I need to learn how to understand. I need a set of steps to trigger comprehension. Maybe a flow chart, a system, anything helpful. My question is simple;
What do I need to do to understand a concept?
This started from another question but @Hari-P made me begin to reanalyze and rethink certain things.
To reasonably pursue this, I think there is a need to understand comprehension (not just be able to define it).
What really happens in our brains when we understand something?
What is the method to understand a concept?
Which kind of understanding transfers directly to problem solving?
How do we measure understanding reliably and be sure we aren’t just measuring memory?, if comprehension is the ability to explain a concept, have I understood it when I memorized the definition?
How closely linked are memory and comprehension and what is the relationship?
If there are steps to trigger comprehension, will they differ by subject type? If so please give the different steps corresponding with each type of subject.
I believe this will help me in my learning process to reliably distinguish between problems caused by understanding and those caused by memory and try my best to improve if indeed I suffer from a problem with comprehension. It will also help to know what’s best to encode in any given topic or subject. I will appreciate insights from experience. We focus so much on memory improvement here, why decide to leave understanding, a very crucial aspect of learning to some unconscious processes?
One quick comment is that learning (and memory) is helped by having many links between the new knowledge and existing knowledge.
Memory palaces hack this by:
you learn a memory palace so that it is “existing knowledge”
you memorize information by inventing artificial links to the memory palace (e.g. something related to the information somehow interacts with its locus)
For understanding (more than superficial memorization) it helps to have meaningful links to existing knowledge—as many such links as possible. This helps you see patterns, compresses the amount you need to “memorize” anyway, and is essential for creativity.
“We focus so much on memory improvement here, why decide to leave understanding, a very crucial aspect of learning to some unconscious processes?”
Some people may be doing that but others are not. There are plenty of people on this forum (I’ve been here about six years) who are dedicated to long term learning. I think the confusion for you is that the “memory” part of learning is mostly about the encoding aspect.
A technique I find great for gluing the encoded parts together is the Cal Newport (he’s an author) active recall process, which is out-loud talking in full sentences trying to explain things. You’ve probably heard the adage that the best way to learn something is to teach it. This is the same idea but you are not exposing a real person to your confused early attempts. You are pretending to teach it.
The out loud talking does a few things: 1) It’s active recall practice, 2) it generates links between things you might not have previously thought about, 3) it shows what you don’t know well enough and 4) it exposes the gaps.
Please,how do I do get the meaningful links, are reading summaries helpful? I assume that to keep the links meaningful, you don’t rely completely on what you already know? There seems to be a thin line between understanding and memorization. How do you decide when to stop yourself so as not to make too illogical connections (as can be sometimes seen in memorizing).
I know about mind mapping but that happens after reading, doesn’t it?
By thinking about the subject, considering “why”, trying to explain something in a simpler way, etc.
Depends very much on the subject! But it’s not a process that can be systemized away in the same way as learning vocab can be handled with SRS and memorizing a pack of playing cards can be handled with a memory palace plus a card system.
Do note that my responses have a lot of “I think” and “I would say”, since I am not an expert.
I have no idea. I think that you can find some experts or articles on that by searching about neuroscience or the science of learning on Google. I wouldn’t know what search words would be better. But you are on the internet: if such knowledge exists, you can probably find it through Google somehow.
Analysis and synthesis, that is, to break things to their most simple pieces, and then build them together again, observing how the pieces interact along the way. I think this is a very abstract response, but at the end, I think that is what we always do in some way.
I think that it is what is called procedural knowledge by the learning scientists. Give a look at Benjamin Keep’s channel or search for the term on-line. I think that this is the kind of knowledge that you mostly acquire by practicing solving the problems. The theorie is necessary, but not enough. @Daniel_360 is, if I am not mistaken, a mathematician. He will have better answers than any babble I can write about this.
At least on “measuring” understanding reliably, I would say that one of the possible benchmarks is to apply it sucessfully, maybe by solving a problem with such knowledge or to reconstruct it independently (in the case of more abstract knowledge).
