How to Become a Better Learner

Welcome back to Learning How to Learn. Today we're going to talk about how to become a
better learner. As we learn more about the brain we can become better learners, and here
are two tips for how to learn better.

Tip number one – the best gift that you can give your brain is Physical Exercise. We once
thought that all of the neurons in your brain were already present at birth, but we now
know that in a few places, new neurons are born every day. One of these places is in your
Hippocampus, a brain area that is very important for learning new things that we already
discussed earlier in the course. In this experiment, a rat is shown, learning how to
distinguish a picture of a flower from a picture of an airplane. In the background is a photo
of neurons in the hippocampus, with the old neurons shown in blue and newly generated
neurons in red. As the rat learns the task, these new neurons are recruited to help perform
better pattern separation between the two pictures. These new neurons help you learn new
things but they will die if you don't use them. New experiences will rescue them.

Exercise, interestingly, also helps new neurons survive. Exercise is by far, more effective than
any drug on the market today to help you learn better. It benefits all of your vital
organisms, not just your brain. It is unfortunate that schools are dropping gym and recess to
make room for more instruction. Gym and recess are by far the most important parts of the
curriculum.

Here's another tip – and this has to do with practice making perfect, but only when your
brain is prepared. There are certain critical periods in the development of your brain. When
sudden improvements occur in specific abilities, expect them to happen and prepare your
brain for them. The critical period for first language acquisition extends up to puberty. One
of the best studied critical periods in the brain is when binocular depth perception or
stereopsis matures during the first two years of life.

Stereopsis is the magic behind Magic Eye pictures like the one shown here. If you stare at
this image and slightly cross your eyes, you will see staircases pop out of the

page. There is a slight shift between the images in the two eyes and your brain interprets
this slight shift as difference in depth. Not everyone, however, can see this. Over 5% of the
population is stereo blind. If the two eyes are not properly aligned during the first two years
of development, the neurons in your visual cortex will fail to properly strengthen the inputs
from the two eyes and depth perception is permanently impaired. Well, that's the dogma.
Sue Barry, a friend of mine from graduate school at Princeton, was able to recover stereo
vision through eye exercises, and wrote a book about it, entitled Fixing My Gaze, a
Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensions.

Practice can repair, as well as train the brain. But this takes much longer, past the critical
period. This brings us to zombies. Zombies can't learn. It is also clear from

their behavior that they have brain damage. Especially in the front of their cortex, which is
the part that makes plans, as well as in their language areas. Learning, planning, language,
these are the skills that make us human. The prefrontal cortex is also involved in complex
analysis in social behaviors, as well as decision making and planning. It is the last part of
the cortex to mature, so until this happens, there may be a little bit of zombie in you.
Another patient, EVR, suffered a stroke in the social parts of his prefrontal cortex. EVR had a
high IQ and seemed normal, but he was ruined by making bad financial decisions and bad
social interactions. He lost both his home and his family. Good judgement takes a long
time, and a lot of experience to acquire. Learning is too important to be left behind in the
classroom. Learning to learn is a skill you can master, and you can use it to improve every
part of your life. You'll be learning even more learning tips this week, and can follow up on
them at http://www.brainfacts.org/.

I'm Terry Sejnowski, happy learning to you until we meet again.

Introduction to Renaissance Learning and Unlocking Your Potential

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This week we are going to wrap up a slew of important ideas, and techniques that will help
round out and enhance your ability to learn well, using metaphors and analogies, to work
profitable with teammates, and not undercut your own strengths, and finally to perform well
on tests.

One important thought though, before we launch into this week's videos, learning doesn't
progress logically, so that each day just adds an additional neat package to your knowledge
shelf. Sometimes you hit a wall in constructing your understanding. Things that made
sense before can suddenly seem confusing. This type of knowledge collapse seems to occur
when your mind is restructuring its understanding, building a more solid foundation. In the
case of language learners, they experience occasional periods when the foreign language
suddenly seems completely incomprehensible. Remember it takes time to assimilate new
knowledge. You'll inevitably go through some periods when you seem to take and
exasperating step backwards, in your understanding. This is a natural phenomenon, that
means that your mind is wrestling deeply with the material. You'll find that when you
emerge from these periods of temporary frustration, your knowledge base will take a
surprising leap forward.

