Marty Lobdell - Study Less Study Smart

00:59:55
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0

摘要

TLDRThe video discusses effective study strategies for college students, emphasizing short study sessions of about 25-30 minutes followed by breaks to maintain high learning efficiency. It highlights the pitfalls of rote memorization and suggests using mnemonics for better memory retention. There's a focus on optimizing study environments free from distractions and the importance of sleep in aiding memory consolidation. Active learning, such as teaching or explaining concepts to peers, is promoted to enhance understanding. Moreover, the value of immediate review of class notes is underlined for better retention. Managing study time wisely by identifying and utilizing optimum study conditions and times can lead to significant academic improvement.

心得

  • ⌛ Breaking up study sessions into smaller chunks can improve efficiency.
  • 🧠 Active learning, such as teaching others, enhances understanding.
  • 🏠 The study environment greatly influences focus and efficiency.
  • ⏱️ Taking short breaks between study sessions helps maintain focus.
  • ✋ Participating in study groups can enhance learning outcomes.
  • 🛌 Lack of sleep can negatively impact memory and learning.
  • 🔑 Mnemonics can aid in memorizing facts more easily.
  • 📚 Using study techniques like SQ3R improves textbook reading effectiveness.
  • 📝 Reviewing notes immediately after class helps deepen understanding.
  • 🎼 Background noise can hinder focus, so choose study environments wisely.

时间轴

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    The speaker emphasizes the difficulty in covering all content and highlights a discussion on effective study duration for college freshmen, referencing research from the University of Michigan, showing effectiveness often lasts 25-30 minutes. An anecdote about a student's ineffective six-hour study routine contrasts with this research.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    The speaker discusses psychological behavior principles, explaining that unproductive prolonged studying can lead to negative reinforcement. Advice is given on taking breaks to maintain study efficiency, proposing short breaks after 30-minute study sessions as an effective strategy. Positive study routines can optimize learning.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Suggestions are given to improve study environments by creating designated study areas, as demonstrated through a U. Hawaii experiment using a "study lamp" to improve focus. The importance of avoiding common areas like bedrooms and kitchens to prevent distraction is also highlighted. Maintained routines enhance study efficiency.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    The importance of active learning versus rote memorization is addressed. Students are encouraged to differentiate between facts and concepts, understanding that concepts have long-term retention value. Practical examples are provided to illustrate the difference between understanding facts and comprehending concepts effectively.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    The speaker further elaborates on the importance of concept comprehension through an example, emphasizing self-explanation as a measure of understanding. They stress the inadequacy of rote learning and the need for meaningful reading and interpretation to ensure lasting educational impact.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    The benefits of study groups and active recitation in learning are introduced, suggesting that sharing knowledge with others or self-dialogue aids retention. The speaker humorously warns against ineffective study practices, such as highlighting text without comprehension, and stresses effective note-taking techniques.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    Proper textbook usage is discussed through the SQ3R method (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review), encouraging students to actively engage with material. Highlighting the difference between recognition and recollection, the speaker advises against passive reading to improve information retention.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:40:00

    Debate between recognition versus active learning is extended, suggesting sleep and time management affect study effectiveness. The importance of enhancing notes after classes is stressed to improve understanding and retention. Suggestions also cover discussing unclear content with peers or instructors.

  • 00:40:00 - 00:45:00

    Further exploration of active learning emphasizes teaching as a retention tool and suggests reciting information to reinforce learning. The challenges of rote memorization are addressed, and various mnemonic techniques (acronyms, coined sayings, interacting images) are proposed as effective memorization aids.

  • 00:45:00 - 00:50:00

    The speaker explains mnemonic devices such as acronyms and phrases to enhance memory recall, using examples like ROYGBIV for colors. The process of using mnemonic devices to differentiate similar facts is discussed, emphasizing their utility in complex subjects like anatomy, demonstrating with personal anecdotes.

  • 00:50:00 - 00:59:55

    Drawing the lecture to a close, the speaker reiterates the power of mnemonics, highlighting interacting images for learning, encourages novel mnemonic creation for remembering facts, and concludes with gratitude towards the audience. The importance of personalized study techniques for success is emphasized.

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思维导图

视频问答

  • What is the optimal study session length for college students?

    Research suggests that most students can maintain effective learning for about 25 to 30 minutes before needing a break.

  • How can mnemonics help in studying?

    Mnemonics are memory aids that simplify recalling complex information. They can take forms like acronyms or visual imagery.

  • Why are short study sessions with breaks recommended?

    Short study sessions with breaks prevent mental fatigue and maintain high efficiency in learning.

  • What are some effective study environments?

    A quiet, distraction-free environment with a designated study area and proper lighting can enhance focus and efficiency.

  • How does the physical environment influence studying?

    Environmental cues, like studying in a bed, can make focusing harder. Specific study areas set the right environment for focus.

  • Why is reviewing notes immediately after class beneficial?

    Reviewing immediately helps consolidate information while it's still fresh, making it easier to understand and remember later.

  • What is active learning?

    Active learning involves engaging with the material, such as by teaching it to others or applying it, rather than passive reading or memorization.

  • How important is sleep for studying effectively?

    Adequate sleep is crucial as it helps consolidate memory and improve retention of studied material.

