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thing better dot email.

1:13

And now on with the show. This

1:17

is billed for tomorrow a podcast about

1:19

the smartest solutions to our most misunderstood

1:22

problems. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, and in

1:24

each episode, I take something that seems concerning

1:26

or confusing today and figure out where

1:28

it came from, what important things were missing,

1:31

and how we can create more opportunity tomorrow.

1:35

What style of learner

1:37

are you? Chances are you

1:39

actually have an answer to that question, and

1:41

that's because when you were in school,

1:43

you were likely introduced to the concept

1:46

of learning styles. It's been

1:48

around for decades and it basically says

1:50

every individual person is a

1:52

specific kind of learner. One

1:55

of the most popular models for this is called

1:57

the Varg model, which you probably

1:59

are familiar with even if you don't know name Varg.

2:01

It says that everyone is one of four

2:04

kinds of learners. They are either

2:06

a visual learner, an oral learner,

2:09

a reading, writing learner, or a

2:11

kinesthetic learner. Which is to say

2:13

that you either learn best by seeing something,

2:15

by hearing something, by reading and writing

2:17

something, or by doing a physical activity.

2:20

And I bet that as I say these words,

2:22

you are thinking to yourself which

2:25

style of learner you are. And

2:27

I bet it feels true to you. I bet you have

2:29

a lifetime of experience to back

2:31

that up and you rely on this insight

2:33

today whenever you want to absorb

2:35

new information. I do it too.

2:38

I know exactly what style

2:40

of learner I am. Now

2:43

try to learn this. Everything

2:45

you just heard is

2:47

wrong. I know. Kind

2:49

of seems impossible. It

2:50

has been so ingrained in our educational

2:53

system This is Polly Huzman,

2:55

an associate professor of anatomy, cell

2:58

biology, and physiology for the Indiana

3:00

University School of Medicine. Who also

3:02

does educational research largely focused

3:05

on factors outside the classroom that affect

3:07

education. And that includes

3:09

studying learning styles, starts

3:12

super early. I was surprised when my kids started

3:14

school. They start hearing about it

3:16

in kindergarten or first grade or

3:18

maybe even in preschool.

3:20

And that's because these concepts are

3:22

decades old, and they've been widely

3:24

accepted even considered foundational

3:27

in the educational community. By

3:29

one count, published in the journal Nature,

3:31

ninety percent of teachers in

3:33

countries around the world believed in

3:35

learning styles. And Polly believed

3:37

it herself. She had no reason

3:39

not to. But then in the

3:42

early two thousands, some researchers started

3:44

studying learning styles more closely. For

3:46

example, they started tracking test scores

3:49

based on whether a student's learning style was

3:51

accommodated or

3:52

not. They would see, okay, So

3:54

I've got a class that's almost all

3:56

auditory learners. So we're gonna buy all

3:58

of these new things, new equipment,

4:01

new training for our teachers to

4:04

focus on that style, and then they

4:06

didn't see any outcomes. Right? Those students

4:08

did not perform better on any

4:10

of their testing, on any of their

4:12

objectives, then students

4:14

who didn't have all those additional resources

4:16

in teacher training. These early

4:18

studies and critiques got lot of

4:20

attention in the education industry.

4:22

And a lot of people started to say, hey,

4:25

maybe this whole learning style thing

4:27

is wrong. But when

4:29

Polly saw

4:30

that, she said, no. No.

4:32

That can't be. My colleague that I've worked

4:34

with on it, Valerie O'Laughlin, she and I

4:36

were having a conversation where we didn't we didn't

4:39

buy it either, where we were to saying,

4:41

I think they're throwing the baby out with bath water

4:43

a little bit here. I think we've got to look at this

4:45

more. And that was what prompted

4:47

some of our work THEY THOUGHT

4:49

YOU KNOW, THESE STUDIES ARE ALL FOCUSED

4:52

ON THE CLASSROOM, BUT MAYBE THE CLASSROOM

4:54

ISN'T THE ONLY PLACE WHERE PEOPLE LEARN.

4:57

So let's look outside the classroom and

4:59

see how students study at home.

5:01

Because what happens if a student

5:04

goes home and studies in their preferred

5:06

learning style is a student who

5:08

doesn't use their preferred learning

5:10

style. That's where the difference

5:12

is made. Right? If they put it

5:14

into their preferred learning style, then it

5:16

should produce better outcomes. So that was

5:18

where we kind of took it

5:20

and still saw no improvement in

5:22

the outcomes. Even if they were

5:25

using those study strategies that were assigned

5:27

to their learning

5:28

style. Polly and her colleague were

5:30

surprised. But they published their

5:32

results. And then they started getting a lot

5:34

of attention for it. Article started coming

5:37

out like one in twenty eighteen in

5:39

Atlantic called The Myth of learning

5:41

styles. And then the backlash

5:43

began.

