Learning is rarely taught as a class on its own. This means that most of these mental models are known only to specialists.A mental model is a general idea that can be used to explain many different phenomena. I will be sharing 10 learning models that has become part of me.
1.To solve a problem, you need to search: Herbert Simon and Allen Newell argued that people solve problems by searching through a problem space. A problem space is like a maze. Problem spaces can also be abstract. Real-life problems are typically more expansive than mazes. One implication of this model is that, without prior knowledge, most problems are really difficult to solve. A Rubik’s cube has over forty-three quintillion configurations — a big space to search in if you aren’t clever about it. Learning is the process of acquiring patterns and methods to cut down on brute-force searching.
- Knowledge grows : How much you are able to learn depends on what you already know.This integration provides more hooks for you to recall that information later. If you do not know anything about a particular topic to recall what you know before and string the new information will be difficult. However, when you know little about a topic, you have fewer hooks to put new information on. This makes the information easier to forget. Like a crystal growing from a seed, future learning is much easier once a foundation is established.
- Limited Mental bandwidth: We can only keep a few things in mind at any one time.But more recent work has suggested the number is closer to four things. If you aren’t paying attention, you’re not learning. Devoting bandwidth to irrelevant elements may slow us down.
- Knowledge becomes invisible with experience: The moe you put to practice the knowledge you have acquired the more invisible the knowledge becomes, over shadoweu by experience. Skills become increasingly automated through practice. This reduces our conscious awareness of the skill, making it require less of our precious working memory capacity to perform. Think of driving a car: at first, using the blinkers and the brakes was painfully deliberate. After years of driving, you barely think about it.
- Relearning is fast: Relearning is usually much faster than initial learning. Relearning is a nuisance, especially since struggling with previously easy problems can be discouraging. Yet it’s no reason not to learn deeply and broadly even forgotten knowledge can be revived much faster than starting from scratch.
- Memory strengthens by retrieval.: Retrieving knowledge strengthens memory more than seeing something for a second time does. Why is retrieval so helpful? One way to think of it is that the brain economizes effort by remembering only those things that are likely to prove useful. Retrieval only works if there is something to retrieve. This is why we need books, teachers and classes.
- Creativity is mostly copying.: Creativity is not inborn. It is learnt and only Few subjects are so misunderstood as creativity. We tend to imbue creative individuals with a near-magical aura, but creativity is much more mundane in practice.
