How to Learn Effectively at Any Age?

Brain like play dough

The brain has the ability to change and adapt in response to our experiences. The more often we repeat behaviours and patterns and consolidate the acquired knowledge, the more newly formed neural connections in the brain are strengthened (they are formed when we do something for the first time). The more often we repeat a behaviour, the better and more effective we are at it. This means that our brain adapts its structure to the way we live and the stimulation we give it. It is a process of neuroplasticity, i.e. the self-reorganisation of the brain under the influence of our experiences. The brain therefore has very advanced capabilities that are conducive to learning at any age.

Why is it worth learning at any age?

People often stop believing in their ability to learn as they get older. They think that they are no longer able to absorb knowledge effectively, so many of them give up at the first failures, and some give up learning altogether. Such behaviour can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy – a 50-year-old thinking that they are not able to learn German will not make such attempts. Thus, they will not stimulate the plasticity of their brain, which will only reinforce their belief in the inability to learn. Meanwhile, researchers have no doubts – you can, and even should, learn new things at any age! This provides the following benefits:

• strengthening the sense of self-efficacy that is born in us when we achieve our goals;
• brain health protection – learning new things (no matter at what age) stimulates the formation of new neural connections, which helps keep the brain in good shape;
• ability to flexibly adapt to changes that occur in our lives.

Lifelong learning as a strong trend in education

Nowadays, when changes are ubiquitous and natural, the lack of ability to adapt to them can be a serious challenge. Because learning is essentially a form of adapting to change, it is becoming a much-needed skill in today’s world.

This idea is fully shared by the creators of the concept of lifelong learning, who see it as an important competence of our times, in which it is increasingly common, for example, for one person to change their profession two, three or even four times during their entire professional career. Such changes may be voluntary – caused by the desire to develop or driven by curiosity – but also forced by the fact that many professions are no longer relevant or are threatened by automation. As a result, lifelong learning is an everyday reality, and even a necessity forced on us by the dynamically changing environment.

Outsmart your own brain

Now that we know that it is worth learning, let’s look at a few ways that can be helpful in the effective acquisition of knowledge. On the one hand, the brain has all the resources to learn effectively, but on the other hand... it does not like change and loves to protect its own energy. So how to overcome the challenges that our own mind presents to us? Here are some tips from Dr. Judy Willis, a neuroscientist and teacher who studies brain function:

1. Combine the new with something you know. Whenever you gain new knowledge, try to associate it with something you already know. Are you learning how to make sophisticated sushi? Recall how you roll traditional Polish pancakes with cottage cheese!
2. Focus on meaning, not sound. When you are learning new definitions and find it hard to remember difficult words, try to focus more on their meaning than on remembering the phonetic forms alone. For example, when memorising the definition of “multi-individual structures”, instead of trying to learn it by heart, realise that “multi-individual” means that there are “many individuals” in the structure. You can also use your imagination and imagine this “multiplicity of individuals” of a species, e.g. dogs, to make it easier to remember.
3. Activate your senses. It is worth supporting memory by engaging sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste in the process of learning. That is why many of us like to learn English while watching series that stimulate sight (English subtitles) and hearing (listening to dialogues).
4. Surprise yourself. Boredom can make it difficult to engage in the learning process, so it is worth diversifying your learning, looking for fun facts on a given topic or using different ways of acquiring knowledge.

Just reading? Not really.

In order to learn effectively, it is worth knowing that even reading a given text several times is very often not enough. Reading is only one of the elements of learning, because memorising is a process that requires more commitment than running your eyes over the text. Therefore, it is worth supporting yourself by:

• coming up with own examples for the material you read,
• pausing after reading a fragment of the text and imagining that you are a teacher who is supposed to tell students in your own words about the phenomenon they are currently learning about,
• speaking out loud, not just running your eyes over the text,
• breaking up the part to be read into smaller parts that you also work with in other ways, e.g. after reading a chapter on the principles of gravity, look for a podcast or video on the subject from a reliable source.

Time and concentration

It is worth remembering that short but regular periods of learning are much more effective than many hours of marathons with a book. It is therefore beneficial to break down large tasks into smaller parts and then “dig into” the knowledge using a variety of techniques.

Often, a huge obstacle to learning new things is an inadequately prepared environment, full of distracting stimuli. If you feel like it’s hard for you to focus, use these tips:

1. Mute your phone while studying.
2. Set yourself a special date when you can calmly devote yourself to acquiring a new skill and make sure that other matters are not urgent enough to distract you from learning.
3. If you have trouble maintaining attention, reduce the number of distractions in the room.
4. Use your own motivation to learn or curiosity as a driver (“How great it will feel if I order a dish in Rome while talking to the waiter in Italian!”, “What is this meditation all about? Why do some people love it? I have to try!”).

Your own ways

Each of us functions slightly differently and has their favourite ways of learning as well as drivers that support us in a moment of doubt. Therefore, the most important thing in effective learning is self-observation and drawing conclusions. Before you start learning, you can ask yourself questions that will help you go through the process more consciously:

• Do you prefer to study in solitude and silence? Or maybe it is the presence of other people that helps you learn new things?
• Does competition with others stress you out or drive you?
• Listening to quiet music while studying for an exam helps you or distracts you?
• Do you remember better in the morning or in the evening?
• Is it easier for you to learn to skate when no one is watching your falls or in the company of others? And if you are in company, should it be the company of beginners like yourself, or will you choose lessons with an experienced trainer?
• What helps you learn and what is the most common obstacle?

By answering the above questions, you can learn from your past experience and thus develop new skills more easily. It is also worth remembering that while our preferred learning conditions may change over the years, there are no obstacles to learning effectively at any age. On the contrary, it is a great workout for our brain, which not only keeps it in better shape, but also helps us believe in our own agency and follow our curiosity – no matter when we were born.

_References:

1. _{Draganski, B. et al., Changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature 427, 311-312, 2004.}
2. _{Kruszewski Z. P., Półturzycki J., Wesołowska E. A. (red.), Kształcenie ustawiczne - idee i doświadczenia, Wyd. Naukowe Novum, Płock, 2003.}
3. _{McGuire S.Y. & McGuire, S., Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate in Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation, Stylus Publishing, LLC, 2016.}
4. _{Mackenzie A. M., Examination preparation, anxiety and examination performance in a group of adult students. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 13(5), 373-388, 1994.}
5. _{Willis J., Brain-Based Teaching Strategies for Improving Students’ Memory, Learning, and Test-Taking Success, Childhood Education, 2007.}