I'm Barbara Oakley, thanks for learning how to learn.

Create a Lively Visual Metaphor of Analogy

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One of the best things you can do to not only remember, but understand concepts, is to
create a metaphor or analogy for them; often the more visual the better. A metaphor is just
a way of realizing that one thing is somehow similar to another. Simple ideas like one
geography teacher's description of Syria is shaped like a bowl of cereal, and Jordan as a Nike
Air Jordan sneaker, can stick with a student for decades. If you're trying to understand
electrical current, it can help to visualize it as water. Similarly, electrical voltage can feel like
pressure. A push. As you climb to a more sophisticated understanding of whatever topic
you're concentrating on, you can revise your metaphors or toss them away and create more
meaningful ones.

Metaphors and visualization, being able to see something in your mind's eye, have been
especially helpful not only in art and literature, but also in allowing the scientific and
engineering world to make progress. In the 1800s for example, when chemists began to
imagine and visualize the miniature world of molecules, dramatic progress began to be made.
Here's a fun illustration of monkeys in a benzene ring from an insider spoof of German
Academic Chemical Life printed in 1886. Note the single bonds, or the monkeys' hands, and
the double bonds with their tiny little tails.

It's often helpful to pretend that you are the concept you're trying to understand. Put
yourself in an electron's warm and fuzzy slippers as it burrows through a slab of copper. Or
sneak inside the X of an algebraic equation and feel what it's like to poke your head out of
the rabbit hole. But just don't let it get exploded by an inadvertent divide by zero. In
chemistry, compare a Cation with a cat that has paws and is therefore pawsitive. And an
Anion with an onion that's negative, because it makes you cry. Metaphors are never perfect,
but then in science, all models are just metaphors which means they break down at some
point. But never mind that.

Metaphors and models are often vitally important in giving a physical understanding of the
central idea behind the process or concept you are trying to understand. Interestingly,
metaphors and analogies are useful for getting people out of Einstellung, that is, being
blocked by thinking about a problem in the wrong way. For example, telling a simple story
of soldiers attacking a fortress from many different directions at once can open creative paths
for students to see how many low-‐intensity rays can be effectively used to destroy a
cancerous tumor. Stories, even if they're just used as silly memory tricks, can also allow
you to more easily retain what you're trying to learn. Metaphors also help glue an idea
into your mind because they make a connection to neural structures that are already there.
It's like being able to trace a pattern with tracing paper. Metaphors at least help you get a
sense of what's going on.

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

No Need for Genius Envy

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This is a good place for us to step back and look again at chunking from another
perspective. Notice what we're doing here. We're interleaving our learning by jumping back
to revisit and deepen our understanding of a topic we've already covered.

There's an interesting connection between learning math and science and learning a sport. In
baseball, for example, you don't learn how to hit in one day. Instead, your body perfects
your swing from lots and lots of repetition over a period of years. Smooth repetition creates
muscle memory, so your body knows what to do from a single thought, one chunk, instead
of having to recall all the complex steps involved in hitting a ball. In the same way, once
you understand why you do something in math and science, you don't have to keep re-‐
explaining the how to yourself every time you do it. It's not necessary to go around with
a hundred beans in your pocket and to lay out ten rows of ten beans again and again so
you get that ten times ten is equal to 100. At some point you just know it from memory.

For example you memorize the idea that you simply add exponents, those little superscript
numbers, when you are multiplying numbers that have the same base. Ten to the fourth
times ten to the fifth is equal to ten to the ninth. If you use the procedure a lot, by doing
many different types of problems you'll find that you understand both the why and the how
behind the procedure far better then you do after getting a conventional explanation from a
teacher or a book. The greater
understanding results from the fact that your mind constructed the patterns of meaning,
rather than simply accepting what someone else has told you. Remember, people learn by
trying to make sense out of the information they perceive. They rarely learn anything
complex simply by having someone else tell it to them.

