General Summary
What to do everyday
- Pomodoro
- Before sleep, recap + prepared Daily TO-DO with a specfic ddl (8.00pm for example)
- When you wake up, work on the most important and most disliked task first, at least one Pomodoro
What to do (general)
Ask questions (engaged in) during some disliked activities, e.g. boring lecture.
have a big picture. (For example, pre-view the chapter headings and figures before class)
What not to do
- do not cram one time, learn by spaced repetition
- do not worry about your product, which may discourage you and make you procrastinated
Week 1
Diffuse: Let the thinking flies by taking a showering, exercise …. When you are trying to propose new ideas, a diffuse mode is better.
Sleep: New synapses are built.
Reason. for Procrastination
- feel unhappy
- switch to a more plesant task
- feel happy temperarily
Solution: Pomodoro(番茄工作法): 25 minutes without internetrruption + a few minutes awards (diffuse mode)
Practice for permanent
Math symbol is abstract, making it difficult to remeber and understand. However, we can remeber some abstarct symbols (like emotion). The reason is practice.
Memory
Working memory(short term memory)：stored in an ineffecient blackboard
Long term memory: stored in an immense warehouse (need to repeat at lease a few times)
spaced repetition: better than practcing one thing for multiple times ONE DAY. （leave time for mortar 砂浆 to dry)
Sleep
- remove toxins when sleeping.
- strength something important to learn
- When you are sleeping, It’s as if the complete deactivation of the conscious you in the prefrontal cortex at the forefront of your brain helps other areas of your brain start talking more easily to one another, allowing them to put together the neural solution to your learning task while you’re sleeping. (diffuse mode) -> focused mode learn before sleeping
Others
How to concertarte in something you dislike, e.g. a boring lecture?
A: Ask questions. Because you learn more when you are engaged in something.
Enriched enviorment is going to help you learning better. In the un-enriched enviorment, exercise will also help you.(new neurons are born ) : use your muscles rather than brain.
Second week chuncks
Chuncks: compact packages of information that your mind can easily access
In you foucs mode, you generate chuncks.
How to form a chunk?
- First build some small mini chuncks (small music passages)
- And then merge them together to form a chunk (john passages together to play a song)
In math&science, we learn some sample problems with worked out solutions.
Other important things:
- Docused attention
- understand the basic idea
- understand solutions to basic questions are not enough (you should be able to do it by YOURSELF)
- You should have a big picture. (For example, pre-view the chapter headings and figures before class), so that you know when and which chuncks and constructed/used, and how chuncks are connected to each other.
Illusions of Competence
Try to remeber a piece of material?
BAD: re-read (re-study); Many underlining and highlighting
GOOD: recall->re-read(re-study)->recall; (in some sense linke test); recall when outside your usual study place.
More advaced study(after you know basic ideas): concept mapping
Week 3: Procrastination
Willpower is not easy. Do not waste willpower on fending off procrastination except when necessary.
Habits
Four parts:
- Cue（信号，也有皱眉的意思）not neither helpful nor harmful. It is our routine that matters.
- Routine (Zombie mode)
- Reward
- Belief
Procastination is a simple habit that follows the four steps above
Process vs. Product
- To avoid procrastination, concentrate on process instead of product.
- Process relates to simple habits that coincidentally allow you to do unpleasant task
For example, a hard homework
- avoid focusing on the product: the answers to the questions
- Focus on doing a Pomodoro (番茄工作法), a 25-minutes work session
How to overcome pricastination
- Plan:
- develop a new ritual（仪式）, e.g. leave your phone in the car when attending class. May not work perfectly a first.
- Weekly list + daily TODO list with a quitting time (write this before you go to sleep)
- Work on the most important and most disliked task first, at least one Pomodoro
- Reward
- believe your system will work
Week 4: How to Become a Better Learner
- exercise
- metaphor or analogy
- Change your thoughts and admit the mistake
- work with other person to avoid blind spot (but should not be a socialization group)
- For test:
- start hard, jump to easy
- this test makes me afraid -> this test makes me determined to do my best!