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.
https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/rote-vs-memory-techniques/110915/3?u=clarence
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?
Thank you in advance for your help
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