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  • 00:00:01
    I wish I had enough time to cover everything but I don't so I'm gonna pick out kind of the most important things and make sure I get to those
  • 00:00:09
    right off the bat. So is it going? Okay, I the red light. I'm gonna ask you a question. I want you to think for a moment and tell me how long would
  • 00:00:20
    you estimate the typical college freshman can read material in their book or in their notes and effectively be learning what they're reading.
  • 00:00:33
    Okay. 5 minutes says Chris. 25 minutes. Hour. Now, let me ask, anybody think more then an hour? How long? By the way, I had a
  • 00:01:02
    guy, last time I did this, he said I can do it about 6 hours. And I just (scoffs). Well then I found out he is a medical resident, just finished
  • 00:01:12
    medical school, his wife was in my class and indeed, my daughter's 4th year med, oh yeah 4, 5 hours but that's not typical I can tell you, okay.
  • 00:01:24
    Anybody less then 5 minutes? Okay. So we've got 5 to maybe 4 or 5 hours. A study was done, believe the University of Michigan, they asked
  • 00:01:34
    students to do the following thing. When you're ready to study, you've got all your materials, you're back in your little dorm room or your place
  • 00:01:42
    you live. Check your watch, start working, the moment you feel that sense of I've read it but it's not coming through, and it's like eh I'm
  • 00:01:52
    wasting my time, we all get that feeling, note what time it is. Record that, bring it back. And they had many, many hundreds of freshman and
  • 00:02:01
    sophomores do this and then somebody took the time to compile it. And typically, right about 25 to 30 minutes. By the way, it's also true of
  • 00:02:12
    lectures and you've all proved it to yourself. You come in to a lecture, you're really alert, check the clock at about 25 after it's like...yeah. And I
  • 00:02:22
    see it in every class I teach but how long do we teach? 50 minutes. And yet probably most of learning, if it's gonna happen, is in the first 25-30.
  • 00:02:32
    Okay. I'm gonna talk about a person cause I also like to teach by anecdote. Woman named Janette. I was a junior at Western, she was a
  • 00:02:42
    freshman, because I was a junior I could live off campus, those days, colleges where your parents had abstentia. She had to live in a dorm
  • 00:02:51
    cause she didn't have a relative in town. We were dating. She got her first quarter at Western a D average, 1.0, 15 credits of D. She decided
  • 00:03:04
    she really needed to buckle down, plus the school said if you don't make it up you're gonna be kicked out. So the second quarter of her freshman
  • 00:03:13
    year, she set the following goal, to study for 6 hours a night, non-stop, 6-midnight, Sunday night through Thursday night. Friday, Saturday she
  • 00:03:26
    could party, rest of the week she was gonna study. Now one would assume, my gosh going from little study to 6 hours a night, 5 nights
  • 00:03:35
    of the week, she should've aced everything. Want to guess her grade point second quarter? 0.0, she failed every class. This is why telling
  • 00:03:48
    people to study more is not necessarily help. In some cases it might actually worsen their performance. What I want to do is show you
  • 00:03:58
    graphically what I'm talking about. Let's say this is efficient studying, and I know there are no numbers there but higher means more efficient,
  • 00:04:18
    lower means low or no efficiency. And this axis we're looking at time. Here's what happens for the average student. For her, 6 o' clock in
  • 00:04:28
    the evening, after her supper at the residency dining hall, she plopped herself down at her little study area and started studying. Here's what
  • 00:04:38
    happened. By about 6:30, she was in a major slump. But what was her goal? To study 6 hours, so she continued to sit at her little desk and
  • 00:04:56
    stare at pages until midnight. She was at her desk 6 hours. How long did she actually study? About 20, 30 minutes. Now, there's a simple
  • 00:05:14
    conduct in psychology all of you are aware of, things that are reinforced we tend to do more of. Things that are punished or ignored, we tend to
  • 00:05:24
    do less of, and we operate by those principles to a large degree. If you are sitting there for 6 hours, are you feeling good? No. Once you get
  • 00:05:38
    here, you're looking at your book going I hate geography, I hate literature, I hate psychology, all the things we're trying to get you to
  • 00:05:50
    fall in love with, you're hating it. And so her actual good studying was followed by 5 and a half hours of pain and misery. I would bet you, I
  • 00:06:04
    don't know for a fact, that as the quarter progressed she sat down and finally she was done before she even started. She sat down and just
  • 00:06:16
    stared at a book and she flunked every class. Now, had she taken this little seminar or had figured things out on her own, she'd know what to
  • 00:06:22
    do. First rule, the moment you start to slide, you're shoveling against the tide. What you need to do is what? Take a break. Here's what's cool
  • 00:06:37
    about it. You can study for a half hour. It doesn't take a half hour break to recharge your batteries. For most people about 5 minutes. This is
  • 00:06:47
    where you go away, do something fun for 5 minutes. Call a friend, talk to a child, talk to a parent, a roommate, enjoy some music, do something
  • 00:06:58
    you enjoy and actually say this is my treat for having studied for 30 minutes effectively. Go back, and here's what happens. Your efficiency
  • 00:07:07
    is nearly 100%. Study a half hour, take a break, study a half hour. Had she done that over a course of 6 hours, she would have got about 5 and
  • 00:07:19
    a half hours of serious studying and about a half hour of total break time. I really don't believe she would've flunked out. Now I get students
  • 00:07:27
    complaining I don't have enough time to study. Look for a break at work. Look for a break at home. Those little 15-20 minutes can be very
  • 00:07:36
    efficient if you apply them efficiently. Unfortunately, sometimes it's really tough to get those moments but you need to build them in somehow.
  • 00:07:45
    You gotta have at least sometime to study. It's not gonna happen through osmosis. I'm gonna ask you a final question. Lets say you've
  • 00:07:55
    studied till midnight, what do you want to do after your last study 20-30 minutes? No, not yet. You want to give yourself a big treat, okay.
  • 00:08:10
    Whenever you're studying time is done, plan something special. Now for most women, especially with kids, it's a calgon bath with candles and
