Learning series
In this series, we will systematically discuss how to carry out systematic learning , and help everyone learn from learning content to learning methods, so that everyone can understand how to learn efficiently and how to make long-term learning plans.
This series will not discuss specific learning subjects, but will give a systematic selection method to help you learn what you want to learn.
To put it simply, it is to discuss how to become a top student and how to make the scumbags able to learn. Here, use as little personal experience as possible, but start from theory , and try to build a set of universal/easy-to-use methodology as much as possible . Because experience cannot be copied, and there are too many variables, it is difficult for those who summarize experience to find out what really affects learning efficiency.
Article Directory
- Learning series
- foreword
- 1. What is efficient?
- 2. Selection of learning content
- Summarize
foreword
This is the first article on efficient learning . We will discuss what is efficient learning. What exactly does efficient mean? What kind of content is the most efficient, the least painful to learn, and even fun.
1. What is efficient?
Everyone knows more or less about learning, and there will be many detours, and detours are not efficient. That detour is not doing what is most beneficial to the goal . The goal we generally pursue most is to do things that best meet the set rules , or to say that what we do can meet people's needs . For example, postgraduate entrance examination. The postgraduate entrance examination is a very simple rule. The higher the test score, the easier it is to meet the tutor's needs for choosing oneself. If we take the postgraduate entrance examination as the goal, we will not be efficient if we do things other than the postgraduate entrance examination while studying, and we will not be able to achieve the highest score-output ratio . Playing games while studying is just not efficient, it's like nonsense, right?
Before we figure out the goal, we are not clear enough about the goal, that is, we don't know whether what we are doing is efficient. Here we can know that one of the contents of efficient inclusion is a clear goal .
Let's continue with the PubMed example, now that we have a clear goal. It is to get as high a score as possible, but this goal is too general and the path is too vague . I don't know what path to choose for learning. It can be to learn English by memorizing words directly, memorizing words all the time, or learning English by memorizing words + reading. Which path is better is unclear.
Here we can see the second content of efficient inclusion, the path that best meets the goal . That is to choose which method has the highest output.
Summarize:
Efficiency means that the input and output are the highest , and within the same time, it can produce the most in line with the target results.
Efficient prerequisites:
- Clear goals
- best path to goal
2. Selection of learning content
We just finished discussing what is efficient, now discuss what kind of content to choose the most efficient.
The first step in learning is the choice of learning content. Choosing the right learning content or books can make learning more effective. Another nonsense, everyone knows to choose the right one, good content is definitely better than average. But the problem is that I don't know how to choose!
1. A premise
In choosing learning content, we must first clarify a premise that we know nothing about what we are going to learn. I don't know which content is most suitable for my goals. So we must first clarify a premise that we are noobs and know nothing about what we are going to learn. If you know what content is good, suitable for you, and efficient, then there is no need to read the article.
2. Good content and spam
28th law
Everyone has heard of the 80-20 rule more or less, and the 80-20 rule can also be said to be another term for high efficiency. It means spending 20% of the time and learning 80% of the content. Does the 80/20 rule help us choose content? Definitely helpful, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it. First of all, it is certain that 80% of the things on the market are rubbish, and only 20% of the learning content is worth learning. So how to select the 20% high-quality learning content from the 100%?
3. Screen out good content
From the vast information, to filter out good content, the following two methods can be referred to.
What they all have in common is to find someone who understands the field of reform .
3.1. Method 1:
Ask someone with experience , the more relevant the target is, the greater the reference value will be.
The first method is the cheapest, but this requires a certain ability to identify, or to speculate. For things on the Internet, experience is only related to experience, and multiple people need to be integrated to reduce mistakes. Many people agree, and the learning content that seems to be agreed by NB people on the Internet, there is a high probability that it will not be wrong.
For example, go to Zhihu to search for learning C language, how to learn it. You will get a good answer, and choosing the classic book "CPrimerPlus" is a good learning content.
3.2. Method 2:
Ask the teacher in NB
NB's teachers have a lot of experience and have guided many different students, so they know the students well. The learning content they recommend is generally more suitable for you, but it is not absolute. When looking for a teacher, especially those who claim to be famous teachers on the Internet, you should pay attention. It depends on the teacher's reputation. If the reputation is poor, don't ask such a teacher.