Chess masters, emergency room physicians, fighter pilots, and many other experts often have
to make complex decisions rapidly. They shut down their conscious system and instead rely
on their well-‐trained intuition, drawing on their deeply ingrained repertoire of chunks. At
some point self-‐consciously understanding why you do what you do, just slows you down
and interrupts the flow resulting in worse decisions. But wait, are chess masters and people
who can multiply six digit numbers in their heads exceptionally gifted? Not necessarily. I'm
going to tell it to you straight. Sure intelligence matters. Being smarter often equates to
having a larger working memory. Your hot rod of a memory may be able to hold nine things
in mind instead of four and you can latch on to those things like a bulldog, which makes it
easier to learn. But guess what, it also makes it more difficult for you to be creative. How's
that? It's our old friend and enemy Einstellung.

The idea you are already holding in mind can block you from fresh thoughts. A superb
working memory can hold its thoughts so tightly that new thoughts can't

easily peek through. Such tightly controlled attention could use an occasional whiff of ADHD-‐
like fresh air, the ability, in other words, to have your attention shift even if you don't want
it to shift. If you're one of those people who can't hold a lot in mind at once, you lose
focus and start daydreaming in lectures and have to get to some place quiet to focus so
you can use your working memory to its maximum, well welcome to the clan of the
creative. Having a somewhat smaller working memory means you can more easily generalize
your learning into new, more creative combinations. Because your working memory, which
grows from the focusing abilities of the prefrontal cortex doesn't lock everything up so tightly.
You can more easily get input from other parts of your brain. These other areas, which
include the sensory cortex, not only are more in tune with what's going on around you in the
environment, but are also the source of dreams, not to mention creative ideas. You may
have to work harder sometimes or even much of the time to understand what's going on.
But once you get something chunked you can take that chunk and turn it outside in and
inside round, putting it through creative paces even you didn't think you were capable of.

Here's another point to put into your mental chunker: it is practice, particularly deliberate
practice on the toughest aspects of the material that can help lift average brains into the
realm of those with more natural gifts. Just as you can practice lifting weights and get
bigger muscles over time, you can also practice certain mental patterns that deepen and
enlarge in your mind. Whether you’re naturally gifted or you have to struggle to get a solid
grasp of the fundamentals, you should realize that you're not alone if you think you're an
imposter. That it's a fluke when you happen to do well on a test, and then on the next
test, for sure they, and your family and friends, are finally going to figure out how
incompetent you really are. This feeling

is so extraordinarily common that it even has a name – The Imposter Syndrome. If you suffer
from these kinds of feelings of inadequacy just be aware that many others secretly share
them. Everyone has different gifts, as the old saying goes, when one door closes, another
opens. Keep your chin up and your eye on the open door.
I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

Change Your Thoughts Change Your Life

I love reading history and being inspired by the biographies of extraordinary people. One of the most
unusual people I've ever read about, is inspiring not only because he was so extraordinary, but also,
because he was so ordinary.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a born troublemaker. In rural Spain of the 1860s, there weren't many
options for oddball juvenile delinquents. So that's how at 11 years old, Cajal found himself in jail.
Cajal was stubborn and rebellious. Who knew that Santiago Ramón y Cajal would one day not only
earn the Nobel Prize, but eventually become known as the Father of Modern Neuroscience?

Cajal was already in his early 20s when he began climbing from bad boy delinquency into the
traditional study of medicine. There's evidence that myelin sheaths, the fatty insulation that helps
signals move more quickly along a neuron, don't finish developing in some people until they're in
their twenties. This may explain why teenagers often have trouble controlling their impulsive
behavior. The wiring between the intention and the control areas of the brain isn't completely
formed. When you use neural circuits however, it seems you help build the myelin sheath over them;
not to mention making many other microscopic changes.

