Want to become an expert? It
doesn’t matter what the subject is, the principle for developing expertise is
the same. My many years of personal experience and observing students convinces
me of a learning axiom: the more you know, the more you can know.
A recent research report helps to
explain what the brain is doing as it acquires expertise. By observing which
brain areas are active at the same time, one can conclude that such areas are probably
functionally connected even though they are located at different locations
within the brain’s network of circuits. In recently reported experiments, researchers
used MRI scans of subjects as they rested after mastering a set of initial
associations of pairs of faces and objects and as they learned new pairs. Scans
were collected during rest immediately after subjects had memorized a series of
face/object pairs, and during learning of new face/object pairs or pairs that
did not overlap the original paired set. The data indicated that spontaneous
activation of hippocampal and neocortical functional connectivity during rest
was related to better subsequent learning of new pairs. Moreover, the degree of
functional connectivity during rest predicted the brain-area functional
connectivity activation during the new learning experience.
The rationale for the experiment
includes the well-known fact that the hippocampus is needed to promote storage
of explicit memories in the neocortex. Moreover, we know that “off-line”
rehearsal of memories occurs during mental rest and even sleep because the
participating neural circuitry becomes periodically reactivated. The issue that
the researchers pursued was based on an assumption that one purpose of memory
is to enhance the learning of future related material. Thus, the
hippocampal-neocortex connectivity that occurred during initial learning should
also recur during rest and be relevant to new related material.
Spontaneous activation of the
hippocampal-neocortical functional connectivity in MRI scans is the index of
this off-line memory processing. The data showing the relationship of this
connectivity during rest and new learning support the author’s general
conclusion that “how our brains capture and store new information is heavily
influenced by what we already know.”
This brings me to the real practical relevance of
this research: learning to learn. What we see here is scientific evidence for
how the brain teaches itself by learning to have more learning.
Here is a practical example of what I mean. I just
finished attending the Newport Jazz festival, which included interview of some
of the artists. Jon Faddis, a phenomenal trumpet player who can begin a phrase with high C and go up from there, discussed his experience with his trainees.
He tells them what most of them won’t do: “If you are not practicing 4-6 hours
a day, every day, you are just wasting your time.” In other words, to become an expert jazz musician,
you have to accumulate a large amount of prior knowledge, which of course takes
lots practice. I have noticed in my own career that over time I am getting more
and more competent to move into new areas of neuroscience even though I am
getting older and supposedly have less ability to learn than when I was young.
This brings me to the subject of education. Our
educational system is crippled by the apparent assumption that children are
good learners because their brains are young. Therefore, curriculum focuses on
content and testing. But children don’t have much knowledge to build on to
accomplish efficient learning of new content. To compensate, schools need much
more emphasis on teaching basic learning skills, which children don’t know much
about either, because again they don’t have much experience at learning how to
learn. I'm not sure that teachers get enough training for teaching learning skills.
Just what are these skills that I think should be taught explicitly in
the early grades? I am writing a book on that to help parents and teachers. Here,
I can only summarize. Learning skills operate in a cycle that begins with
motivation–and yes, that is something you can learn, especially grit. Then
comes learning how to be attentive and to focus. Next is knowing how to
organize learning material coherently to make it easier to master. Material to
be learned needs to be understood, not just memorized. There are multiple
tactics one can learn to improve the ability to understand complex material. The
better you understand a subject, the less you have to memorize because there is
so much that you can acquire through reasoning. Memorization skills, however,
are far more useful than most teachers realize or know how to teach. Most
under-performance of students on high-stakes tests is due to poor memory, which
is why teachers go over and over ad nauseum the same material in preparation
for tests. The final steps in the learning skills cycle are problem solving and
creativity. And yes, both of those skills are teachable for those who know how.
Regardless of subject matter, the process of
acquiring enough knowledge to set the stage to become an expert includes also
the implicit learning of how to learn new material in the field. There are no
shortcuts to becoming an expert. The process begins with learning how to learn.
Dr. Klemm, a.k.a. “Memory Medic,” teaches
teachers about the learning skills cycle. See his recent books, “Memory Power
101” and “Better Grades, Less Effort.”
Source:
Schlichting, Margaret L., and Preston, Alison R. (2015).
Memory reactivation during rest supports upcoming learning of related content.
Proc. Nat. Acad. Science, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1404396111