4. Determine whether the learning content is suitable for you
The 20% of the content you find may not be suitable for you. For different goals, the paths you choose must be different, and only the content that best suits your goals is efficient. After all, no one's physique can be generalized. I once learned English (doge) in a day when I was extremely angry. Everyone's talents and knowledge points are different, and they need to be personalized to find the one that suits them.
4.1. Find the content that best suits your goals
Now that the 20% of the content has been found, the next step is to judge whether the content meets your goals and find the content that best matches your goals.
4.2. Preliminary estimate selection of books
After finding the content that suits your goals, you need to make a preliminary estimate of the difficulty of the learning content . If you are a novice, then don't read ××× advanced books, you should read the basics. There will also be people on the Internet who divide books according to their difficulty. In the 20% of the content, they can choose according to their own judgment, books of entry level, normal level and difficulty level.
4.3. Choose according to the learning status
After the preliminary estimation, we can choose a content or teaching material to study. In the process of learning, if we feel that it is very difficult, it will be very difficult to learn. You need to re- evaluate the content you choose , whether your level is not enough, or the content itself is difficult.
If the selected content is more difficult, it is necessary to reduce the difficulty appropriately and choose content that is easier to understand.
If the subject is difficult, it is already an entry-level difficulty, and it is still difficult to learn. Then you need to think about whether you need some foundation to learn this subject , and give the foundation to tutoring first. If not, it may be that the learning content is not suitable for you. You can choose other methods, from books to videos, choose more easy-to-understand , but not particularly accurate, and then choose textbooks with more accurate descriptions.
The basic selection logic has been finished here, which is enough for most people. If you want a deeper understanding, why do you choose this way? Why is learning so efficient? See below for additional knowledge points.
5. Additional supplementary knowledge points
The following will add an additional explanation of why this choice is efficient , and what are the benefits of such content .
First introduce three theories: Interested friends can learn more about it by themselves.
The first theory, the three-circle theory . Help understand what content is appropriate, the relationship between the difficulty of the selected learning content and your own level.
The second theory: flow theory . Help us perceptually realize whether the content meets our own level, so as to judge the difficulty of choosing learning content.
The third theory: the rule of 85 . From the way of quantifying data, explore what the difficulty of learning content is related to.
5.1. Three-circle theory.
According to psychological research, human beings' understanding of the external world can be divided into three areas: the comfort zone, the learning zone (stretch zone), and the panic zone (stress zone).
As shown below:
I think the above picture is difficult to understand, but by reading the short story below , I can intuitively feel what the three-circle theory is. The so-called three-circle theory just divides the difficulty of things for us. These three areas can also be said to be the three difficulties of learning.
5.1.1. Understanding the Three Circles Theory
short story:
Now we are the brave men , one day the evil devil kidnapped the princess, wanted to occupy the princess's body, and did the rustling thing. Now a brave man is needed to defeat the devil and save the princess.
After the brave man knew this, he set off and walked to the intersection leading to the castle of the devil, and immediately found that there were three roads ahead, all of which could reach the castle of the devil. Which one to choose, let me briefly introduce these three roads first .
The third way: Make people feel that it is a difficult way.
Let me introduce the most difficult one first, which is called the path of pain . On the road of pain, the brave can go directly to level 1, and the novice equipment can be used to fight the devil. Does the extremely weak brave have a chance to defeat the devil? Why not, there must be, as long as it is a boss, Gua Sha can kill the devil king with Gua Sha, and 100% dodge operations. If you win, you will get great satisfaction, and your technology will advance by leaps and bounds. Correspondingly, the average person will always be unable to defeat the devil, the frustration will be very strong, and the average person will not be able to persevere .
The second path: It is a path that makes people feel a little difficult, but it is acceptable. Simply put, it is a path that is a bit challenging .
The second way, the second way is called the ordinary way . On this road, Master Brave is level 1, and novices are equipped to challenge. The level is level 3, a mob with general attribute equipment. On this road, it will be a bit difficult for the brave to fight mobs, but there is a lot of room for mistakes. It is much simpler than directly challenging the big devil. After defeating the little monsters, our equipment + level + skills will be improved, so that it will be easier to fight the big devil. The monsters on this road will become stronger as they go to the back, matching the abilities of the brave until they meet the big devil. This design mode is also the route usually taken by games and most of the protagonists of cool articles, and is gradually upgraded.
The first road: a very boring road.
The first road, the rookie road . I call it the road that you can do with your hands, the novice village, so that the brave can get familiar with the gameplay. The brave man followed the instructions to operate, which is equivalent to an open-book exam, and it is also an elementary school math test, which can be described as very boring.