  • 00:08:21
    the bathroom door locked and the statement if you bother me I will take your head off. This is where guys go "what?" Yeah, moms have no
  • 00:08:31
    privacy, kids walk in while you're using the toilet, while you're in the tub, they'll bring their friends with them, won't they? Dads don't put up with
  • 00:08:39
    that. When dads are in the bathroom it's lock the door, tough luck, go elsewhere. For you guys, I'll give you mine. This is politically incorrect.
  • 00:08:49
    I liked beer, kay. My goal was to knock out all my studying, go to the Iron Bull Tavern in Bellingham, knock down a couple beers for my treat. Now
  • 00:09:01
    my buddies they'd say Lobdell how're you getting straight A's? Well I'd studied starting about 3 in the afternoon. By 9 o' clock at night, when
  • 00:09:09
    pitchers went on cheap, I'd done all my studying. I went and enjoyed my beer. These yahoos started drinking in the afternoon, then went to the
  • 00:09:19
    tavern planning to go home and study. You know that's not gonna happen. You're not gonna study, and even if you do, what's called state
  • 00:09:29
    dependent memory you'll typically only remember if you're intoxicated and I don't recommend getting drunk before a test. It's kind of a stupid
  • 00:09:38
    thing. If you plan your day right, you can have those little study breaks but the coolest part is this. Because you're now reinforcing it with those
  • 00:09:47
    little breaks and something fun, you extended. And you'll find you can go 30, 40, 50, an hour, an hour and a half. This is training. Those of you
  • 00:09:58
    who go on to advanced degrees, you're gonna have to study incredible lengths of time without taking a break cause you've gotta get it done
  • 00:10:06
    like my daughter in med school. Just amazing, I've told her I couldn't do it now, or actually I wouldn't do it. You're training yourself and if you do it
  • 00:10:15
    right it becomes progressively easier, okay next question. How many of you have a true study or library in your place of residence? Okay. 2, 2 of
  • 00:10:30
    you if I'm seeing correctly. I've always envied that. A quiet place to actually do reading or studying, kay. I'm gonna make a predicition.
  • 00:10:42
    Many of you study in your bedroom. Okay, how many of you study in your bedroom? We'll raise high so everybody can see. Mmhmm, that's
  • 00:10:50
    where I studied a lot, especially when I did go to community college. If you don't study in your bedroom hmm...I bet some of you study at the
  • 00:10:58
    dining room table/kitchen table or bar. How many of you study at the dining/kitchen/bar? Okay. Now if you don't study in those 2 places and
  • 00:11:08
    you don't have a study or library, study in the family room/rec room/living room...the place where your TV and stereo is, your couch, easy chair.
  • 00:11:18
    How many of you study there? Okay. Now some of you might actually might drive to a school or library, any do that? Go to a...okay. A few of
  • 00:11:26
    you do. I still remember living at home going to Highline Community College, my folks bought me a little desk. I still have it. Little desk, I'd
  • 00:11:39
    come home cause I did work then at Albertsons, typically got off at 9, home about 10 and I'd start studying. I still remember reading Billy Bud
  • 00:11:48
    Melville. I lie there sitting there studying and my eyes are just...and then the bed started calling to me. "Marty, come lie upon me." Now those of
  • 00:12:04
    you who've studied Greek, the idea of Sirens calling sailors to the rocks, oh it's real. I'd hear the bed call me and I'd finally go oh I'll just lie down
  • 00:12:16
    for a moment. Next thing my mom to be yelling "Marty you're late for your English class" I was like "Oh god. I didn't read Billy Bud and I'm
  • 00:12:24
    screwed." Let me ask you, what's the primary function of a bedroom? What's the secondary function? Good. Most groups go...and I go take
  • 00:12:38
    psych 20..or 225 and learn about it. It's functional, okay. Primary function of a dining table, eating. Primary function of a living area...
  • 00:12:48
    Recreation, socializing, right? Now, a lot of students don't realize how much we're controlled by environmental cues. How many of you have
  • 00:13:00
    been to the Tacoma Mall? Funny, isn't it? Why do you raise your hand? Have you ever been to Tacoma? You answered, why didn't you go like
  • 00:13:12
    this? Why? Cause if I'm asking the entire class, you've been trained to do what? And you don't even think about it. How many of you been
  • 00:13:24
    Tacoma Mall? Hands go up. But if I walked up to you, Chris you ever been to Seattle? Totally stupid right? When you're talking face to face
  • 00:13:37
    you respond verbally. When you ask a group, hands come up. Now, here's what's bad...now that I've tricked you, you won't raise your
  • 00:13:47
    hands. I'm not gonna raise my hand. But can you see how powerful it is? Without thinking cause we're in a classroom, how many of you have
  • 00:13:56
    been to Tacoma Mall, hands shoot up. Same is true of going in your bedroom and trying to study. You're in the bedroom. Now, piece of
  • 00:14:04
    research done in University of Hawaii. Researchers asked the students what's the biggest problem with studying, they said we can't get into it.
  • 00:14:13
    The university in question had primarily dorm rooms. Very few commuter students to the university. Most of you have seen a dorm
  • 00:14:21
    room. Oh okay. Most of you have seen a dorm room. They're usually rectangular if it's a 2 plex. One side bed, other side a bed, everything
  • 00:14:34
    kinda mirror imaged, study area, study area, right...You've got a closet or wardrobe so it's real interesting. In one room you sleep, you groom,
  • 00:14:46
    talk with people, you socialize, you study, you snack, you're all in 1 room. It's a multi-purpose room and yet you're supposed to study. If
  • 00:14:58
    your door's open, what happens? Everybody "Hey Lobdell what's up?!" You know and then they got to come in and talk to very quickly you can't
  • 00:15:08
    get to study. Well the professors heard that the students couldn't get into studying. But they knew what the dorms looked like and the Hawaiin
  • 00:15:15
    dorms, all of the rooms had a goose neck lamp, so the professors said we're gonna try a little experiment. Take that lamp, make a little sign and
  • 00:15:25
    put it on it, "Study Lamp". Use it only for studying, you don't dress by it, you don't have bs sessions by it, you don't snack by it, you don't clean
  • 00:15:35
    the room by it, nothing. You use the other lights for all other functions. Here's the way it works and it's so easy. Every one of you can do this.
