Sunday, July 11, 2010

How to Learn Faster and Remember More

It’s sunny outside yet you’re stuck studying. You must know this stuff for tomorrow.  It gets worse. Your smart aleck friend walks by saying “You know you’ll only remember ten percent of what you’re reading right now.”   She’s citing an oft-repeated study that shows that, six weeks later, you’ll only remember four percent of what you are passively learning by reading.  

Yet that familiar study has been debunked. Or rather there never was a study that showed people remember:

10% of what they read

20% of what they hear

30% of what they see

50% of what they see and hear

70% of what they write and say

90% of what they say as they do something with the information

 People do NOT remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they see, 30% of what they hear, etc.,” learning expert, Will Thalheimer emphatically explains.

So the percentages aren’t proven yet the levels for accelerating learning are. You do learn faster and remember more when you move from passive to active, meaningful, repeated engagement in what you are learning.

Your Useable insight

You’ll learn more and remember it longer when you:

• Actively and repeatedly practice what you are learning, as you are learning it, and when you continuously relate it to something concrete that matters to you. 

• Teach others what we are learning.

So, skip the percentages and speed your learning by adopting the methods described in Dale's Cone of Experience.  After learning this it may be helpful to sleep on it.    

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