The Learning Process

“Healthy things grow, and growing things change.” – Ben Rector

Learning means changing. As described in another post, learning can be defined as any long-term change in our knowledge, skills, attitudes, or behaviors.

When we learn something new, a literal change takes place inside our brains. Whether you are learning to bake bread, working on time management habits, practicing conflict resolution, or memorizing the words of every Beatles song, the learning process follows the same basic formula. We use our senses to perceive information, our neurons reorganize themselves, and long-term memories are formed. When that transformation is complete, we say that we have learned something new.

In the most basic terms, learning happens when mental processing happens. Learning that lasts – also known as “durable learning” – requires difficulty. However, a difficult learning process is not guaranteed to be effective. The effort needs to be intentional and grounded in the language of our brains to produce the desired results.

Even in the age of artificial intelligence and mass information, there are not short cuts or quick fixes to creating durable learning in human minds. But there are ways to keep the process efficient, and even pleasant. The goal of this article is to pull back the curtain so that you can start working with the natural processes of your brain rather than against them in your efforts to create durable learning.

The human brain is unfathomably complex. With the risk of oversimplification, we will use this image as a guide to understand how learning happens. In future posts, I’ll provide additional learning resources to have a deeper, less-fantasized discussion about the learning process. But for now, we’re going to let these elves do the talking.

There are three components of the learning process illustrated in this image. They are:

1. an elf delivering new information.

2. an elf methodically working to make sense of that information.

3. an enormous library to store the processed information.

   
   

Let’s look a little closer at each element.

Step 1: Information Intake

The first step in learning is to receive information through our senses. Take a minute right now to be aware of every detail of everything you can possibly see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. Now multiply that number of cues by 1,440 minutes in a day (your senses are still working even when you are asleep), and you can get a sense of how much information your brain takes in. Every one of those sensations carries information that may or may not be important to you.

Most of what you sense never enters your conscious mind. To be efficient, your brain cleverly filters intake information for cues that it deems to have potential value for either your protection or progression and passes only that information on to the next stage of the process. Everything else is promptly discarded.

For example, you are more likely to be aware of the sound of a buzzing bee than of a ticking clock, even though they have about the same decibel level. A buzzing bee signals a potential threat, while a ticking clock normally does not carry much significance. Furthermore, the importance of a cue is dependent on its context. A ticking clock will blend in as background noise while you are working away in your office. But if you are scrambling to finish a calculus test, each click of the second hand is significant and will be much more noticeable. 

As alluded to previously, this information intake and filtering process happens continuously, but in the background. You are never aware of most of the information your brain takes in. After your brain has received information and decided something may be worth paying attention to, it passes it onto the next stage, which is conscious thought.

Step 2: Working Memory

Another way to describe conscious thought is working memory. This is where the real work of learning takes place. Mental processing happens when we connect new information to existing knowledge and make meaningful interpretations of it.

Let’s say you find yourself in an engineering firm that has called a mandatory all-staff meeting. One of the topics to be discussed is a technical presentation about an updated methodology for asphalt pavement design. We’ll look at the potential learning experience of four hypothetical people in the room, based on what is happening in their working memory. 

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Learner #1 — The Outsider

This person might be an accountant or any other non-engineer. Their body might be in the room, but their mind won’t be. Without any relevant existing knowledge or hope of meaningful application, focusing on the presentation will be torture. Their eyes will be as glazed as their fourth doughnut, and they’ll leave the presentation worse off than they came.

Learner #2 — The Up-and-Come

A new, eager engineer might be motivated to learn the content for their work, but their prior experience may not be any more relevant than the outsider’s. Consequently, their working memory will be spinning at 100 MPH if the content is not presented at an introductory level. They willleave the presentation feeling frazzled from the mental effort they exerted trying to make sense of the material. They may learn a little bit from the session but will need extended practice and lots of refreshers before they can effectively apply the content.

Learner #3 — The Old Dog

This learner might be a senior leader who has extensive experience in pavement design but has spent the last many years managing people instead of projects. They will have an easy time following along but will still struggle to build durable learning. Their answer to “what’s in it for me?” willbe weak because the material is not relevant to their current job responsibilities. Their attention will be easily pulled away to more pressing matters. They will leave the room unchanged by what they heard.

Learner #4 — Goldilocks

An experienced engineer who is actively designing pavement sections for multiple projects will have the best learning experience. Their existing knowledge and a consequential way to apply the information puts them in the “juuust right” zone for learning well. This preparation as a learner will compensate for any inadequacies in the instruction. They will leave the room feeling empowered to go out and change the world, one pavement section at a time.

