
To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test - bootload
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html?hp
======
ionfish
Here's one example of this kind of phenomenon. If you really want to
understand a question, write a paper about it. It's easy enough to read five
or ten research papers in an area, and if you do that thoroughly, and write
extensive notes as you do so, you'll start to feel that you understand the
area and the issues involved.

However, if the way you learn is much like mine, when you try to start writing
you will realise that you haven't grasped it with anything like the fullness
that you had thought. Start writing anyway: you have a bibliography, and
hopefully you have a rough idea of the thesis you want to defend. Write the
literature review sections. Sketch outlines of arguments, and then try to take
them apart. Find counterexamples. If your position has any merit, you will
eventually figure out some convincing arguments. Flesh them out: write a first
draft, as rough as you like. Improve it by smoothing out poor phrasing and
removing extravagant, unsupported claims (it may only be obvious once you've
written them that this is what they are).

After some time you will have a reasonably presentable paper. More than that,
though, you will actually understand the issues: how the various ideas in the
field fit together, why you really disagree with some of the papers you've
read, and perhaps even what your own take on it is. It's hard work! But
writing is what makes the difference. If you just read a lot you can come away
with the misapprehension that you understand the field, when in reality you
just know a lot about what people have written.

~~~
bartonfink
I think you're spot on. You don't really understand something unless you can
explain it to an interested yet uninformed outsider.

~~~
arghnoname
I think the strength comes from being forced to defend your positions. Any
paper worth its salt anticipates and defuses most likely objections. It really
does force away any areas where one might have hand-waved.

I think (as someone else mentioned too) teaching is generally good because one
never knows where and when a challenge may present itself, but I'd suspect a
paper gives deeper results, whereas teaching gives broader results, and both
give more than study with neither.

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ghshephard
ARGH. The title completely ignores the fact that the experiment-subjects that
retained the information the best DIDN'T just take a test, they also retrieved
it from memory and wrote what they knew. THEN they were tested on it.

Horrible, horrible summary.

A better title might have been "What they say is true, Read, Write, [Recite] -
Then you'll test well."

That is: "Read the Source Material - let's say a chapter of 10-15 pages. Close
your book. Meditate on it for a minute or five. Now, without looking at the
source material, write a one or two page summary of the material. Review your
summary. Now, without looking at either the book, or your summary, verbally
summarize the chapter."

It's the foundation of every study plan I've ever seen - and the NYT article
goes off on this "Just take a Test" tangent that isn't even supported by the
observations they make.

~~~
aik
This entire article is so full of that kind of crap - full of baseless
insinuations and twisted meanings - it completely infuriates me.

With the influx of recent NYT articles on education I'm nearly convinced the
NYT is purposely trying to sabotage education (or rather they have a clear
agenda, which I wish I knew where came from, that they are pushing through by
twisting other people's words).

As you say, retrieval practice is absolutely fundamental. Every person does
it! Studying doesn't comprise of one method - concept mapping or repeated
study - it's a combination! What kind of ridiculous study was this? Also, the
article makes it seem like all experts purport 'concept mapping' as the "holy
grail" of learning, that's it, nothing more.

The test obviously assisted by assisting in organizing and structuring the
information for them, in addition to highlighting key points from the
readings. Also, the article never mentions what type of test they were taking.
Multiple-choice? Essay? Short answer? Verbal? None of the above? That
information would be the single most important piece of this article.

To me this article seems to simply highlight how poor students are at
understanding how they themselves learn and think.

What NYT seems to want you to think: Test taking is the best way to learn.
Forget in depth studying techniques or figuring out how you yourself learn.

More of the truth: Tests (depending on how they are set up) are useful in
assisting with learning in various ways, and super useful in providing
feedback and assessing where a student is and what to focus on in the future.

~~~
tygorius
_What NYT seems to want you to think: Test taking is the best way to learn.
Forget in depth studying techniques or figuring out how you yourself learn._

I had the opposite reaction. I figured the writer had been so indoctrinated
into the view that "teaching to the test" was evil, bad, and wrong, that when
a positive result popped related to testing, just that one point alone became
the "news" hook of the story.

Hmm, in looking at her list of past articles, it appears the author mostly
covers the medical beat. Perhaps it's a case of a "helpful" editor spicing up
the story with a more controversial headline.

~~~
aik
Interesting. Wow, she's written over 1000 articles.

The problem I have with it is exactly what you're saying. Perhaps she is
indoctrinated with the view that "tests are bad". Regardless, it is a popular
view and a spicy topic. What bothers me is that this article seems to have a
blanket "no, apparently tests are good" tint. Do you agree? The study seems to
have absolutely nothing to do with that in particular, and the findings really
don't either.

I do definitely agree that the writer sounds indoctrinated. The first sentence
of the article shows signs: "Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for
assessing how much people know, according to new research."

This sentence makes me think that the purpose and end of tests is assessing,
rather than a means to gather information to enable better learning in the
future.

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jeremydavid
This is how I got through University. As I read my textbooks I wrote out every
main point as a question. At the end of my reading I would have a huge list,
and when I could answer them all I would finish studying.

Never failed a test, or was ever forced to stay up late "cramming" for an
exam.

------
ericHosick
We retain (1):

    
    
      10% of what we read
    
      20% of what we hear
    
      30% of what we see
    
      50% of what we hear and see
    
      70% of what we say
    
      90% of what we teach
    

I used to lecture at a college. After learning about this the answer for me
was like duh...

I made my students teach my classes.

(1) Edgar Dale, Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching 3rd Edition. Holt, Rinehart,
and Winston (1969)