Practice appears to strengthen and reinforce connections between different brain regions, creating
highways between the brain's control centers and the centers that store knowledge. In Cajal's case, it
seems his natural maturation processes coupled with his own efforts to develop his thinking, helped
him to take control of his overall behavior. It seems people can enhance the development of their
neuronal circuits by practicing thoughts that use those neurons. We're still in the infancy of
understanding neural development. One thing is becoming clear, we can make significant changes in
our brain by changing how we think.

Cajal met and worked with many brilliant scientists through his lifetime. People who were often far
smarter than he. In Cajal's autobiography however, he pointed out that although brilliant people can
do exceptional work, just like anyone else they can also be careless and biased. Cajal felt the key to
his own success was his perseverance. What he called the virtue of the less brilliant, coupled with his
flexible ability to change his mind and admit errors. Anyone, Cajal noted, even people with average
intelligence, can change their own brains so that even the least gifted can produce an abundant
harvest.

People like Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution has made him one of the most influential
figures in human history, are often thought of as these, sort of, natural geniuses. You may be
surprised to learn that much like Cajal, Darwin was a poor student in school. He washed out of
medical school and ended up, to his father's horror, heading out on a round the world voyage as the
ship's naturalist. Out on his own, Darwin was able to look with fresh eyes at the data he was
collecting. Approaching material with a goal of learning it on your own, can give you a unique path to
mastery. Often no matter how good your teacher and textbook are, it's only when you sneak off and
look at other books or videos that you begin to see what you learn

through a single teacher, or book, is a partial version of the full three dimensional reality of the
subject, which has links to still other fascinating topics that are of your choosing. Taking responsibility
for your own learning is one of the most important things you can do.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal had a deep understanding, not only of how to conduct science but also of
how people just interact with one another. He warned fellow learners that there will always be those
who criticize or attempt to undermine any effort or achievement you make. This happens to
everybody; not just Nobel Prize winners. If you do well in your studies, the people around you can
feel threatened. The greater your achievement, the more other people will sometimes attack and
demean your efforts. On the other hand, if you flunk a test, you also may encounter critics who
throw more barbs, saying you don't have what it takes.

We're often told that empathy is universally beneficial. But it's not. It's important to learn to switch
on an occasional cool dispassion that helps you to not only focus on what you're trying to learn, but
also to tune people out if you discover that their interests lie in undercutting you. Such undercutting
is all too common, as people are often just as competitive as they are cooperative. When you're a
young person, mastering such dispassion can be difficult. We're naturally excited about what we're
working on, and we like to believe that everyone can be reasoned with and then, almost everyone is
naturally good hearted towards us. Like Santiago Ramón y Cajal, you can take pride in aiming for
success. Because of the very things that make other people say you can't do it. Take pride in who you
are. Especially, in the qualities that make you different, and use them as a secret talisman for success.
Use your natural contrariness to defy the always present prejudices from others about what you can
accomplish.

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning about learning.

A Test Checklist

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We've mentioned it earlier, but it's worth repeating. Testing is itself an extraordinarily powerful
learning experience. This means that the effort you put into test-taking, including the preliminary
mini test of your recall and your ability to problem solve during your preparation is of fundamental
importance. If you compare how much you learn by spending one hour studying, versus one hour
taking a test on that same material, you'll retain and learn far more as a result of the hour you spent
taking a test. Testing, it seems, has a wonderful way of concentrating the mind. Virtually everything
we've talked about in this course has been designed to help make the testing process seem
straightforward and natural, simply an extension of the normal procedures you use to learn the
material. So it's time now to cut directly to one of the final features of this course: a checklist you can
use to see whether your preparation for test taking is on target. This checklist was developed by
legendary educator Richard Felder. Although, it was originally developed for engineers, it's actually
suitable for many disciplines. As Doctor Felder says the answer to the question, “how should I
prepare for the test?” is do whatever it takes to be able to answer, yes. Meaning, usually to most of
the questions on this list:

 Did you make a serious effort to understand the text? Just hunting for relevant workedout examples
doesn't count.

