Triggering Neurons

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but the way you learn something is not by forming new physical connections in the brain. Learning is done by reinforcing connections that are already there. Reinforcement happens when you associate one thing with another, and the brain fires "electric currents" through those neurons. So every time you think of something, you reinforce it. That makes perfect sense when you actually think about how people learn -- they usually have to go over things many times. Anyway, here is an interesting article on when happens to the surrounding neurons when you activate one. Keeping Up With The Neurons Surprisingly, those surrounding guys fire too. This goes to show you that it is a good thing to warm up or get in the mood to do something before starting to do it. You will learn better when you get the neurons associated with it fired up first. Also, every time you think about something, you are helping yourself in the learning process. So don't completely take breaks over school breaks -- it will be a horrible waste. Do something fun, but make sure you take some time to think or do something fun relating to your subject.

Confidence is Important

If there is one thing that I've learned from playing tennis, it's that confidence is one of the most important aspects to performing well. You have to trust that what are doing is correct, and then do it. There are many learning and memory studies that address this, and in that context the advice would be: when frustrated, do problems you know how to do. This could simply meaning going back and resolving stuff you've already done. The process solidifies your knowledge and reviews things you've previously done. That, and we've seen in the creativity section that difficult problems work themselves out by focusing on something else first. The act if solving something else could spark what you need in the current problem.

There is more to it than just this stuff. Confidence in your abilities play a big role on tests and performance in general. I find that anyone who can start a math proof can also finish it. Even I fall into the trap of trying to see the whole proof before writing anything down. I am completely unable to solve the problem when I try to do that. If I start writing down what I know, the rest usually just follows easily. Doing problems you know you can do will help build confidence and keep you on track, realizing that you can actually accomplish things in this field. Just take it one step at a time.

Creativity

A while ago, I discussed some of the characteristics of someone high in need for achievement. Those 4 things were fairly straightforward to understand why.
(1) If the risk is too high, probably won't achieve anything; too low and you don't achieve enough.
(2) Feedback is extremely useful in learning (as we will eventually discuss!) and improving at what you are doing.
(3) Personal control and direct responsibility: people who need to achieve things (or at least feel they do) must be the ones achieving things! Maybe I'll get around to talking about need for power -- people high in need for power delegate to accomplish things rather than being directly in control. The responsibility part puts a fear of failure into the achiever which creates more motivation to do things.
(4) Research and experts gives the achiever a tremendous advantage in what they do. They want things done well and right and fast.

Today I want to talk about creativity. This is based off of Eliot Hutchinson's How To Think Creatively. There are four stages to attaining creative insight. Creative insight is that spark of genius that makes people go 'wow'. Given a problem with no known solution, creative insight is the thing that solves it. Let me explain:

(1) Stage of Preparation:
Superabundance of hypotheses -- you just have hundreds of ideas and false starts. Creative people tend to have the trouble of sorting through their ideas to find the best ones, rather than a lack of ideas.
Logical attack of the problem using every known method -- no matter what you try, nothing will work.
Resort to trial and error -- before creative insight, you usually end up doing useless repetition.

(2) Stage of Frustration
Melancholy, anxiety, possible breakdown of the personality, feelings of inferiority. Creative people are tormented by their problems until the problems get solved. There is regression, solace in fantasy, negativistic attitude, stubbornness, negligence in personal habits.
Hutchinson recommends that if you find yourself in this stage, consciously renounce the problem you are working on. Because eventually there is:

(3) Stage of Achievement
Often times this is brought on by an accidental stimulus. There are countless stories about how famous scientists came up with their big insight in a dream, or watching an opera, or something completely and utterly random. Theories speculate that our subconscious works on our problems when we are not focusing on it -- but this is still far from being proven (we know unconscious thought exists, but how intelligent is it?).

(4) Stage of Verification
This is the hardest part! It requires a shift in mental attitude. We are often unable to see the faults in our own reasoning and creations -- perhaps it isn't such a miraculous discovery after all. An example of this is the tires that caused SUVs to roll over a couple of years back (there was a massive recall). The new design was so revolutionary that the engineers could find no fault in it. Don't get lost in your own glory only to find that it kills people.