5:44

We've gotten pushback from people that are like,

5:46

no, I don't agree with you. You're wrong. I've

5:48

seen this myself by the way. I found

5:50

that Atlantic piece that I just mentioned a few

5:52

months ago and wrote a newsletter about

5:55

it and then got a flood of angry

5:57

emails from people telling me, well,

6:00

here is one email from

6:02

a guy named Danny. He writes,

6:04

this is so wrong you must

6:06

have never been a coach or a teacher. There

6:08

are different learning styles and I see it every

6:10

day as a teacher and a coach. Most

6:12

students or athletes are visual

6:15

learners. And look,

6:18

I don't think that Danny is

6:20

wrong about what he's seeing. And

6:22

neither does Polly The story of

6:24

learning and learning styles is actually

6:26

much more complicated than saying

6:29

that this theory of education is wrong and

6:31

that everyone should stop doing it and that's that.

6:33

Instead, Polly says, the story

6:35

is this, in our quest

6:37

to help people learn better. What

6:40

we've actually done is cut off

6:42

a lot of other avenues for

6:44

learning. Because when we told

6:46

people that they learn in one way,

6:49

they started limiting themselves to

6:51

learning in that one way. But

6:53

our brains are a lot more flexible than

6:55

we give them credit for. We can learn

6:57

in many ways and yet

6:59

we often don't because of a story

7:01

we have told ourselves about how we

7:04

learn and therefore how

7:06

we do

7:06

not. A lot of time so what I

7:08

see with my own students is I have students that come

7:10

into my class and they're like, I just can't do this.

7:12

I'm a visual learner. And they

7:14

totally use it as a crutch. Use

7:16

it as an explanation for why I

7:18

can't possibly

7:19

change, why I can't possibly do better. So

7:22

how can we change? How

7:25

can we do better? It starts

7:27

by understanding the way we really

7:29

learn. And then how we can

7:31

teach that to others. That's what this

7:33

episode of Build four Tomorrow is all about.

7:36

We are dispensing with the myth of

7:38

learning styles and discovering how

7:40

we really learn and how we can learn

7:43

to learn even better. Coming

7:45

up after the break. Think

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about someone at work who just makes a

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8:55

We're back. So we just talked about

8:57

learning styles and why they're not

8:59

quite as magical as we think they

9:01

are. But before we totally

9:03

dismantle them and figure out what's next,

9:05

let's back up to see where they even

9:08

came from and how we once thought

9:10

that people

9:11

learned. And just

9:13

for fun, let's back up

9:15

pretty far. How did they teach

9:17

back in in Greece and Rome, and not just

9:19

in Greece and Rome, but across

9:21

the ancient Mediterranean and

9:23

in many places today. Some

9:25

of those teaching techniques would

9:29

make probably make you very unhappy.

9:32

This is Martin. It's Martin Blumer,

9:35

and I'm a professor of classics

9:37

at the University of Notre

9:38

Dame. And in particular, he studies

9:40

the history of education, of which

9:43

there is a very long history. We

9:45

have school texts that have survived

9:47

for centuries, dating back to

9:49

the earliest days of writing to the

9:51

Sumerians, which gives us a good

9:53

sense of what school would have been

9:55

like, just get your boys and girls

9:58

to sit down and

10:00

read syllables. I mean,

10:03

stuff like go Bap

10:05

bap bap bapu.

10:08

Take a consonant at a vowel and

10:10

go through the alphabet that way

10:12

and then close the syllables. Bob

10:15

Bakpaad. And this

10:17

sort of technique went on for millennia.

10:20

So you say, hey,

10:22

that's that's kind of mechanical and

10:25

slow. And I would say to you,

10:27

yes, it's not democratic, it's

10:29

not egalitarian. It's not

10:31

interested in getting a large

10:33

group of a society literate

10:36

and and in fact, into

10:38

the source of power that literacy brings

10:41

with

10:41

it. It's about producing an elite.

10:44

Because for a long, long

10:46

time, that was really the purpose of

10:48

school. There was a need for

10:50

a trained, doesn't it sound dreadful,

10:52

a trained bureaucracy?

10:54

Because, you know, Someone needed to

10:56

run the empire, and you could make

10:58

an argument that this is still basically

11:00

education today because Yes,

11:02

public school is available to all,

11:04

but the funding to operate good public

11:06

schools is certainly not available to

11:09

all. Same for the affordability of

11:11

higher

11:11

education. And there are other parallels

11:13

between then and now as well. Like

11:15

for example, people

11:16

are educating their children to

11:18

do what they think is important. In

11:21

some cultures, that meant school focused

11:23

on debate and discussion, or

11:25

politics, or how to sing

11:27

and pray, And of course, people

11:29

fought over this back then just as they do

11:31

now with our modern book bands and

11:33

school board fights and aspiring presidential

11:35

candidates deciding what can and cannot be taught

11:38

in schools for reasons that have nothing to do with education.

