Identifying and maximizing your learning strengths
Learning something new is all about getting your brain to do its job the way it wants to do its job. Don’t underestimate that three-pound hunk of gray matter—it truly has a mind of its own. So, stay focused as you read this chapter. Yes it’s about the brain, but I promise it’s not as hard as brain surgery.
To use any machine properly, it helps to know a little about it, which is why this chapter is worth your time. The brain is the most complex computer unknown to man, and scientists are constantly finding themselves baffled and amazed by this little organ. Weighing only three pounds, the brain controls all communications with your other body parts, as well as how your body communicates with other bodies. Basically, the brain affects absolutely everything about your life, which is kind of scary considering how relatively little we know about it. For the sake of time, we’ll save the lecture on The Amazing Brain for your psychology class and stick to understanding a little more about memory.
There are three basic categories for memory: Short-Term Memory, Working Memory, and Long-Term Memory. Short-Term Memory remembers seven bits of information (give or take a couple) for a few seconds. It’s the sort of memory you use when someone tells you their phone number and you remember it just long enough to get out a piece of paper and write it down. Working Memory is a more active version of Short-Term Memory, and because it is actively manipulating or thinking about the information, the brain is able to retain it a little longer. However, scientists are still debating how long Working Memory can retain information and how clearly it is distinguished from Long-Term Memory and yadda yadda (fill in the blank with heady psychology stuff). So, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll just group the two together under the heading “Short-Term Memory,” which serves our purposes here just fine, thank you very much. Long-Term Memory is what you’ll learn how to activate by reading this book. Essentially, Long-Term Memory stores information for as little as a few days up to decades. To get something into your Short-Term Memory, you need both Input and Output. For those of you Visual learners who need to see it to get it, here’s a formula:
Input + Output = Short-Term Memory
Input is quite simply putting something into your brain. Whether that is listening to a lecture, reading a book, or reviewing notes, Input is something outside of your head being put into your head. Output is even more exciting because you have so many creative choices at your disposal and it’s up to you to decide how to apply what you’ve learned. Output is important to the memory process because it takes what you put into your memory and does something with it, which tells your brain “pay attention, this is important stuff I’ll need later.”
This is not as complicated as it may sound. We look at thousands of pieces of information every day, making it, at times, difficult for our brains to know which information to keep and which to toss. Fortunately, that’s not for your brain to decide—otherwise you’d remember the license plate of a car you passed on the way to school this morning instead of the Civil War notes your teacher wrote on the board this afternoon. Not a plan for success. We have to give our brains cues to make it work for us.
We make a memory only when we use (or respond strongly to) information. By thinking about new information and then doing something active with it, you are essentially telling your brain that this new information is worth remembering. That “doing something” could be drawing charts, making a video, quizzing a friend, or a whole host of other creative possibilities that we’ll get to in chapter four. The bottom line is the more senses you involve in the learning process, the better your chances that you’ll remember what you studied.
All this is great for Short-Term Memory, but what if you want to impress someone under a starry sky by reciting the poems of Robert Frost? How do you get that into your Long-Term Memory (and is it painful)? Whether or not it’s painful depends on your point of view, but the good news is that it’s easy. It’s just review.
Input + Output + Review = Long-Term Memory
It only takes a few hours right before an exam to cram a lot of useless facts into your brain. (Let’s face it—if the facts were useful, would you be cramming? And, yes, I will teach you a few tips for successful cramming later on.) But, it doesn’t take much more effort to start studying earlier so you can review what you studied and actually (*gasp*!) learn something. You’ve heard the adage “practice makes perfect,” but do you know why that holds true?
Imagine a grassy lawn that is between someone’s driveway and front door. Rather than walk the long way down the path, around the sidewalk, and up the driveway, most people just cut through the grass to get to their car, right? The more times someone cuts through the grass, the flatter the grass becomes on that new pathway until, eventually, the grass dies back and there is a permanent dirt path. Of course, if no one walks on that path for six months the grass will grow back and begin to fill in the space again. That is pretty much how the brain works. Every time you review something, neurons fire repeat impulses in your brain making that pathway more permanent. Maybe we should really be saying “practice makes memory.”
Information travels between neurons—at its slowest—at a mere 260 mph, faster than the fastest race car: the Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron, which clocked at 253 mph. At least if you think fast you won’t get a speeding ticket.
What that means practically is that if, for the next couple weeks after your test, you review those poems by Robert Frost every few days and then review once a week for a few months thereafter, you’ll be on your way to genius—or at least Long-Term Memory. Of course, if after reviewing for those few months you never think of Robert Frost again, your ability to recall the poems will be a bit … grassy. The less you use a piece of information, the further back in your memory your brain will stuff it, and it may take quite a bit of effort to pull it out again.
