Learning to learnLearning to learn
All In The Mind
Most of us love being able to look up just about anything on our smart phones and know the answer in an instant. But do you ever worry about what that’s doing to our brains and our capacity to retain knowledge?
28:51•7 May 2017
Learning Better: How Smart Study Habits Can Change Your Brain
Episode Overview
- Common beliefs such as fixed intelligence, learning styles and left-/right-brain labels are challenged by modern research.
- Deep processing, where you actively connect new information to your own experiences, greatly improves understanding and recall.
- Errors, especially confident ones that are later corrected, can strengthen memory rather than simply indicate failure.
- Practical techniques like self-quizzing, spacing study over time and interleaving related skills help learning stick.
- Learning is a process that benefits from clear goals, reflection and a focus on skills computers can’t easily replace.
“When you deeply engage with something, when you make a personal connection with it, you're far more likely to understand it.”
What insights can experts and survivors share about addiction? While this episode focuses on learning rather than substance use, it speaks directly to anyone trying to change habits, build new skills or re-train a brain that’s been through a lot. ABC RN’s All In The Mind brings together host Lynn Malcolm and writer Ulrich Bozer, senior fellow at American Progress and author of *Learn Better*.
Bozer shares that he was a "very poor school student", prone to copying classmates and losing focus, yet later became fascinated by research on how people actually learn. His message is clear: learning is a skill, not a fixed gift. You’ll hear common study myths get calmly torn down: learning styles, left-brain/right-brain labels, highlighter-heavy revising and the idea that intelligence is fixed at birth.
Bozer points out that practices like self-quizzing, spacing out learning over time and mixing related skills (interleaving) are far more effective. As he puts it, "we can spend less time learning and gain a lot more" when we use the right methods. The episode also explains why deep processing matters. Simple exercises, such as linking a word like "car" to your own experiences rather than just spotting the vowel, make information stick.
Even getting things wrong can help — Bozer describes the "hypercorrection effect", where a confident mistake followed by correction is remembered strongly, showing that errors can be part of learning rather than a sign of failure. For anyone in recovery, this offers a hopeful angle: your brain isn’t a rigid hard drive, and you’re not stuck with the way you learned in school.
Active learning, teaching others, and treating learning as an ongoing process can support new coping tools, healthier routines and fresh interests. If you’re trying to build a different life, how might changing the way you learn change the way you live?
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