11:40

And Martin says, this fighting didn't

11:42

just happen outside of schools. It

11:44

also happened inside the

11:46

schools. Among educators, education

11:49

has almost this built in kind

11:51

of competitive aspect, you know,

11:53

Come to my university, not his

11:55

university. Learn my method,

11:57

not his method. You know, I'd wondered

11:59

how people were taught in ancient times,

12:02

but the answer according to Martin

12:04

is that there was no one theory

12:06

of education at all even in

12:08

a particular time and place. Plato,

12:11

for example, was busy saying that people must

12:13

learn through complicated metaphysical concepts,

12:15

and the great Roman theorist quintillion

12:18

was very concerned with weather children

12:20

want to learn. Everyone was

12:23

trying different techniques, memorize

12:25

this poem, give this speech, write

12:27

this over and over and over again, and Also,

12:29

the structure of schooling was just totally different

12:31

from what we'd think of

12:32

today. A lot of schools just came

12:34

and went. Think of it as a sort of

12:36

fluid, more oral place.

12:39

Tied to one

12:40

teacher. And when that teacher

12:42

died, the school might pass away. But

12:44

over time, Martin says patterns

12:47

emerge. Institutions develop.

12:49

People don't want an ever changing

12:51

menu of new teaching styles. They

12:53

want what seems tried and true,

12:55

which means that education becomes more

12:58

risk

12:58

averse. And when an idea does

13:01

stick, it sticks for a long time.

13:03

Education is a kind of conservative business.

13:06

People seem to think that, you know,

13:08

what our grandparents

13:10

learned, that was the real stuff. So

13:12

almost every generation looking back

13:15

sees that perhaps there is a lore

13:17

and wisdom just over the edge and that's

13:19

what we should be

13:20

getting back to. Which again

13:22

is reflective of now because Here

13:25

we have a concept, the idea of

13:27

different learning styles that are so

13:29

widely accepted and defended

13:32

throughout education in part because

13:34

they've already been widely

13:36

accepted and defended. It's

13:38

like once you're in, you're in.

13:41

So now, time for our more

13:43

modern history

13:44

lesson. How did we get the

13:46

idea of learning styles in

13:48

the first place? It became this really

13:50

big business without any

13:53

scientific proof or research that

13:55

it works. This is Beth.

13:57

My name is Beth. Raghowski, and

13:59

I am a professor at Bloomsburg University

14:02

of Pennsylvania. Beth started her

14:04

career as a middle school teacher.

14:06

Then did a post doc in neuroscience and

14:08

discovered that the techniques she'd been using

14:10

as a teacher weren't supported by

14:12

brain science. So that prompted her

14:14

to start investigating the concept of learning

14:17

styles. She's also written a book called

14:19

Uncommon Sense Teaching. And

14:21

to appreciate exactly where learning styles

14:23

come from, Beth says you need to start with

14:25

what they were in reaction

14:27

to, which is what you had up through

14:29

the nineteen fifties and into the sixties.

14:31

We were doing lot of what

14:33

they call drill and kill

14:36

and that repetition.

14:38

So in other words, not dissimilar

14:41

to how students were learning thousands of

14:43

years ago with their But

14:47

by the sixties and seventies, the self

14:50

steam movement was growing and people are

14:52

starting to think differently about how to

14:54

raise children. And people start to think,

14:56

you know, every student is different,

14:58

but they're all being taught the same way.

15:01

So maybe what we need is to identify

15:04

their differences. By the

15:06

eighties and nineties, seemingly everyone

15:08

had a theory about how to do exactly

15:11

that. I mean, you had Mumford and Honey and

15:13

cold and meal fleming with the bark,

15:16

and they all had their own styles.

15:19

Which meant that they could all sell

15:21

their own style manuals. It's

15:23

not exactly clear why the public

15:25

education system adopted the idea

15:28

of learning styles or Neil Fleming's

15:30

VARP model in particular, but the best guess

15:32

seems to be Well, you know, teachers

15:34

want each of their students to thrive and

15:36

they were attracted to the idea of customizing

15:39

education to them. But whatever

15:41

the reason, the concept took hold. And for

15:43

decades after that, teachers were taught

15:45

how to identify and cater to their

15:47

students' learning styles and students

15:50

were taught that they had individual

15:52

learning styles and that they should really

15:54

lean into them. But there was

15:56

just one problem. Nobody

15:58

seemed to be tracking the results of

16:00

this. I drank that Kool Aid for

16:02

many years. And I

16:04

wasn't seeing results in my

16:07

students

16:08

that I thought I should have seen

16:10

and it just wasn't working out

16:13

which is more or less how we get

16:15

to where we are now. So let's

16:17

reset the stage that you heard at the beginning

16:20

of the episode. Learning styles

16:22

become an unquestioned truth

16:24

in education. Teachers are helping

16:26

their students identify their learning style

16:28

styles and then having those students learn

16:30

and study using only those learning

16:33

styles and then studies start to pick

16:35

the theory apart. For

16:37

example, in the British Journal of

16:39

Psychology, researchers sorted students

16:41

by whether they prefer to learn visually

16:43

or verbally. Then those students studied

16:46

in different ways and researchers found absolutely

16:49

no correlation between how the students

16:51

studied and what they remembered later.

16:53

In another study, this one in the Journal

16:55

of Educational Psychology, researchers

16:58

found zero correlation between someone's

17:00

learning style preference and their performance

17:02

on reading or listening comprehension tests.

