Learning Is Not Really What You Thought...

When I am trying to learn something, such as new material, I take notes, study in the same area, and focus on one topic for plenty of hours. According to Robert Bjork, professor of psychology, this is actually the wrong way to learn. I read this article and it caught my attention. All my methods for preparing myself for a test are not the most efficient . When I study, I like to focus on one specific topic area. I will not change topics until I become proficient in that area. In retrospect I am actually wasting my time because I won't fully absorb all the information. It is better to do smaller segments of each topic. Mr.Bjork talks about interleaving, when you are learning to do something, you want to interleave certain topics that are a like together. You do not want to change to a completely different topic.  “People tend to think that learning is building up something in your memory, and that forgetting is losing the things you built. But in some respects the opposite is true," Mr Bjork is correct about this, if you remind me of something I learned already, I will pick it up reasonably fast, but if you tell me to learn something new, it will take longer to absorb. 


I am going to try the new techniques that I learned from this article. I will space out my studying and actually study in different areas. The way that I have been studying now works fairly decent for me, but I want to try and improve and see if it helps. I am looking forward to spacing out my studying and not devoting hours upon hours on one subject.