 Did you work with classmates on homework problems or at least check your solutions

with others?

 Did you attempt to outline every homework problem solution before working with

classmates?

 Did you participate actively in homework group discussions contributing ideas and

asking questions?
 Did you consult with the instructor or teaching assistants when you were having trouble

with something?

 Did you understand all your homework problem solutions when they were handed in?

 Did you ask in class for explanations of homework problem solutions that weren't clear

to you?

 If you had a study guide, did you carefully go through it before the test and convince

yourself you could do everything on it?

 Did you attempt to outline lots of problem solutions quickly without spending time on

the Algebra in calculations?

 Did you go over the study guide and problems with class mates and quiz one another?

 If there was a review session before the test, did you attended and asked questions

about anything you weren't sure about?

 And lastly, did you get a reasonable night's sleep before the test? If your answer is no,

your answers to all the preceding questions may not matter.

Taking a test is serious business. Just as fighter pilots and doctors go through checklists before takeoff
and surgery, going through your own test preparation checklist can vastly improve your chances of
success. The answer to the question “How should I prepare for the test?” becomes clear once you've
filled our Doctor Felder's checklist.

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning How to Learn.

Hard Start Jump to Easy

Now that you've gotten some insight into how your brain works, we can give you some final useful
tricks that can empower your test taking. The classic way students are taught to approach tests is to
tackle the easiest problems first. This is based on the idea that by the time you finish the relatively
simple problems, you'll be confident in handling the more difficult. This approach works for some
people, mostly because, well, anything works for some people. Unfortunately, however, for many
people it's counterproductive. Tough problems often need lots of time, meaning you'd want to start
on them first thing on the test. Difficult problems can also scream for the creative powers of the
diffuse mode. But to access the diffuse mode, you need to not be focusing on what you so badly
want to solve. What to do? Easy problems first, or hard?

The answer is to start with the hard problems but quickly jump to the easy ones. Here's what I mean.
When the test is first handed out to you, first take a quick look to get a sense of what it involves. You
should do this in any case. Then, when you start working the problems, start first with what appears
to be the hardest problem. But steel yourself to pull away within the first minute or two, if you get
stuck or you get a sense that you might not be on the right track. This does something exceptionally
helpful. Starting hard loads the first most difficult problem in mind and then switches attention away
from it. Both these activities are what allow the diffuse mode to begin its work. If your initial work on
the first hard problem has unsettled you, turn next to an easy problem, and complete or do as much
as you can. Then move, next, to another difficult looking problem and try to make a bit of progress.
Again, change to something easier as soon as you feel yourself getting bogged down or stuck.

When you return to the more difficult problems, you'll often be pleased that the next step or steps in
the problem will seem to be more obvious to you. You may not be able to get all the way to the end
immediately, but at least you can get further before you switch to something else of which you can
make progress. In some sense, with this approach to test taking, you're being a little like an efficient
chef. While you're waiting for a steak to fry, you can swiftly slice the tomato garnish and turn to
season the soup and then stir the sizzling onions. The hard start jump to easy technique may make
more efficient use of your brain by allowing different parts of the brain to work simultaneously on
different thoughts.

Using the hard start jump to easy technique on tests guarantees that you will have at least a little
work done on every problem. It's also a valuable technique for helping you avoid Einstellung, getting
stuck on the wrong approach - because you have a chance to look at the problem from differing
perspectives. All of this is particularly important if your instructor gives you partial credit. The only
trick with this approach is that you must have the self-discipline to pull yourself off a problem once
you find yourself stuck for a minute or two. For most students it's easy, for others it takes discipline
and willpower. This may be why test takers sometimes find that the solution pops to mind right as
they walk out the door; when they give up, their attention switched, allowing the diffuse mode the
tiny bit of traction it needed to go to work and return the solution. Too late of course.

Sometimes, people are concerned that starting a problem and then pulling away from it might cause
confusion on an examination. This doesn't seem to be a problem for most people. After all, chefs
learn to bring various facets of a dinner together. But if you still have worries about whether this
strategy might work for you, try it first on homework problems. Also keep in mind that if you haven't
prepared well for a test, then all bets are off. Just take what simple points you can.

