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I got a 70 on my 8th grade math final and it’s stuck with me ever since.
Partly because it was ingrained in me from a very young age that my grades were incredibly important (frankly, what mattered most).
But more because I learned that simply reading through a math book isn’t the way to learn — it feels good and productive but the reality is far from it.
Integrating Knowledge (Not Just Regurgitating)
In their work on human learning and memory, McDaniel, Roediger, and Brown divide learning into two types: mechanical and elaborative. Mechanical is rote reproduction. You read a textbook chapter for a second time. You look over your notes. Elaborative involves incorporating it into your lattice of knowledge (this can take many forms). It can mean trying to recall it without looking at your notes, relating new pieces of knowledge to old pieces of knowledge, or asking deeper, follow-up questions about the material.
The rule of thumb: mechanical is a waste of your time and elaborative actually leads to results.
Of course, this isn’t always true. If you’re re-reading the textbook to understand a certain dynamic, that can be really helpful (although, it would do you so much good to simply try to explain what’s going on before reading about it again even if…
