It’s an unfortunate truth that written instructions are generally considered to be the least efficient. Many of the parts of the brain and body that you want to train or educate aren’t the parts that process language. Remember from our brain discussion that the portion of your brain that processes language is relatively small. The entire rest of your brain and body doesn’t do language.
Written instruction is the least efficient.
As a result, it seems that we learn best from observation. We are natural mimics, and the best, most effective way to learn is by observing and mimicking someone else. We’ll look at this phenomenon again a little later, but in the meantime, we have a bit of a problem.
Right now, you are reading this book. Over the course of your lifetime, you’ve probably read a lot more books than you have attended seminars or lectures. But reading is the least effective means of learning, compared to any sort of experiential learning.
One way to make reading more effective is to approach it a little more deliberately than just picking up a book and plowing ahead. There are a number of popular techniques in use; we will look at one in detail here, but this is just one of many that work along similar lines.
This technique of studying a book or other printed matter is known as SQ3R; that’s an acronym for the steps you need to take.[106]
The first helpful aspect of this technique is that it is deliberate. Instead of randomly picking up a book, reading it, and maybe or maybe not remembering much of it, this is a much more thoughtful, conscious, and aware approach.
To begin with, you survey the work in question. Look over the table of contents, chapter introductions and summaries, and any other high-level landmarks the author has left for you.
You want to get a good overview of the book without delving into any details just yet.
Next, write down any questions you want answered. How does this technology solve this problem? Will I learn how to do this one thing, or will this point to another source? Rephrase the chapter and section heads as questions; these are all questions that you expect the book will answer.
Now you can read the book in its entirety. If you can, carry the book with you so you can get some reading time squeezed in while waiting for a meeting or appointment, while on a train or airplane, or wherever you may find yourself with a little spare time. Slow down on the difficult parts, and reread sections as needed if the material isn’t clear.
As you go along, recite, recall, and rephrase the most important bits from the book in your own words. What were the key points? Take some initial notes on these ideas. Invent acronyms to help you remember lists and such. Really play with the information; use your R-mode, synesthetic[107] constructs and more. What would this topic look like as a movie? A cartoon?
Finally, begin to review the material. Reread portions as necessary, and expand on your notes as you rediscover interesting parts (we’ll look at an excellent method of taking this style of notes in Visualize Insight with Mind Maps).
For example, suppose I’m reading a book on a new programming language—D, Erlang, or Ruby, for example. I’ll flip through the table of contents and see where the book is going. Ah, an introduction to some syntax, a few toy projects, advanced features that I’m not interested in yet. Hmm. Is it single or multiple inheritance or mixins? I wonder what iterators look like in this language? How do you create and manage packages or modules? What’s the runtime performance like? Next comes the reading itself—in large doses when I can, in small doses if needed.
Next comes recite/rephrase. It’s easy to fool yourself and think, “Oh sure, I remember all of that.” But it’s not that easy (see the sidebar Test-Driven Learning).
Try to use the information from the book: try to write a program in that language from scratch (different from any of the exercises or toy programs in the book itself). Hmm. Now how did that work again? Time to review that section or two. I’ll make some notes on common bits that I know I’ll have to refer to again and maybe put some sticky note flags on key tables or figures or a quick doodle on the whiteboard to help me remember what’s where. Now is a good time to talk it over with friends or participate in mailing list discussions.
| Recipe 29 | Read deliberately. |
Does this flow of events sound at all familiar? I think it clearly echoes the R-mode to L-mode shift. Like the rock-climbing experience, this starts with a holistic, shallow, but wide survey; narrows down to traditional L-mode activities; and broadens out with multisensory exposure (discussion, notes, pictures, metaphors, and so on).
It may be that the “normal” notes you’ve probably always taken are pretty tame, in terms of brain stimulus. Fortunately, a great technique can help with that and take average, boring note-taking and exploratory thinking up to a whole new level.
You need more than notes; you need a mind map.