As a brave man, which one of the three paths should we choose? 3, 2, 1. The following is the result of Mr. Brave choosing the three paths.
Result of the first selection :
The first road: The Brave Master begins to get familiar with the gameplay. After passing the rookie road, he raises a knife and falls, and the mobs split apart. The brave is simply bullying here. It took the brave a minute to get familiar with the gameplay, and then moved forward. After slashing mobs one by one in a boring way, after about a day of such experience, the brave man didn't learn anything other than being familiar with the gameplay, and he didn't upgrade or get equipment. Basically, it can be said that he wasted a day of time.
On the second day, because the brave man went to the second road connected to the first road, because he was familiar with the gameplay, he stumbled and killed a few mobs at the beginning, and he also consumed about the same amount. The brave are constantly upgrading and picking up equipment here. At the same time, I also found it a bit interesting. These mobs were as strong as me, which was pretty good. The brave also died a few times, but overall, for the brave, this place was much more interesting than the rookie path.
The brave man keeps getting stronger, and when he reaches the intersection of the third road connected to the second road, he walks into the third road, and the brave man begins to confront the devil. Since the brave man is already wearing a golden armor at this time, with a knife of 999, it is not particularly difficult to beat the devil. The strength of the devil is stronger than that of the brave, and the brave died 10 times at the devil's place and finally defeated the devil and rescued the princess. The brave man looked at the princess longingly, longing for a kiss from the princess. But who knows, what the princess loves is the handsome prince, not the brave man. Naturally, the brave don't get the kiss, which is always a sad story.
The result of the second choice :
the brave directly chooses to take the second path. Here, the brave died a few times at the beginning, and then the result is similar to the result of the first choice. He also keeps fighting monsters and upgrading, and fights the devil. The difference is that the upgrade speed of the brave is faster than that of the brave who chooses the first path, that is, the ability improves a day faster.
The result of the third choice :
the brave chooses to take the third path, the result. The brave died, the brave died, and the brave died again. The brave man doesn't plan to save the princess anymore, it's too difficult, the devil king's 1 knife is 999+, his own knife -1, and he will break when he touches it. This game can't be played anymore, the brave man chose to betray the princess, and went to be happy and happy, to torture the mobs, and challenge the brave man after he was dressed in golden armor. This is the choice of ordinary brave men, but there are some brave men who persevere and scrape the demon king. After scraping for a long time, they finally defeated the demon king. I don't know how long it will take, anyway, the devil has grown from bored to impatient, but the rules of the game are like this, the devil must be tortured and constantly accept challenges from the brave.
That's the end of the story, and it's a sad one. Let us review the story of the brave man and extract the three-circle theory of the learning area.
Let’s look at the picture first: The three-circle theory corresponds to the three paths chosen by the brave
Let's look at the analysis:
Comfort zone:
the first path chosen by the brave, boring and unable to learn anything. This is the comfort zone. The brave don't need to learn anything, just keep using old knowledge and old skills to pass the first path. The brave will live very comfortably here. After all, there is no need to study, that is, to kill monsters. In this interval, we feel safe, in control, and feel able to cope with a problem or work. But the room for improvement is very small.
Learning area:
The second path chosen by the brave. The difficulty of the road is most suitable for the brave. The brave can learn things and will not give up because it is too difficult . The brave man on this road is like the plot in Wangdao anime. The brave man constantly accepts challenges of appropriate difficulty, and then keeps learning new things to break through himself. Until the final stage, when fighting the BOSS, the brave has the ability to fight the BOSS.
Panic zone:
The third path chosen by the brave, most of the brave will choose to give up. This is like a soul game, "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice", where the protagonist directly challenges the boss Juggernaut. Juggernaut, defeat the BOSS without the help of any auxiliary equipment and recovery potions. It's not that they can't win, but that most people will choose to give up. After all, if you play according to the normal game flow, you will die dozens of times. It's not that you can't learn things in the panic zone, but that the difficulty is too high , and most people can't bear this predicament.
5.1.2. The relationship between the three-circle theory and the selected content
After reading the story and analysis, everyone already has a more perceptual understanding of the three-circle theory. Then let us analyze why we choose the content not to choose the best one at the beginning, but to select the most suitable one according to our own feelings.