Soon, I will go into the characteristics of creative people. Then I will try to get back on track with the efficient learning habits.

A Common Problem

One thing I notice quite frequently in students is that they are unwilling to put significant individual effort into problems. When solution manuals are available, my suggestion is to not even get one. The act of checking answers and discussing discrepancies with another human leads to much greater insight and understanding of the subject matter than checking the answer in a book. If you must get a solution manual, seriously attempt problems before looking at the answer. I have a feeling that many people learn some things well enough to pass a test when they study or do homework with the solution manual open right in front of them, but they do not pick up any new skills or retain the information. The act of putting the mental strain on a certain type of problem helps it stick in your memory, plus if you do solve it on your own, you are learning crucial problem solving skills. What happens in the future when you must solve problems that do not have a predefined answer? You must rely on the problem solving skills you have trained yourself in. I do admit needing help on problems though. I know this is inevitable in everyone's college career and in life, but whatever trick or technique is necessary to solve your problem you will remember much better in the future after having struggled with it. Don't fall for the temptation to save some time now because it will inevitably cause much greater wasted time in the future.

Notice, I am not saying feedback is unimportant. In fact, it is quite important, and I will get into that at a later date. I'm only saying that there is a lot to learn in the struggle. To support this, I will cite Eliot Hutchinson in his book "How to Think Creatively." He states that once you reach that stage of frustration where you've tried everything you know, just stop. Do something else, take a break, do another problem, anything to get your mind off of it. When you return to the problem, your subconscious will have continued working, and this is when you achieve "creative insight." There are countless stories throughout history of Nobel Prize winners and such who claim this is precisely how they came up with their big idea that brought them fame. Looking at the solution manual during this stage of frustration would thus stifle this creative process and you are no longer learning how to do this. You are in fact teaching yourself how not to think creatively. And thinking creatively is necessary in even the most rigorous and strict disciplines.

Order Matters

When studying, it has been shown that you will retain what you start with and what you end with much better than the stuff in the middle. So, practice in a random order. I say practice because, what if you are learning how to play an instrument? If you always start with the same scales, you will certainly learn the first scale better than the rest. You will also learn scales better than whatever else you practice, since you begin to fatigue after a some amount of practice. Rotate the order in which you practice things, and you will learn the material rather than the order the material is presented. The same goes for subjects in school and for problems within the subjects.

Time Allocation

The biggest secret of all is how to allocate your time. It's not actually a secret, but not very many people use this technique. This is well studied, and the results come out the way they do for many different reasons. Let me just emphasize here that this one thing will greatly increase your efficiency of learning and retention.

First, let me explain. Study in small chunks spaced far apart. The best way to understand what this means and why it works is to exaggerate an example. Suppose you studied something 5 times in one minute. This is like studying only once. The extra 4 times do not add much, if anything, in the course of a day or week or month. If those 5 times were spaced throughout the day, it would be like seeing it fresh 5 times, and becoming reacquainted with it 5 times.

At first, this seems like it would require spending more time studying and working rather than less, but the truth is that it actually saves a lot of time! Not only do you learn faster, but you will retain it a lot longer. The same is true for practicing some skill. You will acquire the skill much faster if you spend an hour in the morning, an hour in the day, and an hour in the night rather than a 3 hour block in the day. In fact, after a certain point, you are almost just wasting your time. You have less focus, you are tired, you've been seeing the same thing over and over again, etc. Doing something else for a couple of hours will refresh your desire, energy, and focus for that one particular thing you were doing. And we'll soon learn that any mistakes you make are being learned, and they are only countering your efforts.

New habits are incredibly hard to form, and this one seems to be unusually resistant for people. There is something about needing to spend multiple times a day doing something that gives people a mental block. Do the research if you have to convince yourself it is worth it; this topic is usually classified as "spaced vs. massed practice."