~~~
barrkel
When I was a kid, whenever I was learning about some aspect of computing, I
would have a running monologue in my head about how I would explain this to
someone else, to the point that I would write out on a piece of paper an
explanation of e.g. an adder composed out of boolean gates, or of how 2's
complement made negative numbers work, out of sheer enthusiasm for what I was
learning.

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splat
This is certainly true of physics or mathematics. You can read all the
textbooks you want, but you can't claim to understand those subjects unless
you sit down and actually solve some problems or prove some theorems.

~~~
joubert
Ditto for programming.

------
s-phi-nl
"What I cannot create, I do not understand." -- Richard Feynman

------
jcro41
Here are a few links that I've found helpful in learning about this strategy,
number 4 is my favorite.

[1] Will that be on the Test?

[2] The Power of Testing Memory

[3] Practicing Information Retrieval is key to memory attention, study finds

[4] Close the Book. Recall. Write It Down

[1]
[http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/Teaching/2006_R...](http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/Teaching/2006_Roediger_Karpicke_Review.pdf)

[2]
[http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/Teaching/2006_R...](http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/Teaching/2006_Roediger_Karpicke_Review.pdf)

[3] <http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/11091.html>

[4] [http://chronicle.com/article/Close-the-Book-Recall-
Write/318...](http://chronicle.com/article/Close-the-Book-Recall-Write/31819)

------
detokaal
You have to know what you don't know. In other words, you need a sense of the
gaps that exist in your knowledge and then fill those gaps. This is a side
effect of...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect>

... and a key part of continuing education in any field. The best way for
students of any age to grasp this is to take practice tests. Look at what you
missed, and go fill in that gap. A similar method it to look at a completed
project or paper and wait for the aha moment, "I didn't know you could do
that." Then you go find the answers.

------
jacques_chester
I'm not sure this is a new finding. I believe it's called the rehearsal or
retrieval effect. I recall reading about it in a textbook about learning
theory a decade ago.

It's the basis of the study/summarise/recall/revise method.

------
kang
Recalling information is not necessarily learning. That 'drawing-relation-
diagrams' method contributes more towards understanding in my view.

Also this is very limited in domain. As an example, here in India students
learn English for an year or two before appearing in MBA examinations. One
common observation is that many students do thousands of comprehensions and
unseen passages but still stand nowhere in the 'reading between the lines'
part, which is essentially, understanding. They spend all the time testing
themselves, whereas 'testing' should follow after 'acquiring the knowledge'.

~~~
aik
That's how it works in Japan too. Kids study English for 8 years and aren't
able to speak a word or make basic linguistic connections.

And it's all based on study and test taking.

~~~
jarek
Sadly, that's most of second language 'learning' in public schools in most
places around the world.

~~~
me2i81
Almost everyone I've met from the Netherlands is fluent in English, and has a
better grasp of English grammar than many Americans. I wonder why their result
is so much better than the Japanese. There could be many reasons for this,
including that English and Dutch are much closer than English and Japanese,
that the Dutch have more contact with English-speaking people and media, or
that the Dutch schools have a better way of teaching language than the
Japanese schools. I've also found this to be the case with younger Germans.

------
csomar
_It may also be that the struggle involved in recalling something helps
reinforce it in our brains._

I think something happens here, it's like you send your mind a command: "You
didn't memorize that thing, huh? Okay, be careful next time, this is needed
for the test".

Notice that when you read the next time, it's kind of your mind is prepared to
put that information somewhere, in a manner that it can be retrieved later by
the exam.

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paufernandez
That explains why I improve so much rewriting programs from scratch many
times. Until it comes out naturally you have to do a lot of effort, which
seems like a waste of time but...

------
drivebyacct2
Man, ionfish beat me to the punch. Things I learn best, are things that I put
into practice or write about. Things that I have an opinion about usually form
some sort of dialog that I consider to be analogous to writing. This has been
the case for me in every subject imaginable. Politics, math, science: all
things that are conceptual with ideas. I know that history encompasses ideas,
but rout memorization of facts has never appealed to me. Writing about a time
period or such requires not just that I know the facts, but that I recall
them, restructure them and express them in my own words. Even if it's just
filtering through a couple extras areas of my brain, it makes a huge
difference in my ability to remember important facts later.

I've never tried to pay attention to my knowledge before and after a test, but
I've taken too many tests that I didn't feel accurately represented the
material to be leery of offering as much praise as the NYT does.

