Notes from Dr. Barbara Oakley's speech @NTU (2016.4.25) (*I do not claim or own any of the images used in the presentation)

1. Learning How to Learn
Brian’s notes from Dr. Barbara Oakley’s speech @NTU

2. Crash course from TEDxOaklandUniversity
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8

3. Contents
1. Basics - How the brain learns
2. Sleep & Exercise make you smarter
3. Other learning techniques
4. How to deal with procrastination
5. Race car brain v.s. Hiker brain
6. Passion
7. Appendix
a. Qs from the panel
b. Good presentation techniques by Dr. Oakley

4. How the brain works

5. Focus v.s. Diffuse mode
Imagine your brain is like a pinball machine

6. Focus v.s. Diffuse mode
● Focus mode:
○ Thoughts can only travel in a limited part of brain
○ Like a flashlight - you can turn on anytime you want
○ You tend to go on the thinking path you had in the past
● Diffuse mode: relaxing the mind
○ Thoughts can travel broadly accross the entire brain
○ Not like a flash light - you can’t turn it on whenever you want (just like you
can’t make yourself fall asleep immediately)
● You can’t be in both focus and diffuse mode at the same time

7. Switch between ‘focus’ & ‘diffuse’ mode
to learn new things
Interchange between two modes -
like hitting the ping-pong ball back and forth

8. Learn a bit everyday, don’t try to learn
everything in a single shot
Like weightlifting, you can’t train your muscles only on game day,
you have to train them periodically beforehand.

9. Sleeping & Exercising
helps learning

10. ● Allows fluids to wash the toxins
between the neurons away
● Q: How much hours of sleep is
recommended?
○ A: We don’t know
● Enhances the growth of
neurogenesis (based on research
from here)
Sleeping Exercising

11. Other Learning Techniques

12. Other Learning Techniques
● Metaphors are a great way to help you learn
● Hard start, (then) jump to easy
○ Start with the hardest problem
○ Stop yourself when you hit a wall
(sometimes as short as 2 min.)
○ Go back to a easy problem (your subconscious actually
is solving the problem in the back of your head)
○ Then go back to the hard problem
● Test yourself on EVERYTHING
○ Flashcards are your friend

13. Other Learning Techniques
● Q: Is listening to background music while learning good
or bad?:
○ We don’t know. Both have their own supporters.
● Practice makes permanent.
● Change your study location occasionally to become
independent of the environment.
● How to learn something hard: Recall
○ Look at the material real quick, then look away and
try to recall it.
● Teaching is one of the best ways to learn.

14. Procrastinating

15. Dealing with Procrastination
● Procrastinating can become a habit
● The answer - Pomodoro technique
○ 1. Important: turn off ALL distractions
(such as cell phone notifications)
○ 2. Set timer to 25 minutes
○ 3. Focus intensively with all your heart
○ 4. Reward yourself

16. ○
Dealing with Procrastination
○ The thought of facing a task you dislike is like
feeling pain to the brain, but the brain actually
stops hurting after doing the task for 20 min.
○ During the 25min. pomodoro, do NOT focus
on finishing the task, instead, focus on focusing
○ Other tips:
■ Eat the frogs first (do the things you hate
the most first)
■ Break things down into in bite size pieces
■ Make a task list the night before

17. Which kind of brain are you?
Race car v.s. Hiker

18. Reach conclusions real fast
Although you think slower, or often
get distracted, you’re actually more
creative because you can touch the
pine trees and smell the flowers
along your hike (because your
working memory picks up new
things more frequently). Thus
although you need to spend more
time to catch up with race car
brains, it’s well worth it.
Race Car brain Hiker brain

19. Don’t just ‘follow’ your passion,
‘BROADEN’ your passion’
-Dr. Barbara Oakley
Brian 註: 近似於 “愛你所選，選你所愛 ”

20. Thanks

21. Appendix - Qs from the panel
● NTU老師Q: How to use diffuse mode when teaching / giving a speech:
○ Humor (for just a few seconds)
■ E.g. technique that 補習班 uses
○ Small activities for the audience
● NTU老師 Q: how to motivate students?
○ Barbara: Care about them - e.g. remembering their names, showing that you really want to help them succeed
● 冠緯Q: Online master degree (UIUC online data science master) v.s. Real degree at campus:
○ Her father on her joining the army to learn a language: “Oh, you’re gonna learn something!”
○ You often learn a lot of “other” stuff you didn’t intend to when you’re on campus
● 學生Q: What she thinks coursera can improve on?
○ Quiz: design different problem levels
● 學生Q: What’s Barbara’s take on “collaborative learning” (e.g. study groups):
○ She thinks it’s a fad: it’s a helpful way, but definitely not the ONLY way
■ E.g. You can also imagine your neighbor - try explaining something to your imaginary neighbor
● 學生Q: How to become better at public speaking / answering questions immediately?
○ “Practice, practice, practice” => be persistent
● 學生Q: procrastination v.s. Diffuse mode: what’s the difference?

22. Appendix - good presentation techniques
● Start with a story
○ E.g. She moved to 10 different places before the age of 10
● Start with a question:
○ E.g. Student asked her: How did you change your brain
● 虧自己
● Humorous
● 鮮明對比
○ E.g. People who took photos in Antartica look like heroes, I just looked cold.
● Use metaphors
● 內心小劇場
● 演戲