本课程将介绍各领域专家所使用的学习方法，他们包括艺术家、文学家、数学家、科学家、运动员和很多其他领域专家。我们将学习如何使用两种不同的大脑模式，以及大脑如何封装（“chunks”）信息。我们还将介绍能力错觉（illusions of learning），记忆技巧，对付拖延症的方法，以及研究表明能帮助我们掌握困难科目的方法。
无论您在所学领域是专家还是菜鸟，您都可以使用这些方法，改变自己的思维模式，重塑自己的人生。如果您是所学领域的专家，通过学习大脑认知的底层知识，您可以进一步提高自己的学习能力，您将了解反直觉的考试技巧和见解，从而能够更高效地完成作业和习题。如果您在学习中遇到困难，系统有效的学习技巧将帮助您将走上正轨。无论您希望学习什么内容，这门课程都可以作为您的指南。
Ramón y Cajal Distinguished Scholar of Global Digital Learning, McMaster University Professor of Engineering, Industrial & Systems Engineering, Oakland University
Dr. Terrence Sejnowski
Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies Computational Neurobiology Laboratory
Hong Chee Joo
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 with the monkey's 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 anelectron'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 paws-itive,
and 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're trying to understand.
Interestingly, metaphors and analogies are useful for
getting people out of einstellen.
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 using 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.
Explore our Catalog
Join for free and get personalized recommendations, updates and offers.
Dr. Barbara OakleyRamón y Cajal Distinguished Scholar of Global Digital Learning, McMaster University
Dr. Terrence SejnowskiFrancis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Hong Chee Joo