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Final Helpful Hints for Tests

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If you're a stressed out test taker, keep in mind that the body puts out chemicals such as cortisol
when it's under stress. This can cause sweaty palms, a racing heart, a knot on the pit of your
stomach. But interestingly, research finds, it's how you interpret these symptoms. The story you tell
yourself about why you're stressed makes all the difference. If you shift your thinking from, this test
has made me afraid, to this test has got me excited to do my best. It can really improve your
performance.

Another good tip for panicky test takers is to momentarily turn your attention to your breathing.
Relax your stomach, place your hand on it, and slowly draw a deep breath. Your hand should move
out, even as your whole chest is expanding outward like a barrel. By doing this type of deep
breathing, you're counteracting the fight or flight response that fuels anxiety. This calms you down.
But don't just start this breathing on the day of the test. If you practice this breathing technique in
the weeks before, just a minute or two here or there is all it takes. You'll slide more easily into the
breathing pattern during the test. Remember, practice makes permanent. It's especially helpful
deliberately moving to a deep breathing pattern in those final anxious moments before a test is
handed out.
I've gotten great tips on test taking from top professors from around the world. And here are some of
the best. Susan Sajna-Hebert, a professor of psychology at Lakehead University, advises her students
to cover up the answers to multiple choice questions and to try to recall the information. So they can
answer the question on their own first. If her students might complain that the practice test was way
easier than the real one, she asks, what makes the two situations different? When you took the
practice test, were you at home relaxing with toons on? Taking it with a fellow student? No time
limit? Did you have the answer key and class materials at hand? These circumstances are not exactly
like a crowded classroom with a clock ticking away and no way to access the answers.

Tracy Magrann, a professor of biological sciences at Saddleback College, tells her students to face
your fears. Often, your worst fear is not to get the grade you need for your chosen career. How can
you handle this? Simple. Have a Plan B for the alternative career. Once you have a plan for the worst
possible contingency, you'll be surprised that the fear will begin to subside. Professor Magrann notes,
study hard up until the day of the test and then let it go. Tell yourself, oh well, let me just see how
many questions I can get right. I can always pursue my other career choice. That helps release stress,
so you can actually do better and get closer to your first career choice. And Bob Bradshaw, a
professor of math at Ohlone College, tells his students about good worry and bad worry. Good worry
helps provide motivation and focus, while bad worry simply wastes energy.

Here are a few final thoughts. The day before a test, or tests, have a quick, final look over the
materials to brush up on them. You'll need both your focus mode and diffuse mode muscles, so

to speak, the next day. So you don't want to push your brain too hard. You wouldn't run a ten mile
race the day before running a marathon. Don't feel guilty if you can't seem to get yourself to work
too hard the day before a big examination. If you prepared properly, this seems to be a natural
reaction, almost as if you're subconsciously pulling back to conserve mental energy. While taking a
test, you should also remember how your mind can trick you into thinking that what you've done is
correct, even if it isn't. This means whenever possible, you should blink, shift your attention, and
then double check your answers using a, a big picture prospective asking yourself, does this really
makes sense.

There's often more than one way to answer a question and checking your answers from different
perspectives provides a golden opportunity for verifying what you've done. If there's no other way to
check, except to step back through your logic, keep in mind that simple issues have tripped up even
the most advanced students. Just do your best. In science classes, having your units of measurement
match on each side of the equation can provide an important clue about whether what you've done
is correct. The order in which you work tests is also important. Students generally work tests from
front to back. When you're checking your work if you start more towards the back and work towards
the front, it sometimes seems to give your brain a fresher perspective that can allow you to more
easily catch errors. Nothing's ever certain. Occasionally you can study hard and the test gods simply
don't cooperate, but if you prepare well by practicing and building a strong mental library, and you
approach test taking wisely, you'll find that luck will increasingly be on your side.

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning how to learn.

