5 Learning techniques you should know
When it comes to learning, I always had mixed results in the past. While I was able to memorize a lot of stuff for a short amount of time, I often had to look up several topics again and again once I hadn’t used them in a while. Additionally, I thought that I was now at an age where learning naturally gets harder (turns out, I was wrong!). Ultimately, I decided to take the Coursera online course “Learn How to Learn” as I am participating in a (paid) online class about iOS development, which will be crucial for my career growth.
In this post, I will write about my top five learning techniques that I learned from the Coursera course and that I hope will help me get the most out of my online course on iOS development. Let’s dive in.
Use Focus and Diffuse Modes of Your Brain
The human brain has two modes: the focus mode, which allows us to work on highly complex topics—but just for a short amount of time. Every so often, you will reach a point where you can’t go any further (I already know this from programming). What helps in this case is to put your brain in diffuse mode, where it has only light activity, and your subconscious mind can take over and work on the problem on its own. For example, I go out for a walk when I can’t move forward with complex programming problems. More often than not, I find a solution during these walks. Another great time for this to happen is during a run or in the shower. Sometimes, even watching intellectually low-cost TV series can help (that’s what I love Star Trek: Lower Decks for!).
Chunk Learning Topics Whenever You Can
Another great technique is to break down your learning problems into smaller pieces. For this to be effective, you need to ensure you have a solid basic understanding of the topic you’re learning. A good way to achieve this is to watch a lecture and take notes. Once the lecture is over, try to divide your notes into small groups of information. If you have a hard time doing this, you should watch the lecture again and take more notes. You will improve over time, but in the beginning, you may have to rewatch lectures to get chunking right. Over time, you will be able to form small chunks and even groups of chunks (which are themselves chunks) that will help you better memorize the topics you are learning.
The Good Old Pomodoro Technique
As I already mentioned above, our brain is not able to focus for long periods. In fact, the opposite is true—our brain welcomes any distraction! When we give in to distractions, our brain rewards us with a cocktail of feel-good hormones. However, we can use this to our advantage—with the help of the Pomodoro Technique! This technique is as simple as it is genius, if you ask me. You set a timer for 25 minutes to work on a topic (or a chunk). Turn off all sources of distraction (like your smartphone notifications) and focus solely on your learning. Before you start, decide on a reward for yourself (for example, five minutes of social media or a coffee break). This will put your brain in focus mode, and you will stay motivated throughout your lesson (or even the entire day) as you earn small rewards between Pomodoro sessions.
Self-Testing (Recalling)
Our brain needs repeated exposure to new knowledge for it to be stored in long-term memory. Because of this, it is really important to test yourself often. Flashcards (or flashcard apps) can be extremely helpful. When creating flashcards, you are already testing yourself by recalling the information from memory. Of course, you should verify that your recall is accurate. Use every opportunity to go through your flashcards—even just five minutes a day will make a difference!
Eat Your Frog First!
What does that mean? It’s pretty simple — tackle your hardest lesson first (if possible). Use all the techniques mentioned above to get the most challenging task done first. This will keep you motivated throughout the day and help train your brain in applying the learning techniques (because you’ll need them to get through it!). That’s really all there is to it.
Conclusion
As you can see, we have a bunch of tools at our disposal to make learning easier. I am actually glad that I already use some of these techniques in my day job, so I am familiar with how they work. By applying them more consciously in the future, I am confident that I will be able to learn more effectively and sustainably than I have in the past. I hope some of you find these techniques as helpful as I do!
Just one last thing: If you are serious about learning, I highly recommend taking the course on Coursera - it will be worth every minute you invest in it.
Disclaimer: The title image is generated with AI (ChatGPT 4o)