I think that it depends so much on what is being learned… I have a nice understanding of the trigonometrical circle (don’t know if this is how it is called in English), that I feel like a waste of time to review anything about it. It just clicked in a way that makes sense to me. I don’t think that I will ever forget about it. But it is sometimes very hard to have this almost “deep” intuition of something that it is absolutely natural as is the knowledge that if you release something that doesn’t have anything below it, it will fall. But other processes with a lot of middle steps/more complexity can be hard to retain in such a way; (for example, biological processes, depending on how deep you are going in them), you would have to probably create such a logical chain, understanding the whys of everything that it would than be absurd to be different from how it is, if there is such a complex and complete understanding of them anyway. Some subjects absolutely are not like this, as I will write below.
This is probably a yes and no response. In a abstract consideration, perhaps information is all the same: small facts or assertions connected to make systems of interconnected facts that grow in complexety and scope. But different subjects have different internal logic: History is not - as we understand it today, at least - connected logically as is Mathematics. So I think that it is harder, or even impossible, to get this intuitive grasp that I mentioned on the 5. point on it. It just relies more on memorization. But there are some connections that strenghten your understanding: you can know that before the French Revolution, there were shortages of bread/high prices on food, that the economy was messed up by the French support to the American Revolution, etc. all contributing to make people agitated. All this to say: History has its own types of connection. And all subjects have their type of connection. If this connections are logical in a sense that Math is, thus I think that there is a kind of understanding that provokes a memory that comes out of intuition, more solid. Other subjects are not intuitional, like History, but can become close to be depending on how much you construct a connection between the facts. If this connection is valid and has a cause/effect relationship, this is another subject, but it surely helps our brain to remember it better.
Thanks for this. I sometimes teach others. A question though; Do you consider it active recall if you have written down the subtopics and then recall based on that (does it all have to be from memory?)
I like this idea of breaking things down and moving forward from there. I think together with a mindmap to show relationship between various concepts in a topic, I just may come a little closer to better understanding.
Please, what do you mean by independent construction, do you mean without cues (an outline or something of the sort)? I assume this construction process is different from recalling? I mean I can memorise about a topic (say protein synthesis) in a palace and navigate to explain it when asked about it. I think I will even reproduce more information like this (without external cues) as I may understand how something is related to the big picture but still not remember it at the time.
I’m not the person you account, but my take is very clear: there is no requirement and very little benefit to memorize the list of subtopics as well.
Rather, you should find the links between the content and other content, so that whatever you are thinking about, the adjacent content is naturally quite available.
Also remember that we are humans with biological brains. To get the most out of them, it is best not to force them to be something they’re not, like a book or SSD drive. Better to use the fact that they can naturally manage many links between items.
Related random idea: look up “Feynman technique”, which might give you some insipration!
I think that it is quite an excellent way to build understanding.
I was thinking more on math proofs and philosophical arguments when I wrote about indepedent reconstruction, but you refuted me right there when you wrote about using mnemonics to remember them without cues: you can absolutely reconstruct something and not understand it. So it is not a valid proof of understanding. Perhaps using it to solve a problem/answer a question is the more appropriate demonstration of understanding. But if you can reconstruct something out of your head without the use of mnemonics, because you really absorbed the logical developement of the phenomenon, I would say that it is also a proof of understanding and this was what I meant.
Hey, pardon me if I’m wrong but I thought we were talking about improvement of understanding as a way of improving the learning process (and memorization process too if need be) and not as a way of replacing memory? I consider memorization of the list of subtopics as a way of organising thoughts in this scenario. The problem with not using any external ordering or cue words when analysing is the possibility of missing a point not linked to a lot of other points.
I think you can achieve this with a memory palace (more effective than the natural method in my opinion) by doing things like: using the same or similar images for a particular concept, encoding related topics in the same palace, using ‘portals’ in palaces to link locations e.t.c.
Isn’t the purpose of training memory not having to rely on encoding and recall being automatic, natural and unconscious ?
This it what I want to say when people come and say “Help me to memorise 100 books!” No. You have to understand 100 books and then memorise what’s useful, in a format you’ll be able to use!
You can, in theory, memorise the whole contents of a ressource. But if you didn’t do the work of understanding it first, what’s the point? It doesn’t make you able to use it.
