Most Efficient Learning

So in Anderson's Learning and Memory, there is a study about baseball coaches teaching batters. They try giving instant feedback after every single pitch and feedback after every seven pitches. Apparently knowing what you did wrong after every pitch is counter productive and less effective than learning what was wrong every seven pitches. This has consequences for teachers more than students. Students will learn how they learn, but teachers must be wary of correcting every single little thing. The student won't learn as quickly or effectively if told what they did wrong on every trial. You must let them make their mistakes many times before correcting it. The reason is because usually the student knows they are making the mistake, but it takes some time to fix it. Whereas a mistake that occurs over and over again is probably unnoticed and readily fixed by an outside observer.

Set Low Goals

First of all, the easy thing for me to say is that you have to choose something that you are going to be intrinsically motivated about. Something you care about so much that no one has to tell you to get up and do it. Of course, that isn't going to happen realistically most of the time. Still, the studies show that intrinsic motivation is necessary for a higher level of proficiency -- this means that you do it because YOU want to, not because you will get money, or fame, or praise, or recognition, or sex, etc. And believe me, money is a big motivator at Clarkson, but it's still extrinsic which is worse than intrinsic (in my opinion the reason why grades are not as good as at other schools).

Now to address how to get motivated when it isn't automatic. The key here is to set your goals low. It sounds weird at first, but let me explain before you jump to conclusions. Setting high goals is an excuse to fail. The mentality is: "It was too hard, no one could have done it, so it's okay that I didn't." There's more though. Low goals everyday builds confidence that you are accomplishing something. When you feel like you are achieving results, you are more likely to keep trying for more results. With a high goal somewhere in the future, it doesn't feel like you are making progress. But here's the thing, with gains everyday, you are building up more and more, and eventually you achieve more than if you had set a large goal from the beginning. Let me provide a simple example. Let's say you want to write a story this semester. If you think about the whole story, it's hard to sit down and try to write it. There's too much to do. But if you write just 3 sentences everyday, then that seems reasonable. Who can't write three sentences a day? But times 7 days a week, times 15 weeks. You get 315 sentences, which is a decent length story if it is your first time (and you'll probably do more, since 3 is so easy). Or if you want to study more. When you want to play a video game, just say: "No, I'll play in 10 minutes." Studying for 10 minutes every day gives you over an hour of extra studying a week -- and it's so easy! (This also gives 17.5 extra hours of studying a semester). Another part to the low goals, is to only focus on one skill you want to improve. Don't say "I'm going to do this, this, this, and this," because you most likely won't do any of them. I want people to pick one thing, and go to it.

Now there's lots of evidence that this strategy works. Most Nobel Prize winners are what's called "High in Need for Achievement." Strangely, these people set low-to-medium goals, and consistently achieve them. By doing this, they end up achieving much more than any normal person who would set high expectations for themselves. In fact, one of the best convocation speeches Clarkson has ever had (I wish I remember the person's name), was from someone like this. They ended by telling the students not to reach for the stars, but to just reach for the low-hanging fruit. It was so inspiring and true, that they got a standing ovation.