Fast, Effective Learning

The internet provides us with a wealth of resources for developing improved methods of learning. This includes better ways to assimilate information, and also ways to make use of our learning. 

"Transfer learning" is a term that is becoming increasingly popular, primarily due to its role in machine learning. For a technical overview of transfer learning, visit this article by Karl Weiss et al. in the Journal of Big Data: A survey of transfer learning. 

​The term is starting to show up more frequently in relation to human learning as well. Michael Simmons takes a look at one of the most creative minds in business today, and seeks to explain--How Elon Musk learns faster and better than everyone else.

His answer? First, Musk is an exceptional worker and student. But more important is his drive to learn across the spectrum of disciplines. 

Musk is also good at a very specific type of learning that most others aren’t even aware of — learning transfer.
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Learning transfer is taking what we learn in one context and applying it to another. It can be taking a kernel of what we learn in school or in a book and applying it to the “real world.” It can also be taking what we learn in one industry and applying it to another.

Simmons goes on to say that Musk's genius lies in his ability to deconstruct knowledge into fundamental principles, then reconstruct those principles in other fields. 

Looking at possible ways to apply transfer of learning concepts into educational curriculum, Larry Ferlazzo provides us with five strategies in the video below. Mr Ferlazzo does a great job of deconstructing the fundamental principles of learning transfer, and then gives us some practical ideas for student exercises.

Shifting directions a bit, here is an interesting approach to memorization. Mark Shead deconstructs a fundamental principle of the memorization process:

The act of reading something you want to memorize fires different connections than the act of recalling. This is how you learn to memorize–your practice recalling, not repeating. This means that simply reading a particular piece of text over and over again is going to be the long road to memorization. You need to let your brain practice recalling the data so it can strengthen the same pathways that will fire when you need to remember the information later on.

Shead provides a memorization process that is easy to learn, and probably effective for most people. Give it a try!