The purpose of this chapter is to highlight some of the learning tactics and strategies described in previous chapters and to add a few generalizations.
Nobody has to learn how to learn. Simple forms of learning are automatic and may even begin in the womb. Every normal person is born learning, and mentally active people die learning. "To be living," is nearly synonymous with "to be learning," and the evidence suggests that when one stops learning, one's mind starts dying. Yet nobody learns nearly as much as one could.
Some learning requires mental effort. You can listen passively and learn to recognize and perhaps to enjoy a Mozart concerto. But if you want to understand musical composition, you need to study that subject by attending lectures and reading books. To become an expert requires years of study. The result may not be that you enjoy Mozart more, but you would certainly appreciate him more. College learning is a form of verbal learning that requires a lot of mental effort.
The more you learn about a subject, the easier it gets to learn more about it. In part this is because knowledge is cumulative, with old learning providing a framework on which to add new information. Learning also gets easier because we īlearn how to learn.ļ For example when you study a foreign language, you not only learn the meaning of foreign words, you also learn something about how to study vocabulary ists. If you learn that "mesa" in Spanish means "table" in English by repeatedly saying "mesa-table, mesa-table...," you are learning to learn foreign words by the method of rote repetition. Your skill in using that method may improve the more you practice it, and you are likely to use that same method when learning other foreign words.
There are usually several ways to learn verbal material. You couldn't even get to college without having learned some of the successful ways to learn. Because the ways you have learned how to learn work, you are not likely to try out other ways unless you make a deliberate commitment to do so. And even if the other ways are better, they usually require more than just token practice. Faced with the practical realities of classes and exams, most students quickly revert to their "tried and true" ways. That is as it should be. This workbook will have achieved its purpose if it has raised your awareness of the fact that the way you learn verbal material is itself learned, and is therefore subject to new learning as opportunities arise.
Return to the rote repetition method of learning mesa-table. You should now know that such rehearsal does not build a very strong reverse association from table to mesa. You should now know to make cards with English on one side and Spanish on the other. Not only can you use such cards in both directions, you can rehearse them at times that would otherwise be wasted. You should now know that cards require you to practice the test response, namely recalling the answer from memory. You should now know that learning tends to dissipate over time, so you must review the words that you have learned from time to time. You should now know that knowledge is non-verbal, so you need to associate mesa with an image/idea/thought of a table, not with the English word table. In doing so, you should now know how to use imagery in such learning, for example, by imagining a messy-looking table. In sum, even if you revert to rote repetition when faced with a last-minute effort to learn, you should know that there are other, more effective ways.