  • 00:15:44
    Get a little lamp, probably have one already, if you don't my gosh. Yard sale, garage sale, you can pick 'em up for nothing. Get that lamp and it
  • 00:15:53
    becomes your study lamp, so if you have to study in your bedroom, turn your desk away from the bed. That's the like how many of you been to
  • 00:16:01
    the mall, it makes you want to go to sleep. By the way, you can't study in the bed, it's also bad for your back if you know about posture. Turn your
  • 00:16:09
    back to the bed, have a blank wall, have your lamp, have your books ready to go cause you could futz away a lot of time getting ready, can't
  • 00:16:16
    you? How many of can futz and futz yeah? You're ready to go, turn on the lamp and start studying. The moment you lose your edge, 15 20 30
  • 00:16:26
    minutes later, turn the lamp off, get up and leave the desk. What you're training yourself to study while seated there, and it becomes
  • 00:16:36
    increasingly automatic as did the raising of the hand. You sit, turn the lamp on and you're ready to go. It's like magic. The students who did
  • 00:16:44
    that were 1 grade point higher the next term compared to the controlled group that didn't do it. 1 grade point simply by creating a study area.
  • 00:16:54
    Now if you study in the kitchen/dining, remove all food cues cause I know what happens there. You start thinking turkey in the fridge, yeah
  • 00:17:04
    swiss cheese in the fridge, oh yeah sandwich time. How many of you have studied and created sandwiches, takes about a half hour to make
  • 00:17:13
    a really good one. So damn good, what do you do? Make another one! And pretty soon not only are you not studying, but you're getting the
  • 00:17:22
    spread going, okay. You're really frustrated then. The living area, I'm gonna tell you, you can do this experiment. You try to study in the living
  • 00:17:32
    room and you're focused, and other people are listening to music, watching a movie, watching TV, they won't leave you alone. "Hey
  • 00:17:39
    Marty. Marty look, look look it's really good." "Excuse me I'm studying." And then they get angry at you. "Well boo on you too." You can't study
  • 00:17:48
    in the living area. It's not designed for that unless you're all by yourself, and you turn off the TV, turn down the stereo so it's truly background. If
  • 00:18:00
    you're singing along to your favorite song, you're not studying. You're singing along to a song. Your brain has to be focused to be really
  • 00:18:08
    studying, not time sharing back and forth between singing and studying. So living areas, very tough to create but if that's what you have to do it
  • 00:18:17
    bring your little study lamp in, everything else off, turn on your study lamp, create a study there. Are you getting the idea? Now, I'm gonna
  • 00:18:25
    go through a lot of suggestions. Break it up into chunks, reinforce it, simple to do. Create a study area, simple to do. And you'll be amazed
  • 00:18:35
    if you take these ideas and do them. I'm gonna make a challenge to all of you. It's so easy to sit through a presentation, say yeah yeah that
  • 00:18:43
    sounds good and then walk away and do nothing. Technically as a psychologist, if it doesn't change your behavior you haven't learned it.
  • 00:18:52
    It's just in your head. To be a true learning experience you have to behave differently. So my hope is you all make a promise I'll try at
  • 00:19:00
    least one or 2 of what I talk about today, and when you find out it works, say gosh I'll try a 3rd one, maybe a 4th. I went back to grad school in
  • 00:19:09
    the mid-80s, second time around, I actually aced every class. PLU gives pluses, I got pluses in all but one class. I didn't do that first time, okay. I
  • 00:19:20
    was a good student but not that good. I used the principles I learned about in teaching psych to become a student. I wish somebody had told
  • 00:19:28
    me these things when I was a student the first time. It would have been a lot easier. So we got 2 things going. Break your study up into little
  • 00:19:36
    pieces with reinforcement. Create a study area, if you don't have one. I think you said you do have a study. There you go. Okay. Next thing. The
  • 00:19:50
    more active you are in your learning, your're more effective. And yet increasingly I have students who think studying is reading it over and
  • 00:19:59
    over and they're gonna have some magical thing where they suddenly understand it and remember it well. When your reading it over and over,
  • 00:20:10
    or saying it over and over, the term for that is rote memorization. Spelled r-o-t-e. It can work. It is the way most of us were taught in elementary
  • 00:20:23
    school. The way I understand it, a lot of Asian schools depend heavily on rote. Some of you may be darn good at it and if you can memorize
  • 00:20:32
    and actually understand by repetition and its effective for you, don't change. But for most of us it's not the most efficient or effective way.
  • 00:20:42
    The way to learn efficiently in college, first you have to decide what am I learning. Is it a concept or a fact? A fast is the discreet little piece of
  • 00:20:54
    information, Sigmund Freud is the father of psychoanalysis, that's a fact. Okay, but understanding what psychoanalysis is is a concept. Okay.
  • 00:21:07
    Understanding the name of a bone is a fact. Understanding what it does in the body gets into a concept, okay. So, in studying, sometimes there
  • 00:21:17
    are a lot of facts. In fact, I use anatomy as a good example. You gotta memorize bones, muscles, organs, tissues, a lot of it. But if you simply
  • 00:21:27
    memorize and don't understand the function of it. The comprehension of the actual concepts, it's a lot of wasted learning, really. Just to know a
  • 00:21:37
    name of a bone is like yeah, so what. Okay. What does it do? How does it function? So, if it's a fact or a factoid, you have to approach it one way
  • 00:21:48
    and I'll talk about how you do that. But in most college classes, what we as professors are most concerned about is that you grasp the concept.
  • 00:21:56
    Because concepts, once grasped, will stay with you a lifetime. Facts can easily get confused, but that's why we have Google, why we have
  • 00:22:05
    reference books. If you know the concept, you can quickly look up the fact if you have to know that for a particular fact. Neat thing is, I get
  • 00:22:14
    questions who has more advantage, younger students or older students? Depends on what you're talking about. Most of us as we get
  • 00:22:20