After screening high-quality content, we can also divide the learning content into three categories, entry-level, ordinary, and difficult. We should choose content suitable for our own difficulty to learn according to our own level . The content that suits your own difficulty is equivalent to the content that is just near the learning area. We are not easily overwhelmed by the difficulties of books, but can slowly improve our level like fighting monsters and upgrading. It's boring to choose simple. It is too difficult, easy to give up, and it is not a suitable choice for ordinary people.
I don’t know if you have such doubts here, that is, what standard is used to judge the level of content? And what is your level? Is there a reference standard for this thing. The answer is yes.
5.2. Flow theory
5.2.1. Understanding Flow Theory
Flow theory is a theory about experience . As can be seen from the figure below, flow studies the skill level and challenge level , that is, the relationship between personal ability and choice difficulty. The optimal relationship is that the skill level is equal to the challenge level, that is, the ability is just equal or similar to the challenge level. In this relationship, our experience is the best, and we will enter the state of flow. At this time, time, space, and location will be forgotten, and only the present things will be in mind. To put it bluntly, at this time, we are the happiest .
Going back to the story just now, the ordinary road chosen by the brave, the difficulty (challenge level) of the road is equivalent to the brave example (skill level). Only the experience of the brave here will be good, it will not be boring, and it will be very cool.
5.2.2. The relationship between flow theory and content selection
Here, we can choose the learning content by ourselves, and then judge whether the content meets our own level through our own feelings. If you feel too boring while studying, just like doing elementary school math problems, you can choose to change to a more difficult content. If you feel anxious and difficult to learn, you can choose to change the form or content. If you have not found better content than this, you can only gnaw on it. Don't worry, it won't be difficult all the time. With the increase of learning content, our level will gradually increase, and we will reach the level of flow.
5.3, 85 rule
5.3.1. Understand the rule of 85
The rule of 85 is a standard for quantifying the difficulty of learning. In 2019, researchers from the University of Arizona and Brown University published a paper called "The Eighty Five Percent Rule for Optimal Learning", which translates to "The 85% Rule of Optimal Learning". The researchers obtained through the neural network algorithm. When choosing the content to learn, the error rate is 15.87%, the learning efficiency is the highest.
Back to the story just now, the story of the brave. The ordinary path chosen by the brave, the error rate of the brave fighting monsters will not exceed 15%. In this way, his learning efficiency is the highest.
5.3.2, the relationship between the 85 rule and the selection content
The hint given to us by the 85 rule is. We choose the highest content that we are 85% familiar with, that is, we understand 85% of the learning content, and we can do it when we encounter problems. Then 15% of the new knowledge points encounter this knowledge point. We almost made it, but we can basically make it after learning a little bit. This is the most efficient. This 85 rule can also be applied to practice. For example, when we learn a musical instrument, when we play the same piece about 5 times, if we can play it fluently 4 times, we know that we have mastered 85% of the content of the piece. , In the end, you only need to find the key points to master the parts that are not smooth later. For those who have been able to play 5 times proficiently and have not made mistakes, there is no need to practice. This piece has already been learned, so there is no need to waste time.
5.4. Three theoretical connection diagrams
The three theories are roughly located in such positions in the figure. Through this picture, we can roughly grasp the choice of our content, choose the one that suits us, choose the coolest one, and learn in an efficient way.
5.5, additional
Theory is just a theory. In fact, the factors that affect our learning or learning experience are far more complicated than the learning difficulty and learning content mentioned above . For example, the time factor, the shorter the time, the more difficult it is for us to learn, and the experience will change accordingly. However, the time factor, we can make a rough estimate through continuous exercise, so as to determine the choice of learning content or challenge content. It is impossible for us to learn English in one day. One challenge is to learn English in one day. The difficulty is too great. If it is important and we still choose to challenge it, it will only increase anxiety. A better option is to change the target.
For life, book knowledge is just a little bit. Learning good books and skills can help us become better people, but in reality there are many situations where we don’t have such precise content for us to learn. In other words, there are so many things in life that are difficult to classify accurately. According to the difficulty, we can only bite the bullet and learn . When we are in panic, we can only gnaw knowledge points over and over again to understand life . Only by constantly making mistakes and not giving up casually can we improve.
Summarize
Let's summarize it with a flowchart. When judging whether the content is suitable for you, it often takes a period of serious study before you can judge whether it is suitable for you. When I feel very painful when I study, I want to give up in many situations, and when I don’t have any good experience, I should pay attention to changing the content or method.