17:05

Although, here's a funny wrinkle. In this study,

17:07

the quote unquote visual learners actually

17:09

performed best on all kinds

17:11

of tests. And there's a lot

17:14

more research like this all basically showing the

17:16

same thing. Now, like I said, A

17:18

lot of people push back on this kind of research.

17:20

I mean, remember, Polly Hootman, one of

17:22

the professors whose research helped debunk

17:25

learning

17:25

styles. Well, Polly's mom

17:27

who was a middle school math teacher. So

17:29

when Polly told her mom about

17:31

the research she had done Did

17:33

you

17:33

look at me and my well, I don't know with that. That's just

17:35

wrong. And I

17:37

was like, well, that's fine. You don't have to agree with it.

17:40

And it's worth taking these skeptics

17:42

seriously for moment because these

17:44

aren't people who are just defending some

17:47

system because they happen to grow up with it

17:49

and they can't imagine anything else. These are

17:51

people who I I mean, they're

17:53

probably a lot like you who

17:55

has thus far been listening to this

17:57

episode, and I'm sure you've been thinking,

18:00

but wait, I learned better in one

18:02

particular way. What are you talking about? And

18:05

and and and I'm also sure you're, you know,

18:07

you're thinking it isn't because some teacher

18:09

told me I learned that way. It's because I

18:11

have experienced it in my entire life

18:13

because it is the normal way I operate. Right?

18:16

This is totally what you're thinking. To which,

18:19

Polly says, yes, that's

18:21

probably true. You probably do

18:23

have a specific learning style, a way

18:25

in which you absorb information

18:28

more easily. But as I

18:30

alluded to at the beginning of the episode,

18:32

it's not for the reasons you

18:34

think. What we have here is

18:36

The nature versus nurture debate but

18:39

nature versus nurture as it is applied

18:41

to learning styles. Most people

18:43

think this is nature, which is to say

18:46

your brain just happened to be programmed with

18:48

a specific learning style. And once

18:50

you identified what that was, you could

18:52

play to it. But Polly says this

18:55

is really a nurture issue, which

18:57

is to say that someone decided you

18:59

have a learning style and then that

19:01

was the way you were taught for a

19:03

long, long time. So you

19:06

really strengthened those neural pathways

19:08

so that they are particularly

19:10

strong. So like I said, that's what

19:12

I referenced at the beginning of the episode. Learning

19:15

styles became a self fulfilling prophecy

19:17

you were told you were a visual learner

19:20

and then you spent a lifetime learning visually,

19:22

and then you became a visual

19:24

learner. And maybe this

19:27

It doesn't sound like a problem.

19:30

You know? Like, okay, whatever.

19:32

Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's strengthened

19:34

neural pathways. Either way, now

19:36

this so called visual learner has

19:38

a good way to learn. So what's wrong with

19:40

that? And the answer is,

19:42

it's really that putting somebody

19:44

in a neat little box of this

19:46

is how you learn that's concerning.

19:50

Because here's the thing, Polly says,

19:52

the human brain is incredibly flexible.

19:55

It has the capacity to absorb

19:57

information in many ways, but

20:00

when we become convinced that there

20:02

is only one way to learn, we

20:04

start to limit what we believe is

20:06

possible. We will try to

20:08

learn something in one way. In

20:10

what we think of as our way.

20:13

And if it doesn't work or if it's

20:15

too hard, then we give up. We

20:17

think This just isn't something

20:19

I can learn. This is beyond my

20:21

ability. It's not my learning style.

20:23

Polly says she sees this all the

20:25

time. When you go out in the world,

20:28

there are going to be problems you need to solve.

20:30

Right? Things you need to figure out and

20:32

learn for your job

20:34

to run your household, to do whatever.

20:37

And so the more tools you can have

20:39

in your belt, the more different ways

20:41

you can figure something out

20:44

the better. So what is a better

20:46

way to learn? That is no

20:48

small question. It is what we'll

20:51

learn about next. In verbal

20:54

form, but you don't have to be a verbal listener

20:56

to learn it. And that's all coming up after the break.

20:59

Did you know that the average podcast listener

21:01

subscribes to six shows Well,

21:04

assuming you already subscribed to my show, then

21:06

I have a great reason for you to add another

21:08

one. It's called the Jordan harbinger

21:10

ship. And honestly Jordan is a friend of mine,

21:12

but I would recommend it even if he wasn't

21:14

because I love this show and his interview

21:17

style and just the whole thing. Jordan

21:19

dives into the minds of fascinating people

21:21

from athletes, authors, and scientists to

21:23

mobsters, spies, and hostage negotiators

21:26

He has a real talent for drawing out never

21:28

heard before stories and thought provoking insights,

21:30

and he always pulls out tactical bits of

21:32

wisdom in each episode. All with the noble

21:34

cause, of making you more informed

21:37

and a better critical thinker. There's

21:39

good reason that Jordan is the guy I text

21:41

basically every time I have a question about podcasting

21:43

and that's because he is the master at smart,

21:45

funny, easy to listen to. Check out his conversation

21:47

with t Pain from a little while ago. I have never

21:50

heard the guy talk like that. You'll be hard pressed

21:52

to find an episode without excellent conversation,

21:55

a few laughs and actionable advice that you can

21:57

directly use to improve your life. So

21:59

you can't go wrong with adding the Jordan

22:01

Harbinger show to your rotation. It's

22:03

incredibly interesting and there's never a Dell show.