    older realize concepts are what are really important to make our lives better, to be effective in our work, effective in our personal lives. Facts
  • 00:22:33
    though, we realize we can lookup. We can get those if we need them. Young people actually often learn facts very quickly but they never think
  • 00:22:43
    about the concept. I'll give you a simple example, I'm an old guy, when I was a bit younger, I would sing along with the radio with my adolescent
  • 00:22:53
    daughter in the car. Oh Dad, if you don't know the words don't sing the song. I'd say okay Beth, you're right. I'm not singing exactly what he or
  • 00:23:04
    she is singing, but it's conceptually the same. What? I'd say what's the song about? I don't know. She couldn't tell me what the song was about
  • 00:23:14
    but she could tell me every word in the song. That's earning or learning facts and not seeing the concept. I as an adult, I know the concept, I just
  • 00:23:24
    make up my own lyrics, okay. Because I don't worry about the factual. Now, some of you are going yeah but my teacher does. I got to know
  • 00:23:32
    the facts as well as the concepts, so we'll first deal with concepts. Here's the question, can you put the concept in your own words. If you
  • 00:23:43
    can't, you don't really understand it. It's not meaningful to you. To make it meaningful is a struggle. It's probably the biggest struggle you have as
  • 00:23:53
    a student. But its a struggle you need to do or you're wasting your study time. Now I'm gonna give you an example. Only 1 of you probably in this
  • 00:24:03
    room will understand what I just say or what we say. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. I knew she would get that. How many of you
  • 00:24:12
    know exactly what I'm talking about? Rog, you do? Cool. 2 of you. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Most of you are going it's all Greek to me, it's
  • 00:24:22
    actually probably more Latin but I'm not certain of that. When I was a biology student, I learned about the ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny and if you try
  • 00:24:33
    to learn that and you don't understand it, it's gonna go in one ear and out the other. You can't hold onto it. But if I take a moment to break it down, ontogeny
  • 00:24:44
    means your own development as a being. You as a human for example. Recapitulates means goes back through or recaptures, retraces. Phylogeny,
  • 00:24:55
    which is the development all the way from single cell to complex mammal. Now to make sense of that, how did all of you start in utero? A single
  • 00:25:07
    fertilized cell. An ovum that's fertilized and then it starts dividing and you get all that. But you get a little peer and this is what they first looked at embryos,
  • 00:25:17
    where we look like a little thing that looks like a tadpole. Right? Yeah, tadpoleish. So we start with a single egg that's fertilized and then we get this
  • 00:25:27
    little thing that looks kinda like a tadpole and they thought these were gill slits. They're not, they're just what becomes the pharisaic area. But there's no legs
  • 00:25:38
    it looks like a little tail. We had a tail! Got the idea? Well then we get our arm buds and we get them growing you know, so we now get arms and legs and
  • 00:25:49
    gradually we start looking more like a human being but we take an embryo of every mammal, you probably couldn't tell one from the other. Human, pig,
  • 00:26:00
    doesn't matter, they all look very much alike don't they? Now, you understand ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, but if the instructor doesn't take the time to
  • 00:26:09
    tell you that and you just read it and eh whatever I'll memorize it, you would forget it about as quickly get through it. I'm not gonna prove this, you all get
  • 00:26:20
    to do a little memory task. Gotta find where...here we go! I'm gonna read to you 13 letters from our alphabet, you all know the alphabet right? Should be
  • 00:26:36
    meaningful. As soon as I finish I want you to say them back to me in the same sequence that I give them to you. So I'll say them and then I'll go
  • 00:26:46
    like that, you say 'em back. Y-T-R-H, don't write 'em, A-U-S-P-D-P-A-Y-H...Boy, somebody sounded like they got quite a few but did any of you get
  • 00:27:09
    all 13? By the way, the fact that you took notes is a good thing. It's one of the best things to help you remember, and I sit in front of classes where they just
  • 00:27:18
    go...for 50 minutes. I'm givin' them wisdom and they're not taking a damn note, and then they wonder why they don' remember. You can't remember
  • 00:27:27
    everything in a lecture. I'm gonna rearrange the letters a little bit, see if you do any better. H-A-P-P-Y-T-H-U-R-S-D-A-Y. The letters in sequence. Shh...
  • 00:27:47
    letters. Most of you got all 13, and you thought coming to this lecture might be nothing. I've just taken your short term memory span, which is usually 5
  • 00:28:03
    to about 9 letters and expanded 13. Can you give 'em again? What are they? Damn you're good. Or I'm good. Now, obviously it was a little easier. Those
  • 00:28:20
    were the same 13 letters, same ones. If you're studying anything conceptual, and you're trying to memorize it, it's like Y-T-R...it doesn't make any sense.
  • 00:28:32
    It's in one eye out the other, if it's out loud one ear out the other. But if you take the time discover the meaning, suddenly it clicks. And I could probably
  • 00:28:44
    ask you next week what were those 13 letters and most of you tell me. At the end of the quarter I could ask you and most of you could tell me. You might
  • 00:28:50
    be confused was it happy wednesday or thursday but you'd guess probably thursday. Now, some of you are in my intro class this quarter. I do something
  • 00:29:00
    that I wish I had time to do. I divide the class in 2, using a card so half reads 1, the other half reads another card. I have one group try to estimate the
  • 00:29:10
    number of vowels in a series of words that I read to them. So they're thinking about the words, we'd say that's superficial thinking. How many vowels in
  • 00:29:21
    mosquito? How many vowels in bottle? How many vowels in elephant? And they get to write down what they think is the number of vowels. The second
  • 00:29:30
    group are instructed, they're told you need to think about how valuable this item would be. If you were stranded on a deserted island, and you then rate
  • 00:29:41
    its value on 5 point scale, 1 being no value, 5 being highly valuable, that's called deeper processing. You're now thinking about it in terms of its
  • 00:29:50
    application or use. By the way, I think elephant is a fun one, I'd give it a 5. Not really company but if you got really hungry you got a lot of food there right? I