There are literal connections being formed during the learning process as neurons create a network within your brain. The deeper you process the information, the stronger those neural connections become, and the better you will learn. 

You will notice that this elf’s desk is relatively small. Because this is such an energy intensive process, our working memory is limited in capacity. The author Greg McKeown has wisely observed that multi-tasking is possible, but multi-focusing is not. In other words, you can walk and have a conversation at the same time because walking does not require mental effort. It is a well-engrained skill set that no longer requires focus, except to navigate. However, no one can have a meaningful conversation and write an important email at the same time. Both activities require focus to perceive, process, and respond to information. People who claim the superhuman ability to multitask in this way have trained themselves to give shallow attention to one activity after another in rapid succession, but they are not giving deep focus to more than one thing at a time. 

It is important to be aware of how much information is on your mind at any one time. If you are feeling overwhelmed, it is better to take a break than to “power through”. On that note, rest and sleep are important factors for consolidating memories. If you have four hours to devote to learning a subject, you are better off in the long term to do four one-hour study sessions over several days than a single four-hour study session. Furthermore, forgetting something can help you learn it better. When you force your brain to recall something it once knew (without just looking it up again) that memory will be strengthened for the next time you need it. 

Our memories are more like news articles than transcripts. In other words, we tend to remember the meaning of information more than the exact details. Suppose you attend a webinar on a Thursday with an assignment to report the information you learned in a staff meeting the following Monday. You likely would not be able to recite any extended direct quotes from the presenter, but with any luck (enabled by good teaching and diligent learning) you would be able to summarize a few key takeaways. Your report may or may not accurately reflect the original content or the presenter’s intention, but it will signify the meaning you found to be personally relevant.

In summary, learning is hard under any circumstances, so it is best to use your energy wisely as you learn. Instead of memorizing, find meaning. Instead of learning isolated topics, make connections. When you have information overload, take a break, even if it is just to focus on something else. Over time and with proper effort, your memories will be strengthened, and you will build mastery.

Step 3: Long-Term Memory

Our last stop on this tour inside our brain is long-term memory. While our working memory is limited in its capacity, we have virtually unlimited long-term storage. You will never learn so much that you have to push old memories out to make room for new ones. 

If there is something you simply cannot recall, there is one of two general explanations: The first is that the thing you are trying to remember was not encoded into long term memory to begin with. Anyone who has crammed for a math exam, passed the test, then forgotten everything as they walked out the door can relate to this scenario. 

All that information was stuck in your working memory, like piles of documents covering this elf’s desk.  When the immediate need to remember it passed, he was overwhelmed with the chaos, threw it all in the garbage and went home for the night. Remember that working memory is a high-energy, low-volume part of your brain. If you inundate the system, the information will not make it into long-term memory and you will not have a chance of recalling it later. The better you process something to begin with, the more it will stick with you throughout your lifetime.

The second explanation for having difficulty recalling something is that it’s in your memory, but you can’t find it. Once you find that address, though, the memory not only becomes stronger, but a whole filing cabinet of related memories is opened. That is why bumping into an old friend, returning to your old neighborhood, or finding a childhood toy in your attic often brings back stories you could not have otherwise recalled.

Like the ruins of an ancient civilization, long-term memories never truly go away – even if they get lost in the overgrowth of the jungle. If you want to test this, go practice something you once knew very well. Putting your body back in that performance environment – sitting at a piano, dribbling a basketball, or stepping back on the ice – will be like a machete clearing away jungle vines. Your body might not be physically capable of the same things, but with just a little bit of rust scrubbing, you might be surprised at how well your mind returns to its former glory.

Improving your ability to remember things long-term – creating durable learning – starts with the wise use of your cognitive energy as you receive and process information to begin with. It continues with keeping the overgrowth trimmed back. You can do this by periodically recalling information or practicing a skill so that your neural connections stay strong and active.

“Good wood grows slowly, and durable learning takes time.”

This maxim encapsulates a core ideology and inspired the name for Good Wood Learning Co.

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Good timber does not grow with ease:

The stronger wind, the stronger trees;

The further sky, the greater length;

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow.

from “Good Timber” by Douglas Malloch

Wrap-Up

There is much more we could discuss about how our brains work to transform information into knowledge. The point for now is that our brains are incredibly complex but still comprehensible. If you want to improve the learning process, either for yourself or others, you need to lean into natural cognitive processes. Work with it and not against it, and you will be surprised at what the human brain can do.

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What did you learn as you read this article? Have something you’re still wondering about? Let me know in the comments below.