STOP STUDYING, START LEARNING | 저스틴 성 | TEDxUOA
저는 해외에서 오래 거주하게되면서, 한국 학생들의 기본 상식이 부족한 면이 있습니다.
영어로는 알지만, 한국어로는 모르는 상식들은 절 답답하게 했고, 이를 해소하기 위해
중학생 교재를 보며 기본 상식을 키우기 위해 공부했었습니다.
처음부터 고등학생 교재를 보고 싶었으나, 기초가 없는 상태에서 읽다보니 이해가 안되는 것이 많았고,
확실이 중학생 수준의 기본 지식이 어느정도 채워지자, 고등학생 교재들도 순조롭게 이해가 가기 시작했습니다.
알고 있던 지식들이 서로 연결이되면서, 갖고 있던 지식의 깊이와 견고함이 생겼습니다.
호기심에 시작한 학습은 굉장히 흥미로웠습니다.
이 학습이 흥미로웠던 이유는 이전에 했던 학습과 다른 지식의 견고함에 있습니다. 지식과 지식이 연결되며 지식을 단단하게 만들었습니다. 그리고 해당 내용에 대하여, 저스틴 성 테드 강연을 접하게되어, 지속적인 자기관리와 학습에 관심을 있는 분께 내용을 소개드리려 합니다.
Justin Sung 박사는 전 의사이자 연구 저자이며, 학습 코치로 전환한 교육 전문가 입니다. 지난 10여년 동안 그는 그의 연구 기반으로 매우 실용적인 기술을 120개국의 10,000명 이상의 학생과 전문가들에게 가르쳤습니다. 그는 iCanStudy의 공동 창업자로, 사람들이 학습을 통제하고 더 적은 스트레스로 더 나은 결과를 달성할 수 있는 기술을 갖도록 열정적으로 지원합니다.
Justin Sung 박사가 말하는 "효과적인 학습"을 할 수 있을까?
우선 저스틴 성은 의대 진학을 위해 1년간 하루 20시간씩 공부 하였고, 의사가 되기 위해 예의학교에 입학했습니다. 치열한 경쟁으로 하루 20시간씩 공부하였고, 결과적으로 예의학교에 합격했으나, 과중한 스트레스로 인해 마음이 너무 힘들었었다 합니다. 무엇보다, 과정이 심화 될 수록 배워야하는 공부의 양이 많아졌고, 이를 하기 위해서는 본인 기준 2배, 하루 약 40시간이 필요하다고 느꼈습니다. 하지만... 40시간은 불가능한 시간 이기 때문에, 그는 효과적인 학습 방법에 대해 연구 하였습니다.
두뇌 엔진을 자신만의 기술로 수리하라
- - 차량 고장시 자신의 엔진을 확인할 수 없는 것처럼, 학습 과정을 이해하지 못해 좌절하는 경우가 있는데, 이렇게 되면 걱정과 불안에 시달리게 됩니다.
- 학습 방법을 알고 문제 해결 방법을 찾으며 일단 자신의 두뇌 기능을 교정해 나가야 합니다.
- 이러한 과정을 '메타인지'라고 하며, 연구에 따르면 높은 메타인지를 가진 사람들이 성취도가 더 높습니다.
- Learning을 함으로써 메타인지가 증가하고, 스트레스와 불안함을 줄이며 자신감을 기를 수 있습니다.
높은 수준의 사고력이 학습을 향상시키고, 연결된 지식을 구축하는 방법
- 높은 수준의 사고력인 *HOTS(고차 사고력)*은 정보 통합과 관련되어 있으며, 새로운 지식을 넓은 목적 또는 큰 그림과 연결하는 특징이 있습니다.
- 이와 달리 낮은 수준의 학습은 단일 정보의 메모리와 정의, 과정에 초점을 맞춥니다.
- 고차 사고력으로 정보를 연결하면 뇌는 해당 정보를 관련성이 있고 기억할 가치가 있다고 인식하여 보다 효과적으로 학습할 수 있습니다.
- 고차 학습은 지식의 네트워크를 형성하여 향후 학습에 강한 기초를 마련하는 효과가 있습니다.
- 고차 학습을 위해서는 학습 시 정보를 단순히 외우는 레벨을 맥락을 이해하거나 문제를 이해하고 해결하는 레벨로 전환해야 합니다.
- 그룹화 노트 필기를 통해 높은 수준의 학습을 경험할 수 있습니다.
- 정보를 그룹화하는 것은 관계를 비교하고 확인하는 과정이 있어야 합니다.
- 정보를 그룹화할 때는 어떤 관계가 더 중요한지 생각하고 우선순위를 정해야 합니다.
- 노트 필기도 단순히 쓰기만 하는 것이 아니라 뇌를 돕고 생각하는 데 도움이 되어야 합니다.
- 일렬로 노트 필기하는 것이 아니라 자유롭게 작성하는 것이 좋습니다.
비선형 메모법을 통해 효율적인 공부법
- 일반적인 선형 메모법으로는 지식의 그룹과 관련성을 표현하기 어렵습니다.