  • 00:30:01
    then read, I think it's about 30 words, everybody's writing down their numbers. I then have them do a stalling exercise where they write their name
  • 00:30:12
    phone number and address, that's to dump short term memory cause they might be thinking about the words I just read. If you're now writing your name
  • 00:30:20
    and address, it changes your focus. Short term memory only lasts about 20-30 seconds, its pretty brief. So I counted on the clock, after 30 seconds I say
  • 00:30:31
    now write down as many words that you can recall. This one is so powerful, the group that's counting vowels on average remembers out of about 30
  • 00:30:44
    words. Time and time again. The group that's thinking about usefulness on a deserted island remembers 10. It's slightly more 5/5, 5.5 vs 10.5 but very
  • 00:30:59
    close to it doubling without doing any more effort, simply by thinking about it instead of just trying to superficially think about it. And this is where, as a
  • 00:31:09
    student, the more you get into the understanding the better. Now this then raises a fun question, what is the meaning? If I say something is meaningful
  • 00:31:21
    or meaningless, what am I really saying? Now I'm not gonna through a big drill which is kind of fun of teasing it out of you, but a meaningful piece is a
  • 00:31:31
    piece that relates to something you already know, and the best little analogy is its like a file system that you've already got established, you add a new
  • 00:31:40
    entry to it so its all neatly organized and its very easy if you got a file system to add a new entry. We do it with computers also. The other way,
  • 00:31:50
    meaningless. It's where something new doesn't fit with something already established and so its Greek to you. Its ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
  • 00:32:01
    What did you say? If its something brand new, you can't relate it. You have to create a new entry, so you have to grapple with it saying what does that
  • 00:32:10
    mean? But as I broke it down, I bet you could associate it with something you already understood. You've probably all seen little embryos, you got the idea
  • 00:32:19
    of an egg, the idea that it kinda recaptures our development from a primitive one cell to a very complex mammal, get that idea. That's the meaning of
  • 00:32:29
    meaningfulness. Now as a teacher, I think all of us, as we are teachers we all try to make things meaningful in our classes. So we give stories, we give
  • 00:32:39
    examples, but sometimes our examples don't work for you. This is where you have to tease it out. So I'm gonna go to a couple things to help you there.
  • 00:32:49
    First, study groups. We underutilize them, especially in community college. Would people get through med school without study groups. Not very many.
  • 00:32:58
    Do we have vet tech back there? Dental hygiene, vet tech, pretty sophisticated stuff they have to learn, right? Do they do study groups? No?
  • 00:33:10
    Oh my...I would hope they do. I would encourage them to do it. Where I've got students to form study groups, performance of the groups go up
  • 00:33:18
    dramatically. Now, part of it is probably because they're motivated to do that so its a bit confounding but I'm convinced there's also the power of
  • 00:33:26
    studying with other people. I know these concepts its like so well I can't see how they're confusing, but another student who's just found the
  • 00:33:37
    answer can sometimes turn and say Thursday, here's what its about. They go ah is that what Mr. Lobdell was saying, god. So easy. But I
  • 00:33:46
    can't do that because I don't see where the problems lie in that particular concept. Study groups are great. I'm not gonna tell you how
  • 00:33:54
    many of you totally hurt yourself in studying. How many of you magic mark, highlight, whatever you call it, textbooks. A little yellow, pink,
  • 00:34:04
    green, glow in the dark sort of thing? How many of you use the markers? Those were invented '65, year I started college. So I
  • 00:34:13
    bought one. I turned entire books ugly orange. Then I figured it out. If you color your page solid orange, you've actually highlighted nothing.
  • 00:34:29
    Yeah, by highlighting everything you've really highlighted zip. So I did the clever thing and you guys are way ahead of me. What do you
  • 00:34:35
    highlight folks? The most important thing. When do you do it? When you first read the book right? Or the chapter. So you read through, are you
  • 00:34:45
    studying? No, I'm reading for the most important things. Zip, zip, zip...some of you get out rulers to make it really neat, take hours to
  • 00:34:53
    make pretty little...then you go back to the start of the chapter, you read the first thing you underlined and you go I remember that. No you don't.
  • 00:35:03
    You recognize it. People are incredible at confusing recognition with recollection. Your visual recognition threshold is so great, you can see a
  • 00:35:16
    person once see 'em years later and go I know you. Were you a student at Pierce College? Yeah. Did you take psych? Yeah. From Lobdell?
  • 00:35:24
    Yeah. 36 years I run into that. Okay. Proof of this, grab a magazine in your house that you haven't looked at for a while, leaf through it, You
  • 00:35:35
    will get the illusion of remembering virtually every advertisement and article but to prove that its not recollection, its actually recognition,
  • 00:35:45
    before you turn to the next page predict what's on it. There's no way you're gonna be right. But as soon as you turn you go Oh! I remember
  • 00:35:54
    that. No you don't, you recognize it. Now, going back to your book, you've highlighted the most important stuff. You now go back to study
  • 00:36:01
    it and you say oh I remember it. So do you study it? No. So what don't you learn? The most important part of the chapter. Then they come in
  • 00:36:11
    the next day all ready for the quiz. Oh I studied hard last night Mr. Lobdell. Here's your quiz. I don't believe it, I can't remember a thing.
  • 00:36:21
    How many of you have heard that? Those of you teach, I could retire now if I had a buck for every one of those comments. I don't correct
  • 00:36:28
    'em. I shake my head and think poor baby, you think you knew it but in fact you recognized it. You didn't know it. Now back to this active
  • 00:36:36
    learning. How do you know you know it? If you can look at it, go to the next one, read it, and then stop and go back to the one before, look up
  • 00:36:46
    in the sky and in your own words say what that was about. Yeah, you know it. You will not forget it overnight unless you suffer a pretty major