Of course, there are some memorization tricks that discount the need to review as often. I mean, why else would you remember the lyrics to Mary Had a Little Lamb (a poem I assume you aren’t still reading nightly) but you probably can’t remember your locker combination from last year? It’s not like you are reviewing nursery rhymes on a regular basis, right? Later on in chapter four I’ll let you in on a few trade secrets that make memorizing easier. For now, make note that in order to memorize well you need to review, review, review.
Incessant note-taking is not quite what our minds had in mind when they signed on for this job. Everyone’s brain works differently, and each person has one or two learning strengths that trigger a whole mental warehouse of storage space. Your brain is desperately hoping you will discover yours so that learning will become a lot more fun and a lot less work.
The first step to making learning easier, then, is understanding what kind of learner you are. Before I launch into the different learning types, first take a moment to answer the following ten questions. Trust me, it’s really important that you answer the questions before reading the rest of the chapter, and they’re a no-brainer. I promise. Just circle the choice that seems the best possible answer for you, even though it may not be 100 percent all-the-time true for you. We’re aiming for the answer that shows how you would react most of the time, and if your perfect answer isn’t even listed, my apologies.… Just circle whatever is the next most likely answer.
The amount of energy the brain uses is enough to power a 25-watt lightbulb. See, you are bright!
1. You remember your new locker combination best when
a. you say it to yourself over and over again.
b. you stare at the paper it’s printed on and read it over and over again.
c. you practice unlocking your locker over and over again.
2. If you were trapped in a waiting room for half an hour, you would probably
a. read a magazine.
b. pace the room, drum on your knee with your fingers, or be active in some way.
c. listen to background Muzak piped into the waiting room and let your mind wander.
3. If you were trying to remember where you left your house key, you’d most likely
a. talk yourself through where you would have had it last.
b. visualize yourself using the key to open the door and then where you set it next.
c. walk through the house and retrace your steps.
4. To boost your confidence to ask that special someone to prom you might
a. go exercise to burn off your jitters and build up courage.
b. practice what you’d say aloud a few times to get comfortable with the words.
c. write out a list of all the reasons your special someone should say Yes, and what points you might need to make in order to prevent a No.
5. At the end of the term, you tend to remember most easily the work that you
a. copied into your notes by listening to the lecture.
b. read from the textbook.
c. developed into a model.
6. If you wanted to learn how to make a perfect Dairy Queen soft-serve ice cream cone (it’s harder than it looks!), you would probably first want to
a. watch someone else make a soft-serve ice cream cone.
b. try to make a soft-serve ice cream cone.
c. listen to someone explain how to make a soft-serve ice cream cone.
7. If you saw a hit-and-run accident and tried to remember the license plate, your first instinct might be to
a. talk yourself, and possibly someone else, through each step of what you saw until your memory becomes clearer.
b. close your eyes and reenact what you saw in your mind.
c. close your eyes and reenact what you felt at the time.
8. If you heard a new song you liked and wanted to learn the lyrics, you’d most likely
a. read them as you listen to the song.
b. sing them with the song while it plays, even if you bungle the words badly.
c. just listen to the song on repeat and try to memorize the lyrics as you hear them.
9. When your mom gives you instructions on how to take out the trash, you’re more likely to follow through with what she says if you
a. do it immediately.
b. look at the floor and just focus on what she’s saying.
c. look at her face while she talks.
10. If you could design the perfect study environment, it would most likely be
a. a comfortable temperature that enables you to stretch and move around.
b. somewhere that has meaningless but steady background noise.
c. absolutely silent and well lit.
The hardest part of this test, honestly, is adding up the totals correctly. Don’t just sum the a’s, b’s, and c’s. First, divide them like you see below and put the proper number of checks into each box.
Questions
1, 3, 5, 7:
| a = Auditory | b = Visual | c = Kinesthetic | |
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Questions
2, 6, 8:
| a = Visual | b = Kinesthetic | c = Auditory | |
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Questions
4, 9, 10:
| a = Kinesthetic | b = Auditory | c = Visual | |
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Totals: ______ Auditory ______ Visual _______ Kinesthetic
If you don’t fit neatly into one category, don’t sweat it. Most people are a combination of two learning strengths. Your top score will show a tendency in your learning style, and if your top two scores are close in number it means you have two strengths to work with when learning something new. Lucky you. Even if you are evenly spread across all three groups, your school counselor will have a more in-depth test you can take to narrow things down.
Learning strengths, also called learning modes or learning styles, tend to be divided into three primary types: Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic. (There are even more complex ways to categorize learning strengths using other methods, but for now we’re sticking with the basics.)
Your score above will land you in one or two of the following categories, the descriptions of which should sound familiar. However, even if you scored highest in Kinesthetic, it doesn’t mean that the entire Kinesthetic description will apply.
So, then, what’s the point? The point is to locate where you have your greatest strengths so that when it comes time to learn something new you can work with those strengths instead of against them. It’s part of that study smarter, not harder idea. The easier it is for your brain to learn the material, the quicker you can get your studying finished and the stronger your grades will be. When we get to study tips in chapter four, I’ll make suggestions according to your learning strengths.