- 비선형 메모법을 연습해보며 그룹 형성과 화살표 등을 우리가 원하는 방식으로 생각해야 하며, 이는 고차원의 학습에 중요한 요소입니다.
- 강의 중에는 이렇게 하기 어려우므로, 책을 통해 연습하는 것을 권장합니다.
- 이 방법을 사용하는 사람들은 일반적으로 4주 걸리는 학습과 기억력 달성을 1~2주 안에 이룰 수 있습니다.
비효율적이라고 생각되는 학습 방법은 효과적인 전략보다 시간과 노력이 많이 들기 때문에 높은 수준의 학습을 달성하고 시간을 절약하기 위해서는 학습과정에서 효과적인 전략을 택해야 합니다.
연설 본문 )
I want to be a doctor, so when I was 17, I entered premed. It's famously competitive, so I studied a lot. At this routine, wake up at 7 for lectures, study until 12 a.m., and then repeat every day.
One day, I was sitting on the couch at uni, and this guy from my class walks in and he says, "So tired. I studied until 2 A.M." And I thought, this guy studied more than me, so I went all out. I started studying 20 hours a day, every day, for nine months. I used to rub breath mints on my eyelids to keep me awake, which I do not recommend.
So, what was my result? Well, I got perfect grades, and I got into medical school. I also had a mental breakdown because it turns out that sleep is rather important.
But the funny thing is that when I entered medical school, the content doubled. So, my strategy of studying 20 hours a day wasn't going to cut it, and studying 40 hours a day seemed challenging, and I wanted to enjoy my life too. So, I had a problem.
My methods got me excellent results, at what cost? I tackled this in the nerdiest way possible. For the following several years, I read thousands of papers on learning. I adjusted my techniques daily, and I taught what I'd learned to the students I was tutoring at the time too. So, I saw how it worked for me and for my... Students, I was so obsessed that I ended up going back to uni after finishing medical school to do my Master's in education..
And I realized that this cycle of working hard and getting inconsistent results and then feeling anxious and then compensating by working even harder, this is common and avoidable. A few years ago, I actually left my job as a medical doctor to teach these skills full-time. Now, I work with thousands of people from over 100 countries, teaching them to learn more efficiently.
So, here's what I know now that just changed the game: studying is not the same thing as learning. Studying is like reading a book or writing some notes. You haven't learned it until that knowledge is in your head and you can use it. And there are different levels too. For example, regurgitating some facts is a lower level than a nuanced discussion or solving complex problems. Researchers sometimes talk about this as higher order versus lower order learning. And different types of studying can actually help to generate different orders of learning.
Why does this matter? Years ago, I didn't know about this stuff and I thought I was pretty good at studying. After all, I got into medical school. All that time and effort that I sunk in... It's just what you do, right? You work hard. Not quite.
Imagine you're driving along and your car breaks down. If you're like me, you pull over, pop the hood, take a look, and you think, 'I don't know anything about cars.' If you don't know how the engine works, you cannot fix it..
Most people know that learning is a process, but what goes on in that process? If we don't do well, do we know why and how to fix it, or do we just guess and hope? Causes a lot of anxiety. Did I study enough? No, I hope this doesn't come up in the test. Where did I go wrong? Why didn't I do well? Who's had those thoughts before? We end up living in fear of learning. So step one is to learn how the engine works, become the mechanic of your own brain. This thinking about thinking is called metacognition, and research shows that those with higher metacognition tend to do better. And even if you're not doing better straight away, you at least know how you can get better. The more you learn, the more control you have, the less stress you get. This builds confidence.
On the other hand, if you have low metacognition, just do whatever someone tells you to do. This is probably the same thing that your friends are doing. The problem is that common methods create common results. In my practice, I often... I see students overusing flashcards and spaced repetition. It's a common strategy on social media. In fact, in my pre-med years, I spent four hours a day, every day, covering over 3,000 flashcards. But how efficient is it when we're trying to juggle multiple subjects at the same time? And how effective is it when we need to reach a level to solve complex problems? Not a lot of research has looked at that, and some of the latest research suggests that there are some significant limitations..
The majority of people using these approaches are not getting top marks. But if that's all you know, then taking that away is confronting. That's how I felt. Some people even get defensive, like, how dare you challenge my main technique? On the other side, I work with professionals who went through uni this way, and they're struggling to learn efficiently while working full-time. They're re-certifying, they're doing courses, they're going back to UNI, and they're dreading it.
So we can avoid problems like this by learning about learning. One of the things that's been consistently shown to help improve learning is something called higher order thinking skills. Now, this is HOTS, literally. H-O-T-S, and higher order thinking is the type of Thinking that's needed to help generate this higher-order learning, those different levels of learning I've been talking about, a characteristic feature of higher-order learning is that information is integrated, not isolated. You're always connecting new information to a wider purpose or the bigger picture. You're looking for relationships and comparing information against other pieces of information. Low-order learning is isolated. It's about memorizing facts and definitions and processes. If you do a lot of this, learning feels very tedious and irrelevant. Higher-order learning connects information so that your brain sees it as relevant and, therefore, worth retaining..
