The Arewa Data Science fellowship that I am currently enrolled in required that we complete Barbara Oakley’s and Terrence Sejnowski’s MOOC (massive open online course) on coursera, ‘Learning How to Learn’, as part of the curriculum in the first stage of the fellowship. The fellowship intends to make us efficient learners as we prepare to learn increasingly complex concepts in machine learning and deep learning.I recently completed the course and I found it necessary to share some of the techniques that I have implemented to boost my learning efficiency.
The most important and impactful thing is making a good plan. Journaling my learning journey and taking note of techniques that worked and those that did not work out so well for me has helped me hone in on the most efficient techniques I can use. A part of my planning includes making sure that I have a good environment for learning, free of distractions. And after that, adopt the pomodoro technique to ensure that I am completely focussed and make the best use of my learning time. All these are documented as I have found that documentation is an effective way of tracking progress.
Here are some advices I have for improving learning efficiency: 1. Chunking: Always breakdown the material and ensure that you have dialled down to the main gist. This will improve recall even after a long time 2. Interleaving: I find interleaving better than blocked practice. In interleaving, one tries to mix up different subject materials to prevent boredom whereas blocked practice focuses on completely understanding a subject material in one sitting preferably. Here, I mean allocating sufficient time for different subject materials in a sitting. Interleaving works best for me and I recommend it. 3. Use those flashcards: Memory aids are important in retaining information and I advise that you try some techniques out and settle on the ones that work best for your learning style. 4. Make handwritten notes: Writing helps in consolidating the information in the brain and it is a good way of improving recall and understanding of study material. 5. Spaced repetition: This is far better than trying to ‘conclude’ the learning in one sitting. One can be tempted to read a chapter or topic multiple times in one sitting with no plans of ever revisiting the chapter. This does not work. It is far more effective to plan repeat readings ahead of time. Reading the chapter in different sittings is a more effective way to learn according to the course.
In conclusion, the most important step is to have a plan and the next thing is to implement while documenting and iterating. Clever hardwork leads to success.