How to make your learning stick

Whether you like it or not, we are all in a feverish state of learning new things. Whether it is to learn how to use a new process at work, calibrate a new instrument, use a new Windows operating system or how to handle a new automated torque wrench - we are all learning and have to then recall this knowledge at a later stage. Particularly in engineering and instrumentation, there are a ferocious number of new technologies and approaches hitting us almost every day - all which we need to learn and remember if we want to keep up to date in our career.

The tragedy is that most people are learning the wrong way, so here is a short note on how to do it right, save yourself a huge amount of time and get much better results. And as you know, if you are good at learning you will definitely have an advantage in life and business.

First of all, there are some bad learning techniques that should be avoided. Probably the most commonly used technique is that of rereading text (and cramming) until you believe you can remember a particular segment. This undoubtedly makes you feel familiar with the material and makes you believe you can achieve mastery, but unfortunately you tend to have difficulty applying this form of learning to a particular situation and also tend to forget this material very quickly.

Intuitively we also tend to believe that massed practice of material again and again is the way to go. However, this also doesn’t stick and you quickly forget it.

So here are a few suggestions on highly effective learning techniques.

Probably the most effective one is retrieval practice. This is where you quiz yourself after completing the reading of a section of text. The harder it is to recall the material, the greater the benefit for you and the longer you will remember it.

You should also space out your retrieval sessions, allowing some time to elapse before quizzing yourself on a particular section. The longer the time gap between reading a section of text and self-quizzing, the stronger the longer term memory will be.

Another thing to do is to mix up your study materials. If you are studying a new HVAC system, for example, mix up your study of the mechanical, electrical and control aspects of the problem.

Other ways to fire up your learning to new heights is to use the four steps of of Elaboration (finding new meanings or ways of understanding the material); Generation (trying to explain a particular piece of material before studying and then comparing what the approach really is); Reflection (pondering on the materials); and Calibration (comparing your real understanding of a situation with what actually occurs).

Finally, where possible try to apply your knowledge to a real situation. After studying how to tune a process control PID loop, actually tune a loop on a real plant and see what happens.

You can also, where possible, teach what you have learned to a keen and eager student. When teaching you will uncover all sorts of problems with what you have learned.

References

Brown, PC, Roediger, HL & McDaniel, MA 2014, Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Belknap Press.

*Steve MacKay PhD has worked mainly in the industrial automation and data communications fields across the world for the past 30 years and is currently Technical Director with IDC Technologies (www.idc-online.com), a growing engineering training and publishing firm operating from offices throughout the world, which he founded in 1992.