If you learned the same thing with low-order learning, it's not very connected, so our brain doesn't think it's very relevant, so we forget it more easily. On top of that, learning has this Snowball Effect. The more you know about something, the easier it is to learn more about it. Higher-order learning creates networks of knowledge, which is a stronger foundation for future learning. As you learn more things, they make more sense, and you become more efficient, unlike with lower-order learning where, as you learn more, your brain doesn't. Know what to do with all the isolated new pieces of information, and you just get more overwhelmed.
Exams, especially at Uni and beyond, test at higher orders more and more. So, how do we do more higher order learning? Well, unfortunately, the research is quite complicated, and so there is no agreed-on step-by-step guide for higher order learning. Thank you, goodbye. Uh, just kidding! Fortunately, this is one of the main things that I spent years experimenting with and teaching. The skill is one of the core parts of the work that I do now.
So, here is my step-by-step guide on higher order learning. Step one is to learn how the engine works, improve our metacognition. We can start this by tuning into the feeling of lower order versus higher order learning. I call this building a radar. You know that feeling you get when you're reading something and you think, 'I am not going to remember this'. You know you're going to have to go over it again and again and again..
You can feel the information slipping out of your brain. Who's felt that before? Your brain is telling you this is irrelevant, it's isolated. So, instead of just saying, 'Oh well, smashing it into our notes to deal with later' and staying in that lower order, flick up into the higher order. And make it relevant. So try this: start a tally when you study and count how often you get this feeling. Some of you will realize this is the only feeling you have when you study. The goal is to reduce this number by about 10 every time you study.
How? Step two: group information together. Grouping information forces us to compare and look for relationships to see if it makes sense to group them together. But it's not enough just to find relationships and make some groups. There are so many ways you could group information together. We need to think more deeply and prioritize the relationships so that we form the groups that make the most sense to us. So ask yourself: how important is this relationship compared to another, maybe similar, relationship? What purpose does it serve? Often, the groups that we will end up forming are different to how it's presented to us in lectures or textbooks, and this is normal, because the way that we make sense of it is not always the same as the author or the lecturer. It takes real mental effort to not only find the relationships and the groups but then to decide which relationships and groups are the most important for us..
But that mental effort is the learning taking place, and that's what counts. And fourth thinking is what higher order learning feels like. Step one was to build that radar. Step two was to flick into those higher rotors using groups and relationships. Step three is to leverage our note-taking. Often, the attitude we have towards writing notes is just on the page, out of mind. We don't really think about it, we just dump it in our notes so we feel better. Who does that? I used to spend hours every day studying by writing notes and learn nothing. Good note-taking should help our brain think, not help it avoid thinking. So don't write notes left to right, sequentially down the page.
I call this linear note-taking. The problem is that knowledge is not linear, so it's very difficult to express groups and relationships with the linear nodes. So experiment with some non-linear methods of note-taking. But even software and apps that can form maps and groups for us can make it too passive. We don't want relationships and lines and arrows to appear at the press of a button. We need to think about what groups we want to form, whether we want an arrow here, even how thick we want to draw the arrow if it's more or less important because that's what higher order learning involves. It's rather difficult to do this if... Someone is speaking to you, like in a lecture. So, I actually recommend practicing with books, where you've got time to stop and think. I built a complete system using these methods..
It's an end-to-end method of learning that I train to students as young as 12 years old all the way through to people post-retirement in their 70s. And over the last two years, I've collected data on around 5,000 of these students across 120 countries. And we've found that those that use these methods are able to reach a level of learning and retention that would normally take them four weeks in just one or two weeks. And the important thing is that this is a skill. A lot of people say, "I'm not smart enough" or "I'm just too old for this." After working with so many people, I can tell you that this is something that you can train. And like any skill, that will come more naturally to some, but training does make it easier.
Around now, usually people will say, "Well, Justin, it seems like this all takes a lot of time and effort that I already can't afford." I can see some of you thinking that right now, and you're right. Which is why most people don't do it. In fact, there's something called the misinterpreted effort hypothesis. It says that when we think something… takes too much effort. We also see it as being ineffective, so we stop doing it. But research, especially around learning, shows us that some of the most effective strategies require more effort. So avoiding it would be like going to the gym to work out, but because the weights take effort to lift, we think, 'Oh, it's not working,' and we go home..
But what if it's too hard? What if we don't use higher order thinking? What then? Well, sure, you could cover your content faster, but only if we think about studying and not learning. In reality, what I found is that we waste more time just relearning the things that our brain saw as irrelevant and then forgot. It's hard to see how big of a deal this is if we think about studying as just one session on a single afternoon. But across weeks of studying, that is a lot of wasted time. It's also very difficult to even reach higher orders of learning if we're mostly thinking in the lower orders. So if we need to reach a high level and we don't have time to constantly just relearn things, then higher order learning is actually more time efficient.
So I'll leave you with this: don't be like me and just study more. We all only have 24 hours in the day, so would you rather use it to study or to learn.