Summing Up Module 4

This week, we've done a wide sweep through some of the deepest aspects of learning.

 Metaphors and analogies aren't just for art and literature. One of the best things you

can do to not only remember, but more easily understand concepts in many different
fields, is to create a metaphor or analogy for them. Often, the more visual, the better.

 We've learned from Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramón y Cajal that if you change your

thoughts, you can really, truly change your life. It seems people can enhance the

development of their neuronal circuits by practicing thoughts that use those neurons.

Like Santiago Ramón y Cajal, you can take pride in aiming for success because of the

very things that make other people say you can't do it.

 Keep in mind that when you whiz through a homework or test question and you don't

go back to check your work, you're acting a little like a person who is refusing to use

parts of your brain. You're not stopping to take a mental breath and then revisit what

you've done with the bigger picture in mind, to see whether it makes sense.

 Overconfidence in your results can result from using only one mode of thinking. By

making it a point to do some of your studying with friends, you can more easily catch

where your thinking has gone astray.

 Taking a test is serious business, just as fighter pilots and doctors go through checklists

before takeoff and surgery, going through your own test preparation checklist can vastly

improve your chances of success.

 Counterintuitive strategies such as the hard start jump to easy technique, can give your

brain a chance to reflect on harder challenges even as you're focusing on other more

straightforward problems.

Here are some last test taking pointers:

 The body puts out chemicals when it's under stress. How you interpret your body's

reaction to those chemicals makes all the difference. If you shift your thinking from, this

test has made me afraid, to this test has got me excited to do my best, it helps improve

your performance.

 If you're panicked on a test, momentarily turn your attention to your breathing. Relax

your stomach, place your hand on it, and slowly draw a deep breath. Your hand should

move outward and your whole chest should expand like a barrel.

 Your mind can trick you into thinking that what you've done is correct even if it isn't.

This means that whenever possible you should blink, shift your attention, and then

double check your answers using a big picture perspective, asking yourself, does this

really make sense?

any other preparation you've done.

I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning about learning.

Wrap Up to the Course by Terrence Sejnowski and Barbara Oakley

Dr. Sejnowski: Welcome to the last video of Learning How to Learn. If you're still listening to us, then
you've come all the way through the course. And may remember at the beginning, I said that brains
do not come with an instruction manual. So we have to write one ourselves. And that was one of our
goals. In this final video, we want to tell you how much we've enjoyed teaching and learning. We've
learned from you as we hoped you've learned from us. The truth is you've always been in the driver's
seat when it comes to your own learning. But now that you have a better feeling for what's under
your neural hood, you can use this to help you learn new things all during your lifetime.

Dr. Oakley: What we're hoping is that as the days and months will pass you'll continue to bring to
mind some of the key ideas you've learned in the course. Approaches such as switching your mode of
thinking from focused to diffuse can help reduce your frustration and allow for more creative
problem solving. Strengthening your chunking can give you a firmer grasp of the material. Even
seemingly tiny changes in your daily approach to your work. Using the pomodoro technique, for
example, can make a dramatic long-term difference in your learning and in your ultimate success.

Dr. Sejnowski: Learning is so vitally important to our future that most of us spend 12 to 16 of our
earliest years of our lives in school, culminating in high school or college. But the focus in formal
education is on the product of learning, not the process of learning. In this course, we've tried to give
you a better sense of the learning process. Although this is our last video, we hope it's not our last
chance to influence you. You have not truly learned something unless you can teach it to others.
Teach those ideas to others and you will find that they will continue to resonate and deepen in your
own mind.

Dr. Oakley: We hope you'll also have discovered how powerful these ideas can be at helping you
broaden your interest, passion, and expertise. Many people believe that what they're initially, sort of,
naturally good at is what they're supposed to be doing in life. But I myself am living proof that
passions can broaden, change, and grow. The world is evolving and a broad tool kit that allows you to
learn effectively in many different subject areas is one of the most powerful assets you can have.

Dr. Sejnowski: Best of luck in your life of learning.

Dr. Oakley: Ditto that.