22:06

Search for the Jordan Harbinger show

22:08

that is HARB as in boy,

22:10

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22:13

odd apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever

22:15

you listen to podcasts.

22:17

Alright. We're back. And now it is

22:19

time to pay off on that teeny

22:22

tiny totally easy to answer

22:24

question that I teed up a minute ago, which is

22:26

How do we learn? So

22:29

caveat to start. This is an

22:31

evolving area of study and there is

22:33

a lot to say and I cannot and

22:35

will not even attempt to do comprehensive

22:37

justice to it in the next ten or

22:39

so minutes. Instead, what I'll do is

22:41

share some interesting insights into how we

22:44

learn and how we can become better

22:46

learners and how we can teach

22:48

learning better too. And

22:50

I'm gonna start with me. Because

22:53

just as you have surely listened to this and thought

22:55

about your own learning style, I was

22:57

thinking a lot about my own learning

22:59

style as I did this research. I

23:02

can't honestly remember a teacher

23:04

ever telling me that I was a specific style

23:06

of learner, but I have found that

23:09

as an adult, I learn best

23:11

through a very specific process and

23:13

it goes like this. If I just read

23:16

something or listen to something

23:18

or watch something or hear someone say

23:20

something, I will almost certainly

23:22

forget it. Just like in and out. Gone.

23:25

But because I have a job where

23:27

I interview people and then I make things

23:30

out of what they say like podcasts

23:33

and magazine articles and books and whatever

23:35

else. I have discovered something

23:37

about myself. I learn

23:39

best when I receive information from

23:41

someone else and then process that

23:43

information into some

23:46

kind of communication product. Basically,

23:48

I learned best by taking new information and

23:50

then figuring out how to teach that

23:52

information myself. So

23:55

I asked Polly what she made of that,

23:57

and she told me this really interesting

23:58

thing. So there's a concept in educational

24:01

research called desirable difficulties. And

24:03

desirable difficulties are basically,

24:06

if things are harder for you,

24:08

you tend to remember them better, and you tend

24:10

to go through the process to really understand

24:13

them better because they were

24:15

difficult. Now the caveat to that is they can't

24:17

be so difficult that you can't do it, right,

24:19

that you give up. But if there's

24:21

a desirable amount of difficulty, that

24:24

actually helps you to process and

24:26

remember things better. That's a

24:28

plus. Right? That is a desirable thing.

24:30

And to be clear, this does not

24:32

mean you need to be a podcaster to

24:34

remember things Poly gave me a

24:36

more real world example

24:38

too. Let's go with something very basic like how

24:40

to get from point a to point b, and

24:42

I tell you in a way that makes perfect sense

24:44

to

24:44

you. Three days from now, you probably aren't

24:46

gonna remember that. Why not?

24:49

Well, because the information was too

24:51

easily attained, it didn't challenge

24:53

you in any way. And I'm not

24:56

just talking about experiencing the

24:58

information because, like, yeah,

25:00

you'd remember the directions a lot more

25:02

if you had to actually drive from point

25:04

a to point b. But Poly says that

25:07

learning is more subtle than that.

25:09

For example, let's say that someone tells

25:11

you verbally how to drive

25:13

from point a to point

25:14

b. And let's say you are not actually

25:16

very good at learning information verbally.

25:19

If you have a harder time processing

25:21

things that are auditory for

25:23

you, for example, then when

25:26

you're doing that, you have to focus really

25:28

hard on it. And pay attention

25:30

and really map it out in your

25:32

head. And that is a desirable

25:34

difficulty by accessing information

25:37

in a way that is not your preferred

25:39

learning style, you actually do

25:42

a better job of learning it,

25:44

which yes is completely counter to

25:46

the concept of learning style But also,

25:48

this provides us a useful way forward

25:51

in thinking about how to learn.

25:53

Because instead of feeling limited by

25:55

own means of learning, Poly says we should

25:57

actually be constantly aware of and

26:00

experimenting with how we

26:02

learn. This is part of what's

26:04

called Metacognition. Metacognition

26:07

is basically the idea

26:09

of thinking about how you think

26:11

and how you

26:12

learn. So let's say you wanna learn

26:14

a new thing. How can metacognition help

26:17

you? Well, Poly gave me an example

26:19

of learning how to change the oil in your

26:22

car. Do you know how to do that? I will

26:24

admit, I do not. I have absolutely no idea

26:26

how to change the oil my That's IIII

26:28

pay someone else to do that. But, okay,

26:31

how could I learn it? Well, the

26:33

obvious answer would be, I could

26:35

have someone show me And that could

26:37

be useful, but let's not forget what we just

26:39

learned about desirable difficulty. When

26:41

someone shows us something, we

26:43

aren't really being challenged. Which

26:45

means that we may not actually remember

26:47

it. And here's another problem with getting information

26:50

too easily. When someone shows

26:52

us something, we typically learn that

26:54

information specifically. Like,

26:56

we'll only learn how to change

26:58

the oil in one particular kind

27:01

of car because that was the only

27:03

car where we saw the oil get changed.