  • 00:36:53
    cerebral accident. Just doesn't happen. But while we're talking about this, most of you undo good studying by not sleeping adequate. Some
  • 00:37:05
    of the latest work on remming, we're not sure exactly how but there's something going on that involves the hypocampus, involves the storage
  • 00:37:15
    from a transitory long term memory to a permanent, what we call consolidation. That just labels it, doesn't really say what's happening.
  • 00:37:24
    But we're getting increasing evidence that that consolidation process is dependent on rapid eye movement sleep, which if you're an adult
  • 00:37:32
    happens about every hour and a half once you fall asleep. If you're not getting a good night, typically around 8 hours, you're not getting enough
  • 00:37:40
    rem, what you've studied doesn't become permanent. I can tell you there are studies that show simply by getting better rest some students
  • 00:37:49
    improve markedly in their performance because their brain now stores it a lot more efficiently. By the way if you know anybody with sleep apnea,
  • 00:37:58
    biggest thing they'll tell you is I can't remember anything, my brain's shot. It's like my memory's gone. Yeah it is cause your remming isn't
  • 00:38:06
    happening cause you wake up so often, you can't consolidate and store permanent memories. Here's the funny thing, there's no money to be
  • 00:38:13
    made by telling people to get more sleep. So you don't hear about it on TV. Sylvian isn't telling you to get better sleep cause they don't make
  • 00:38:21
    any money. I tell students and they go yeah that's nice but they continue to use their time for other things. It's kind of interesting, isn't it? The best
  • 00:38:31
    advice, sleep better and most of you will do better. Most of you won't even begin to take it. I know why. You got so many other things to do. I'd
  • 00:38:39
    ask you this, are they important? Is studying and learning the most important thing you're doing as a student? If so, maybe you need to
  • 00:38:47
    give up some of the other activities. I have students tell me, I don't have enough time. There's 2 what, 162 hours in a week, we all have the
  • 00:38:56
    amount of time. Marty has no more nor less then anybody in this room. The real question is what do I do with my 162 hours. Am I gonna us it
  • 00:39:05
    well or use it not so well? I'm gonna give you a couple other tips here. Taking notes, so vital, but most students who do it haven't learned a
  • 00:39:16
    very simple rule. The first moment you get after a class, ideally right after the class, you should sit down with your notes, and expand on
  • 00:39:26
    everything you jotted down. Give it depth. Flesh it out. If you even wait to go home and do it a couple hours later, you'll have forgotten some
  • 00:39:37
    of your own notes. How many of you have done that? You've written beautiful notes, you get 'em home, you don't know what the hell you
  • 00:39:42
    wrote. It's like what is this? Well that's a wasted note. But if you take the moment right after class to flush it out, you now have a little more detail.
  • 00:39:53
    Odds are at night, you can still recollect it. That will be a powerful addition with only about a 5 minute time investment per class. That is
  • 00:40:02
    a good trade off. Now, the next piece, lets say you're trying to flesh out your notes. It's like tsss...I remember they said it or he said it but I don't
  • 00:40:11
    know what it was about. Look for a classmate, they're usually hanging around. Go up to somebody and say hey what was that about and they
  • 00:40:18
    can tell you, or flatter the heck out of us. Teachers want students to succeed. Sometimes it isn't perceived that way. We want you to do
  • 00:40:29
    well. Makes us happy. And any time a student comes up in the lunchroom where I always try to have my lunch and says Marty I
  • 00:40:36
    didn't quite understand this can you give me another example. I love it. I'm important. It's like yeah. You come to my office, not just with I'm not
  • 00:40:45
    getting anything but what was that about when you talk about rem sleep, you know. I start explaining. That's what my life's about here okay
  • 00:40:55
    we love it. That's a legitimate thing. Or if you don't want to go to the instructor's office, most of us start up a class, any questions? Yeah,
  • 00:41:03
    yesterday I didn't quite understand this piece about ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny. Okay, we'll go through that quickly. Once
  • 00:41:10
    again we like that. We want you to be successful. Let me jump back here to see where I am in my presentation. I was talking about being
  • 00:41:20
    active. Activity can also take the form of recitation. How many of you know the best way to learn is to teach somebody else? Boy if you got
  • 00:41:29
    family members or roommates teach 'em. Geography, psychology, anatomy, they often love it. One of my dearest students 2 years ago,
  • 00:41:38
    god I just loved her, I finally met her parents and says I've heard so much about you, I hear every lecture you're given. She would come
  • 00:41:46
    home, sit around the dinner table and recapitulate what I'd talked about. It's powerful because it reinforces your learning, plus it tells you if you
  • 00:41:55
    really understood it. Cause if mom or dad says I don't quite get that, you go uh I don't understand it either, then very quickly you have to go back
  • 00:42:03
    and redo it. Teaching another person, now some of you may not have anybody at home to teach or they're not interested. Too bad. Teach an
  • 00:42:12
    empty chair. There's nothing wrong with talking out loud. Thinking is internal talking to a large to a large degree. Its also not talking thinking.
  • 00:42:22
    Talking out loud as you know you doing it is not abnormal. If you think its somebody else or its a real person in an empty chair, talk with me I'll try
  • 00:42:32
    to get you lined up with someone who can help. If you have roommates or friends say I'm just doing this little secredic thing where I'm gonna
  • 00:42:40
    explain it to an empty chair. Dialogue with that empty chair, practice it. Now, for some of you, writing it out in your own words is a good thing.
  • 00:42:50
    I'm lazy, I never like to do a lot of writing but I learned very quickly to look at it, look away, and do a little dialogue with myself cause it told me
  • 00:42:58
    if I really understood it or not. Very quickly. I would also do it with my kids, teach them as best I could. My spouse, anybody who would listen.
  • 00:43:07
