still have to remember the mnemonics themselves!
I think there’s a better way.
Active Recall and The Protege Effect
I’m not a neuroscientist, but I have read a lot about the science of learning and the key to understanding effective learning is to remember that the brain stores and organizes information by connecting neurons to each other. Whether that information is a personal memory or a formula learned in math class, it relies on strengthening connections between neurons.
We can’t control exactly how information is encoded into our brains, but we can create a learning situation that supports stronger (and more) connections between ideas.