27:06

But then if we look at another car

27:08

and one thing is different

27:10

from the car we were looking at before. You

27:12

know, it's just it's you look at it and you're like, I don't

27:15

immediately know where the oil

27:17

goes in. Well, then we don't know what to do.

27:19

We had learned to copy, but we

27:21

had not gained an actual understanding of

27:24

what we were doing. So is

27:26

there a better way? That's what we should

27:29

ask ourselves as we work to learn

27:31

new things. And then start testing it.

27:33

Like, alright. What are some other

27:35

ways to learn how to change the oil?

27:37

So I am going to read

27:40

about it and write out some

27:42

answers and Okay.

27:44

Now after I've done that, do I actually

27:47

know any better how to change the oil in my car?

27:49

Or I'm going to make a concept

27:52

map. Here's the main idea I need to

27:54

change the oil in my car. Here are the steps

27:56

to that.

27:57

Okay. Now I did it that way. Did that work?

27:59

And the point here is you're testing

28:01

all these different ways of learning, which

28:04

contrary to learning styles are all available

28:06

to you, and you're figuring out which

28:08

works best for you given certain

28:11

circumstances. Then you can

28:13

learn from your efforts to learn and

28:15

refine for the future. But

28:17

you know what would really help you change

28:19

the oil in your car It's this,

28:22

knowing some other stuff about cars. Researchers

28:25

like Poly called this

28:27

scaffolding, and it's key to how

28:29

we learn, remember, and use information.

28:32

The idea of scaffolding is that there is

28:34

a basic structure of knowledge stored

28:36

in your brain And for

28:38

you to really understand

28:40

and process new information, you've got

28:42

to plug it into that scaffold somewhere.

28:45

The world renowned brain coach Jim

28:47

Quick has a really catchy way of explaining

28:49

this.

28:50

All of learning is connecting something you don't

28:52

know to something you do know. Jim

28:54

is just a student of learning.

28:56

He also has an amazing best selling book

28:58

called limitless which can help you become

29:00

a better learner anyway totally check it out. I first

29:02

met Jim a few years ago when I interviewed

29:04

him for the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine, and

29:07

the audio of him in this episode

29:09

comes from that interview. So anyway,

29:11

Let's reflect on what he just said there.

29:13

All of learning is connecting something

29:16

you don't know to something you do

29:18

know. The problem, Jim

29:20

says, is that we often do the

29:22

opposite of that. We try to connect

29:24

something we don't know to something we don't

29:27

know. For example, you might listen

29:29

to a podcast about an ancient civilization

29:32

and it is totally fascinating, but

29:34

then you cannot remember any damn

29:36

part of it the next day. You know why?

29:39

That's because you didn't know anything

29:41

about ancient civilizations. There was

29:43

no existing base of knowledge for

29:45

this new information to attach

29:47

itself to.

29:49

Individual nuggets of knowledge

29:51

are very quickly lost. I mean,

29:53

ultimately, it's to your body's cost

29:56

benefit analysis. In that you

29:58

only have so much energy. And so

30:00

if you don't use something, some

30:03

piece of information, then your brain

30:05

is basically gonna say, okay, that's not that important.

30:07

It's a filtering mechanism, which

30:10

means that if you want to really remember

30:12

something, The best thing to do is

30:14

build a foundation of knowledge. Start

30:17

with the basics and work your way

30:19

up. And Jim says that if you're

30:21

going to do that, you really

30:23

need to clear out the time to focus

30:26

on whatever you're learning. This isn't

30:28

easy to do, of course. People

30:30

are busy. I'm busy. You're busy. If you're

30:32

not in school, it's pretty hard to carve out

30:34

time to just, you know, learn something.

30:37

But you need to because you

30:39

cannot multitask your way into

30:41

learning

30:42

anything. Multitasking isn't In actuality,

30:45

the research showed that we're not multitasking because the

30:47

human brain cannot do multiple parallel

30:50

processes, cognitive processes at

30:52

once. So what they're really doing is

30:54

something more actively described as task

30:56

switching. I went from one task to another. I went

30:58

from Zoom to Slack to social to email

31:01

to everything. And the challenge is is

31:03

you can take anywhere from five to ten minutes

31:05

just to regain your focus.

