Learning How to Learn

 Strangely, or maybe sadly, I've done this course more than once!  So much for effective learning!

This link has a quick review of what concepts and strategies are taught in the course.

Levels of Learning

Levels of learning
Knowledge
Comprehension
Application of knowledge to solve problems
Analysis
Synthesize or ability to find new meaning and applications
Evaluate: Ability to judge work of others

The mnemonic is eas(e) sack
but not in order so not super useful

How to read academic content once and remember it forever

Good article on how to make "consuming" material you're trying to learn (i.e. reading, watching or listening) active.  How to interact with the material, making the concepts yours and figuring out ways to fit them into a framework.  He also is a fan of spaced retrieval practice.  This comes up over and over again in the "learning how to learn" teachings. He has developed his own tech version of flash cards.

Ultralearning: Retrieval

Retrieval is a key concept in the "Learning How to Learn" course in Coursera. I've "done" the course

twice. Ha ha.  Guess I'm not so great at learning.
In the course, they advocate trying to do practice problems at the back of a chapter before you read the chapter.  The act of trying to work on a problem with keys your brain to pay better attention when you read.
In Ultralearning by Scott H. Young, his chapter on retrieval makes some of the same points with the examples of the genius mathematician, Ramanujan and .  Both had limited resources, so they had to retrieve and work the problems in their heads.  Closed book, as it were. Ben Franklin tried to replicate essays he'd read.  This active effort to solve, or retrieve makes the material stickier.
In this chapter, Young has a few strategies for this.
 For actual academic subjects, the pretesting makes sense.
Flash cards and spaced-retrieval online apps can help. But there are many subjects or projects where the answers aren't so clear. 
For those types of projects, he reiterates the "directness"  or just going straight into the skill or project you want to accomplish can help.  It is uncomfortable, but that's kind of the point.  You immediately become aware of what your gaps are and can drill down on them.  I think, again, at least in my case, you need to ignore the inner voice that tells you that this just isn't something you're good at and urges you to do something easier.  I like to think that more things can be learned than we realize.
Another way to self test is to ask questions on a sheet of paper, instead of taking notes.  Just by putting the material in the form of a question it can help to make the brain work a bit.
Another strategy is to ask yourself "what is the bigger concept or question?"  To try to understand basic concepts, not just the facts.
The whole idea is to test before you're ready.  That lack of comfort and strain makes the learning process faster.

Ultralearning: Drilling

As with so many aspects of more efficient learning, the key is to concentrate on the hard things.  It sounds easier than it is.  When confronted with things that are hard, you have to battle your own fears of not being up to the task (comment mine), and the very natural tendency to avoid hard things.  The mind is slippery.  You have to stay alert and force the mind to concentrate on what's difficult. The distinction in ultralearning is to be extremely mindful and keep it difficult. Don't waste time on what you already know.
Some aspects of drilling.
Divide by time:  Particularly valuable for things like music or pronunciation.  drill the difficult aspect and skip the rest
Divide by cognitive components:  eg  pronunciation versus vocabulary
in, say, geography how countries relate to the whole, what are components within the country
Magnifying glass
This is to do 10 times the intensity on things that are hard for you.  His example was research.  He spent 10 X on researching something because he was having a hard time doing that.
Prerequisites
If you find you're lost and not getting something.  Go backwards until you find the step that you don't understand.

Ultra Learning: Focus

What has come up over and over again in learning and in getting the most from non-fiction reading is

pretesting and post reading summarizing.
In chapter 3 of the book by Scott H. Young called Ultralearning he deals with focus.
There are 3 basic impediments to focus.
Procrastination-  main strategies to help are to force your self to do 5 minutes, or the
 Pomodoro technique. In the course "learning how to learn" there is a segment by a highschool girl who noticed that if she just started, go through the first 5 minutes, then she could skate.  I've found this to often be true
Carve out scheduled time to work is also a technique.
 He provides the example of a highly intellectual and accomplished woman from the 18th or 19th century who was able to accomplish a ton in addition to having full responsibility for children and running a household.  She was able to immediately dive back into a task.
Leave something half done Though not mentioned in this book, the Hemingway technique would fit in here.  He would leave something midway so that he had an easy entry back in.


Inability to sustain focus
 External distractions These you have to manage
Internal distractions  Acknowledge and release.  The more you do this the easier it becomes.

Poor quality of focus
here is you're too hyped up you can focus on minuteea.  Sometimes laser focus is required.  Sometimes, for writing or problem solving,  a looser type of focus is required.
Interestingly when your arousal is low, loud sounds can help.  I need to try this since that is usually my problem.  Not enough "juice"
Interleaving, changing to different aspects of study can help here.
Sometimes it's easier to focus on videos, but you need to keep an awareness of your quality of learning.  That is why he is not a huge proponent of "flow".  I do see flow as more of a function of creativity, rather than study.  Study is hard.