Insightful Studying
Insightful Studying
Transcript
The phrase insightful studying, is one that was generated by Professor Cal Newport, Associate Professor of computer science at Georgetown University. He wrote a book called How to Become A Straight A Student. It's extremely popular for students who are trying to maximize their success in the classroom. And he continues to author a blog called Study Hacks, which is a treasure trove of strategies and tips for bolstering your academic success. He talks about insightful studying in the following way. He says if you want to do well in a technical class, all you have to do is develop insight for every single concept covered in lecture.
That sounds easy, right? Well he says even though that formula for success is fairly simple, developing insight is quite effortful and requires time and energy. His definition of insight is as follows. Insight is deep comprehension, an awareness not just of how something works, but of why it works. This is not passing familiarity. It's not even rote memorization. It's the ability to understand a concept well enough that you can teach it to a room of your peers and answer their questions thoughtfully. And in order to do that, you really do need to comprehend it at a deep level.
Again, this isn't just understanding how something happens. It's not just being able to label the parts of the given process or be able to write out an equation from memory, it means knowing how that process, or knowing why that equation works in some detail. Detail enough to teach it to somebody else. Professor Newport explains it in this way, here's what I commonly observe, the students who struggle in technical courses are those who skip the insight developing phase. They capture concepts in their notes and they study by reproducing their notes. Then, when they sit down for the exam and are faced with problems that apply the ideas in novel ways, they have no idea what to do. They panic, they do poorly, they proclaim that they are not math people. They switch to a philosophy major. The last little zing of course is playful and it's meant to talk about the level of frustration that students feel when they just have trouble succeeding in their math and science courses. That in some cases they abandon their major altogether to look for another discipline that doesn't require the same skills.
But Professor Newport provides a set of tips to help develop this insight that can really generate deep comprehension and maximize success in technical courses and they're not particularly difficult to do, but they are things that most students don't immediately think of. The first is to prep concepts before lecture using your textbook or online resources. If you can look at your syllabus and see what concept is coming up in lecture that day, even five or ten minutes preparing that concept, doing a little bit of pre-research familiarizing yourself with it can make the lecture a much more productive pedagogical exercise. In essence instead of going into the lecture cold you can go in warm and ready to learn.
He also suggests that students ask questions when they get lost during the lecture. Don't allow yourself to let minutes pass and get caught up in the weeds without a real understanding of what's going on. Sometimes a simple answer to a question can help get you back on the path of insightful learning. He recommends that you seek clarification immediately after a lecture, either from the professor or one of the teaching assistants if you have questions that are fresh in your mind.
And he suggests that you review the material from lecture as soon as you can after lecture, while it's fresh to help concretize that information in your mind. He recommends going to office hours religiously so that you can build a relationship with the professor and ask more detailed questions about any concepts that were covered in lecture. He talks about keeping a master concept list. A list of all of the concepts and major ideas that you go over in lecture and a hint, your syllabus is essentially a major concept list.
So if you can explain the concepts on your syllabus to a group of your peers and answer their questions you're in pretty good shape. Also think about creating detailed study guides, not just of what's covered in lecture, but how the ideas in lecture relate to information that is in the problem sets. And finally, once you've developed insight for a concept, once you feel like you have deep understanding and comprehension of that information, do some practice problems to make sure that you can practice applying that concept, putting it into action in order to solve a problem because remember, the way the exam is going to test your comprehension of the material is by asking you to solve problems.
One of the coolest rules that Professor Newport gives is a rule he calls the 48 hour rule. And it's this, within 48 hours of first being presented with a concept, learn it well enough so that you could teach it to a classroom of your peers and walk them through related problems while giving an insightful, running commentary. If you're able to do that and you're able to do it very quickly after initially learning the concept one, you're going to maximize your comprehension and long-term retention and two, your knowledge of that concept will become a kind of working knowledge that will benefit you as you approach and learn additional concepts that build off of that one.
All of these strategies can help you develop the insight that will allow you to succeed in technical courses.
That sounds easy, right? Well he says even though that formula for success is fairly simple, developing insight is quite effortful and requires time and energy. His definition of insight is as follows. Insight is deep comprehension, an awareness not just of how something works, but of why it works. This is not passing familiarity. It's not even rote memorization. It's the ability to understand a concept well enough that you can teach it to a room of your peers and answer their questions thoughtfully. And in order to do that, you really do need to comprehend it at a deep level.
Again, this isn't just understanding how something happens. It's not just being able to label the parts of the given process or be able to write out an equation from memory, it means knowing how that process, or knowing why that equation works in some detail. Detail enough to teach it to somebody else. Professor Newport explains it in this way, here's what I commonly observe, the students who struggle in technical courses are those who skip the insight developing phase. They capture concepts in their notes and they study by reproducing their notes. Then, when they sit down for the exam and are faced with problems that apply the ideas in novel ways, they have no idea what to do. They panic, they do poorly, they proclaim that they are not math people. They switch to a philosophy major. The last little zing of course is playful and it's meant to talk about the level of frustration that students feel when they just have trouble succeeding in their math and science courses. That in some cases they abandon their major altogether to look for another discipline that doesn't require the same skills.
But Professor Newport provides a set of tips to help develop this insight that can really generate deep comprehension and maximize success in technical courses and they're not particularly difficult to do, but they are things that most students don't immediately think of. The first is to prep concepts before lecture using your textbook or online resources. If you can look at your syllabus and see what concept is coming up in lecture that day, even five or ten minutes preparing that concept, doing a little bit of pre-research familiarizing yourself with it can make the lecture a much more productive pedagogical exercise. In essence instead of going into the lecture cold you can go in warm and ready to learn.
He also suggests that students ask questions when they get lost during the lecture. Don't allow yourself to let minutes pass and get caught up in the weeds without a real understanding of what's going on. Sometimes a simple answer to a question can help get you back on the path of insightful learning. He recommends that you seek clarification immediately after a lecture, either from the professor or one of the teaching assistants if you have questions that are fresh in your mind.
And he suggests that you review the material from lecture as soon as you can after lecture, while it's fresh to help concretize that information in your mind. He recommends going to office hours religiously so that you can build a relationship with the professor and ask more detailed questions about any concepts that were covered in lecture. He talks about keeping a master concept list. A list of all of the concepts and major ideas that you go over in lecture and a hint, your syllabus is essentially a major concept list.
So if you can explain the concepts on your syllabus to a group of your peers and answer their questions you're in pretty good shape. Also think about creating detailed study guides, not just of what's covered in lecture, but how the ideas in lecture relate to information that is in the problem sets. And finally, once you've developed insight for a concept, once you feel like you have deep understanding and comprehension of that information, do some practice problems to make sure that you can practice applying that concept, putting it into action in order to solve a problem because remember, the way the exam is going to test your comprehension of the material is by asking you to solve problems.
One of the coolest rules that Professor Newport gives is a rule he calls the 48 hour rule. And it's this, within 48 hours of first being presented with a concept, learn it well enough so that you could teach it to a classroom of your peers and walk them through related problems while giving an insightful, running commentary. If you're able to do that and you're able to do it very quickly after initially learning the concept one, you're going to maximize your comprehension and long-term retention and two, your knowledge of that concept will become a kind of working knowledge that will benefit you as you approach and learn additional concepts that build off of that one.
All of these strategies can help you develop the insight that will allow you to succeed in technical courses.