31:07

But okay. It's one thing to say,

31:09

build a foundation of knowledge. But

31:12

that's often not practical. What if you

31:14

just need to learn how to do some stuff

31:16

and you don't want to or don't have time

31:18

to study the whole subject? When

31:20

I was talking to Polly, I gave her this

31:23

real life example that I'm

31:25

going through right now. I said, okay, my

31:27

family and I just moved into

31:29

a new house. And we have never

31:32

owned a house before. We were always in

31:34

apartments before that. Which means we

31:36

now have to do all these

31:38

house things. I

31:40

don't know how to do these house things, which

31:42

is why before we officially moved

31:45

in, we asked for help. The

31:47

previous owner walked us through and, like, showed

31:49

us all this stuff that we're supposed to do

31:51

and, like, you know, I basically took a

31:53

video of him. Doing all this because it was

31:55

like, I'm never gonna remember how

31:57

to do that. Like, how to how

32:00

to turn the water off so that the

32:02

pipes don't freeze in III

32:04

already don't remember how to do it, but I took a video

32:06

of it. How am I supposed to remember how to

32:08

do this stuff without the foundational knowledge

32:11

that this is going to attach to?

32:12

That's a challenge. So if

32:14

you don't have the foundational knowledge, then

32:17

that's where basically people do rely

32:19

memory except every time you walk past

32:21

that room and see that knob

32:24

forcing yourself to

32:25

recall. Okay. How do I do that again?

32:27

For example, to build off of what she's saying

32:30

there, there's something called reminders by

32:32

association introduced by Todd

32:34

Rogers of Harvard Kennedy School and Kay

32:36

Milkman of Wharton. And it basically

32:38

turns everyday objects into memory

32:41

queues. It's a two step process.

32:43

First, you identify what they call

32:45

a distinctive queue. Or

32:47

an object that will capture your attention

32:49

at the exact moment you need to remember to

32:51

do a thing. And then second, you

32:53

need to mentally associate that queue

32:56

with the thing you want to remember. In

32:58

their paper, Todd and Katie gave the example

33:00

of someone falling asleep in bed,

33:02

and then just before they

33:05

falsely pay they remember, ugh, there's an important

33:07

application buried under some

33:09

papers on my desk, and I need to submit

33:12

that in the morning. How am I gonna remember to do that?

33:14

The answer is you think about something

33:16

distinctive around your desk,

33:19

like say some new flowers you just

33:21

put there, and now mentally associate

33:23

the flowers with the application.

33:26

Flower's application. Flower's

33:29

application. This is now

33:31

your reminder by association. And

33:34

their study found that it works well

33:36

because you're attaching new information

33:38

like the need to mail the application

33:41

to the existing information, which

33:43

is the flowers that you already knew were there.

33:46

So, okay, That's all pretty interesting.

33:48

Right? And I'll speak for myself, at least

33:50

as I learned about all this, I started

33:52

to get a much fuller understanding of

33:55

the way in which I learn.

33:57

Like, remember I told you a few minutes ago about

33:59

how I learned best. It's when I interview someone

34:01

and then write an article or make a podcast

34:03

about what they said. That is

34:06

a desirable difficulty. But

34:08

it's more than that too. In the process

34:11

of writing the article or making the podcast,

34:13

I am taking the thing that I learned and

34:15

I am attaching it to my existing

34:17

understanding of the world. Like

34:19

every episode of this podcast I

34:22

make is not just me, peeping information.

34:24

It is me taking new information and

34:26

then applying it to existing theories

34:29

that I have about change or human action

34:31

or whatever. I mean, this episode is the product

34:33

of hours and hours of talking to

34:35

people. But what I've selected for

34:37

you here was the stuff that was able

34:39

to piece together into a coherent audio

34:41

narrative, but that also was connected

34:44

to existing insights that I had about my own

34:46

style of learning or things that I'd heard or

34:48

concepts I was familiar with or whatever.

34:51

That's scaffolding. That's it.

34:53

That's what I'm doing. I'm processing the information.

34:55

I'm finding ways to attach it to what

34:57

I already know, that's what we need to do.

35:00

It is, as Jim Quick called it,

35:02

connecting something you don't know to something

35:04

you do know, That is why I

35:06

remember this stuff. Because I'm going through

35:08

the process of figuring out how new applies to

35:10

old, and now that I know that, I can be more

35:12

aware of my learning abilities. Metacognition.

35:16

It's a pretty awesome revelation. So

35:18

the final question is, how

35:21

can we make this kind of revelatory

35:23

learning available to everyone.

35:26

Well, this episode is all

35:28

about education. So let's go back

35:30

to the classroom as it currently exists.

35:33

A classroom that is oriented around

35:36

learning styles. A classroom that

35:38

is about delivering the maximum amount

35:40

of information ideally in formats

35:42

that cater to students learning

35:44

styles. And yet despite

35:47

all that, what are students actually

35:49

getting there as their means of receiving

35:51

new information? Lecture.

35:53

This is Beth again from Bloomsburg

35:55

University of Pennsylvania. And lectures

35:58

when someone like myself, you know, professor,

36:00

a teacher stands up in front of a crowd

36:02

and talks for an hour. And yes, we could

36:04

be highly entertaining. But when

36:06

we asked for the kids to give us or for the

36:08

students to give us that information back to

36:11

us, they can't because

36:13

we've just entertained them for an hour,

36:15

and they probably remember five percent of what

36:17

we even discussed.