AUDITORY learners tend to do well in a traditional classroom setting because they naturally understand most of the instructions or information they hear from the teacher. (That doesn’t necessarily mean Auditory learners will remember that new information, just that it’s easier to understand it if someone explains it to them.) If you’re an Auditory learner, you may remember people’s names just from hearing them the first time or two, you might remember something better if you’ve said it back aloud to yourself a couple times, perhaps you hum or talk while you work, or you might be able to work well despite noise in the background if it is the type of noise you like.
VISUAL learners also tend to do well in a traditional classroom setting because they just need to see it to get it. They learn best with diagrams, charts, pictures, and written directions. If you’re a Visual learner, you may like having your To Do list written down, you might be concerned that your notes appear neat on the page, you might remember people’s names better if you’ve seen them written on a name tag or paper at some point, and you may even be great at scheduling things in advance. Perhaps you close your eyes when you need to remember something in order to visualize it first, or you need a quiet place when it comes time to study to help you concentrate.
KINESTHETIC learners, unlike the other two, tend to dislike the traditional classroom setting. In fact, the idea of desks in a row and taking notes just about makes them gag. What these students need is hands-on learning, such as performing science experiments, building models, acting in plays, or creating something with glue and toothpicks. If you’re a Kinesthetic learner you might understand directions better if you visualize yourself performing them instead of just reading them. Whether or not you mean to, you might tap, draw, or tinker when you’re bored, or use gestures when you speak, or remember conversations based on how and where someone was standing at the time.
Whatever your score, it might interest you to know that about 20 to 30 percent of students are Auditory, 40 percent are Visual, and 20 to 30 percent are Kinesthetic. There are no oddballs when it comes to learning strengths, though traditional schools may make Kinesthetic learners feel that way. In fact, researchers believe that some people who have been diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder have been incorrectly labeled. It turns out that they are simply Kinesthetic learners whose needs aren’t being met in a traditional setting, making them frustrated. Having said that, let me be perfectly clear: the Kinesthetic learning style is NOT a learning disability—it’s a skill.
The second step to making learning easier (and opening up that whole mental warehouse of storage space we talked about earlier) is knowing a few things about how your brain stores information. There have been enough reams printed on the subject to fell a whole rain forest, so I’ll be brief (otherwise the Kinesthetic folks might start drawing frowny faces in the margins).
Brains like patterns!
Simple enough. Our brains learn best when what we’re trying to learn is arranged into groups. (Hence this book has been organized into chapters and sections.) Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly organizing our life into groups: finishing the easy homework first … remembering (or, more likely, saving on speed dial) telephone numbers of people according to how much we like to talk with them … categorizing our mothers’ friends as those with hairstyles trapped in the last century and those we wouldn’t mind being seen with in public … you get the idea.
In other words, the fastest way to help your brain learn something is to help it see patterns by first organizing the information into groups. So, if you’re memorizing verbs for your Italian class, first separate them into regular and irregular verbs. Then, within those two categories, group them according to the type of job they describe or by what they have in common. This means putting all of the regular verbs that have to do with noise in one group (such as to sing, to speak, to scream, to honk) and all the regular verbs that have to do with, oh, let’s say an adrenaline rush in another group (such as to jump, to skydive, to scuba). Heck, you can even doodle next to each verb if you’re a Visual or Kinesthetic learner to help you remember. Regardless of the doodles, seeing those actions grouped together will help you remember which verbs are regular and which are irregular and therefore how to conjugate them to suit your needs, and that will come in handy when you meet the stylish foreign exchange student at school and want to conjugate to go to the movies on the quick.
The same holds true for memorizing math functions. Just ask yourself what the functions do, group them accordingly, and, most importantly, study them in those groups. What about English vocabulary? Historical themes? Chemical compounds? Yes, they can all be organized into some sort of group or pattern.
As well as organizational patterns, our brains learn especially well when there is some sort of emotion involved. So, feel free to organize your chemical compounds into groups of things that smell disgusting or things I’d like to light on fire or things I’m worried may blow up in my face—your brain is sure to remember. It may require some creativity on your part to find patterns in what you’re learning, but that sort of active studying is exactly the kind of Output your brain needs in order to recognize that this is information you want to keep.
At the end of every chapter, I’ll model good review practices by summarizing what you just learned. This is a bonus for you on two fronts. First, you get to see a few different examples of what summary notes might look like so you can do it with your class work at school. Second, I do your work for you so you can remember the key points from this book. (You can thank me later.)
1. The long and short of it is that our brains have both Long- and Short-Term Memories—the longer we review it the longer it’s stored.
2. What’s your strength, baby?
3. Characteristics of learning strengths
4. Making memorizing easier
THE UNPERFECTED PERFECTIONIST