Having the ressource in your head to consult (instead of laying in the table before you) is not much use, if you still don’t know what to do with it and how to apply the contents.
Memory techniques are most useful afterwards: if you understand it first you’ll memorise your actionable insights from it, and
you will need to memorise much less information, because once you’ve built up the connections remembering one insight, the linked ideas come back - that’s why memorising the first two levels of a mind map should be enough
you will structure the information differently (or have the information of several ressource merged in one memory palace) - in a way you are translating it in your mother tongue = the way your brain is going to intuitively use it best (given your situation now, it will change with time, that’s the nature of growing).
There are of course exceptions: if you’re memorising lots of trivia or the decimals of pi, there may not be much understanding involved. Or if you’re memorising poetry or sacred texts, each word is important so you’re going to go ahead and memorise it, because even if the point is to have insights come to you later through meditating on it (and your brain is going to add connections), the structure of the text is not going to change.
I would say memorisation is the tool allowing you to practice facts so that it becomes intuitive/automatic knowledge.
If we look at the process, memorisation comes in several places along the way.
It begins with memorisation of fundamental facts. First you have to be told: this shape “0” is the sign for “zero”. Zero is nothing and is used as a placeholder.
Then you put these pieces of knowledge into practice by forming numbers with it. Maybe in the beginning you’ll need to learn the “fact” that ten is written “10”, but after a while you understand what 20, 30, 100, 1000, etc. are, without learning them as separated facts.
Through practice, the knowledge becomes intuitive and you use it to know other facts. When I know what 0 does and what multiplication is, then I know that 34x100=3400 without having learnt my 34 and 100 timetables.
Along the way, you may need to memorise facts that are hard to remember even if you understand them, or facts that you need to practice even if, after having practiced, you will understand them intuitively and don’t really need to review them anymore. Because intuitive understanding acquired through practice = automatic memorisation.
To make sure that you don’t forget things when you don’t practice them anymore, you need to memorise some fundamental principles that, when reviewed, will bring back all the other elements that you now understand intuitively.
The more advanced you are the less these principles are going to be. Most people are not going to need to memorise and regularly review the principle “zero is a placeholder”.
I’m not sure what you mean by “after reading” here, but I’ve always done mind-mapping during reading and/or listening, and when it’s feasible (e.g. when using FreePlane on a computer), I’ll update it to reflect new realisations. This could mean adding info, but also moving nodes or merging two nodes together.
Others mentioned active recall methods espoused by Cal Newport and Benjamin Keeps – from what I remember they proposed a similar tactic, although Keeps’ method was a bit more work since it involved “free recall” on paper, then reading what you’ve written, then repeating the process a couple of times.
Personally I would favour those methods first to build comprehension, and reach for mnemonic techniques later if it seems important to “lock in” easily forgotten data (e.g. dates, formulae, numeric tables, lists etc).
I think some of the confusion with mind mapping (at least for me) comes from that, as a learning tool, it is used differently than how Buzan originally taught it.
So I had another idea of mind mapping (pretty thing, with plenty of colours and drawings, minimal branches, etc.) and it took me a while to get that it could be used differently.
When you use mind mapping to study, the point is making you think, NOT to get a definitive mind map at the end (and even less making it pretty).
When you draw a mind map it reflects your understanding at a certain moment. Then you understand more things (or differently) and you redo it. And again. And again. It’s iterative, like learning is too. (At least that’s how I understand it now… it may change again later, since after all it is the nature of it )
Yes, that’s what I was getting at with my description. I’m using mind maps to “think out loud” and revise my view of the overall taxonomy and hierarchy of ideas, rather than to produce something nice. Although it is nice to come back to it later and be able to review and extend it.
Keeps’ paper-based free recall exercise is even more extreme in terms of making you think – the sheet is supposed to be almost “write-only”, just capturing key words here and there, with little or no structure, as your focus should be on “brain dumping” what you’ve understood.
It’s encouraging to see “wow, that thing was super hard for me to understand back then, and now it’s easy”, especially when you don’t feel like you’re making tangible progress while grinding day to day.
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