36:19

Why? Because even if a student

36:21

has been told that they're an auditory learner,

36:24

a lecture contains no desirable

36:26

difficulty. It is not designed with

36:28

scaffolding in mind. So what can a teacher

36:30

do? So that's where direct instruction

36:33

comes in. I present for five or

36:35

ten minutes. Then I ask a question.

36:38

I review the material. I have them

36:40

review the serial. I do a ThinkPad share.

36:42

I do a quick write. And then

36:44

once I feel comfortable, they've learned that information.

36:47

I can build more information onto

36:49

it. So yes, it does take

36:51

longer. But if learning

36:53

achievement, if achievement is our end

36:55

result, then we're going to get

36:57

that if we're having them practice

37:00

and recall and doing that drill.

37:03

And in the process, she's exposing

37:05

students to as many different learning styles

37:07

as possible. So they can learn,

37:10

well, all the ways to learn.

37:12

Now, like I said at the beginning, there are a

37:14

lot of ideas about how to teach and I'm not

37:17

here to summarize all them or to advocate

37:19

for any particular ones or even to

37:21

pretend to you that I just gave you

37:23

a coherent and comprehensive understanding

37:25

of learning. But What I am here to say

37:28

is that the nature of learning is clearly

37:30

a lot more complicated than an unproven

37:32

system we've been using for decades. And

37:34

that the conversation we hear about learning

37:36

often doesn't seem to have that in mind.

37:39

And yet, frustrating as that can

37:41

be, I come away from all this

37:43

encourage Because to me, the big

37:46

lesson is how our brains are

37:48

built for learning. We can

37:50

learn more. We can become better learners.

37:52

The things stopping us isn't our ability

37:55

to learn, but rather our approach

37:57

to learning or our frustration at

37:59

not learning. And we can now know that

38:01

challenges aren't an impediment to

38:03

learning. They are literally the best

38:05

way to learn and forgetfulness

38:08

isn't matter of not being able to remember.

38:11

It's a matter of not building a foundation of

38:13

knowledge first. I'll tell you what.

38:15

Since reporting this episode, I

38:17

have thought a lot about scaffolding,

38:20

about scaffolding of information in

38:22

my head and about what it takes to attach

38:24

more to it. This reporting has

38:26

added to that scaffolding. It

38:29

has created new scaffolding for

38:31

future information to attach itself to

38:33

And that's not me. That's not me being special.

38:35

That's just me being a human being because

38:38

we are builders. All of us,

38:40

builders of knowledge, and it made me

38:42

realize something. Building

38:44

knowledge? Well, that is a

38:46

pretty good learning style. And

38:49

that's our episode. Did you find

38:51

it convincing? I know a lot of people

38:53

won't. I'm gonna share

38:55

one of those reasons in a moment.

38:57

But first, something in

39:00

your life is changing right now.

39:02

Because in times like ours, nothing stays

39:04

the same for long. Maybe it's a new job

39:06

or just changes at your current job,

39:08

or something shifting in your personal

39:10

life. And I am here to tell you, this

39:12

could be the greatest opportunity of

39:14

your life if only you're willing to see it

39:17

that way. And my new book, billed

39:19

for tomorrow, named just like

39:21

this podcast, can help. Build for

39:23

tomorrow, the book, combines lessons

39:25

from this show with lessons from the smartest

39:27

entrepreneurs of today and provides a

39:29

step by step action plan for

39:31

how you can thrive in changing times

39:34

and start your next great adventure. It's

39:37

available in hardcover, audiobook,

39:39

and e book just go wherever you find

39:41

books or go to jason pfeiffer

39:43

dot com slash book. And

39:46

I have even more for you. I also have

39:48

a newsletter called One Thing

39:50

Better, which each week offers one way

39:52

to improve your work so you can build

39:54

a company or career you love. Find

39:57

it by going to jason pfeiffer dot

39:59

com slash newsletter. You can

40:01

also get in touch with me directly at my website,

40:03

jason pfeiffer dot com or

40:05

follow me on Twitter or Instagram, I am

40:07

at pay pfeiffer. This episode

40:09

was reported and written by me with additional

40:12

reporting by Adam Sokulek Sound

40:14

editing by Alec Theless. Our theme music

40:16

is by Casper baby pants. Learn more at baby

40:18

pants music dot com. Alright.

40:21

Now as promised, will people find

40:23

this episode convincing. Well, maybe

40:25

some will. I hope you did. But

40:27

as I learned from the people who have done

40:29

the actual research, no amount of

40:31

peer reviewed studies and recent discussions

40:33

with peers can change all

40:35

minds. Here, for example, is

40:38

Beth. I presented my learning styles

40:40

talk at conferences and have had

40:42

people walk out on me because

40:46

they are just in complete disagreement

40:49

and I I present the research.

40:51

It's in Journal of Educational Psychology.

40:53

It's in some of the top journals. And

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what that means, it's a been scrutinized

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by some of the top people in the field to

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get even in their published, and

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they're just ready to discount

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that to hold on to their own beliefs.

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But hey, we'll keep pushing for change

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because what else can we do?

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One day, maybe they'll learn. Thanks for

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listening. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, and let's

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keep building for tomorrow.