Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy

There’s a consistent theme in this chapter: tell learners what they are supposed to get out of the activities you set for them, and tell them how to get

The second time you encounter material, it’s easier to understand, whether you’re reading it or hearing it; plan your reading and listening accordingly.

reorganizing your notes doesn’t just make it easier to study; the process of reorganizing notes is itself studying.

The main point of an activity is either to learn a technique that requires physical practice or to engage high-level thinking strategies such as the scientific method.

“Memory is the residue of thought.”

Recite:

You must focus on one aspect of the skill at a time. Complex skills have a lot of components, and you can’t think about all of them at once.

First, just writing things down makes them more memorable. Second, reading your notes later jogs your memory. Research shows that notes do serve both functions.

learning from a lecture requires active thinking: listeners must rebuild the hierarchical organization of what they hear.