    It's a nice way of learning, active recitation. By the way, one piece of research said 80% of your study time is best spent reciting and only
  • 00:43:16
    20% reading. This leads to...how we doing? Oooooh...I want to talk about textbooks. I brought the one I'm using in intro right now. Most
  • 00:43:28
    students have not been taught how to use a textbook and yet its such a powerful tool. Because they haven't been taught the power of the tool, a
  • 00:43:35
    large percentage don't even buy the book. In part because they're getting so darn expensive. Over 100 bucks for this little puppy here I
  • 00:43:42
    believe. These books are designed for what's called pedagogy. That's a fancy way of saying helping you learn and they are seriously done to be
  • 00:43:53
    at least according to the people doing it, the most effective way of teaching. But students don't know the effective way of using it. How
  • 00:44:01
    many of you know SQ3R? None? 1, 2. I assumed all my students were still learning this until a few years ago I asked, it died out. There's also a
  • 00:44:13
    SQ4R, there's a newer version of it which I'm not so familiar with. SQ3R: survey, that's the s. Question, that's the q. Then you have three
  • 00:44:27
    r's, read, recite, review. And we were taught this because they knew pedagogically way back in those dark ages of the 60s that you retain
  • 00:44:39
    much more from a text if you survey, question, read, recite and review. So, how do you do the survey? These are not novels. In a novel you
  • 00:44:54
    wouldn't want to read the last page would you? Find out who'd done it, it'd ruin the whole thing. But this is a textbook, so what you do is you
  • 00:45:03
    actually go through the entire chapter, you look at pictures. What's this about apples? What's this about a duckbill platypus? Okay. And what
  • 00:45:15
    you're doing is you survey, you ask questions. What are formal concepts? What's a super-ordinate concept? What are natural
  • 00:45:23
    conce...prototypes? What is a prototype? So you raise questions as you go through. It only takes a couple of minutes to survey a chapter in any
  • 00:45:34
    class. As you're surveying, you simultaneously raise questions. What you're doing then is causing you to be looking for answers and this is a
  • 00:45:45
    powerful thing. How many of you have noticed when you're looking through a newspaper for a piece of information, you can find it kinda
  • 00:45:53
    jumps out at you, but if you're just kinda reading it half-hazardly, kinda casually, most of what you read you don't even remember. There's
  • 00:46:00
    something about it, and I can't explain it, I can only describe it, if you intend to find something, you find it. And I've got a little demonstration
  • 00:46:10
    I could've brought or actually show a placard with the words Boston and London printed on it, and I hold it up for 20 seconds. Out of a group this
  • 00:46:18
    size, maybe 2 or 3 of you'd see Boston and London because before I do it I tell you to look for letters, symbols and numbers. I create what's
  • 00:46:27
    called a set. You're now expecting not to see words but letters. And even though Boston and London are printed on diagonal, most people
  • 00:46:36
    don't see it. Likewise, if you just kind of go through a book without asking questions first, you kinda skiz over the content, you don't have
  • 00:46:44
    a search mechanism going. The reading followed by the recitation, I've talked about that, technically before a test it should be review. It should
  • 00:46:56
    be in the barn, now you're just touching up to make sure you haven't lost anything or confused anything. But I know how this works, because
  • 00:47:04
    we schedule tests most students don't start studying until shortly before an exam and much like my friend, it put so much time all massed
  • 00:47:15
    together and only study for about a half hour, pull all-nighters so they don't get the good rest, come in and do poorly. You're undoing yourself.
  • 00:47:25
    If you start studying early, and do some of the things I've talked about, by the time you get to the test, you're just reviewing at that point, not
  • 00:47:33
    truly studying. Use the book correctly. SQ3R. Okay, I got one last thing and I'm gonna...I'm gonna get it. You gotta memorize facts, how do you
  • 00:47:46
    do that? And I love it because I get a lot of students from anatomy coming to me going I can't remember. What you use mnemonics. In
  • 00:48:03
    my view, they're quicker, easier then wrote memorization and I do use them. Mnemonics come in several flavors. We have acronyms. We have
  • 00:48:20
    the coined sayings. And interacting images. There are other types of mnemonics, technically taking notes is a mnemonic because a
  • 00:48:40
    mnemonic is any system that facilitates recall. Most of what I've been talking about are technically mnemonics. But these are more formal.
  • 00:48:51
    How many of you have learned that you can take letters and form a word of it, using those letters to remember certain facts? One's that
  • 00:49:02
    come to my mind roygbv. How many of you know about roygbv? You know, those are the colors of the rainbow. Now if you're in an art class
  • 00:49:16
    that can be important. If you're taking physics and you're learning about the spectrum of light when it goes through a prism, where you're
  • 00:49:24
    breaking down light and anything that refracts it out like a rainbow. You know. Colors are what? Pretty easy. Now, how long would you have to
  • 00:49:39
    work with flashcards to remember that. Now, in my intro to psych class, lets see if anybody remember affrent effrent? You can tell me. We both
  • 00:49:51
    talk about this. Afront neurons in periphery, what do they do? From sensory receptors toward the CNS. Efront, CNS to the effectors,
  • 00:50:03
    muscles basically. The trouble is when you're teaching this, and this good for you to know as students, anytime two things are highly
  • 00:50:17
    similar but not the same, you get maximal interference. That's how we talk about problems with remembering. So, you memorize it without
  • 00:50:28
    really knowing it and you're sitting there on a quiz going oh yeah its affrent. No, its effrent. No, its affrent. How many of you have done those
  • 00:50:37
    flip-flops and your brain gets...and then you tell the teacher you're tricky. Its not tricky if you know which is which its very easy. But if you're
  • 00:50:47
    confused its terribly tricky, and I just once again think oh you didn't really know it. So what I tell my students really they're both the same. Sensory
  • 00:51:02
    are affrent, motor are effrent. Now with that little acronym, SAME, you can study very little. They're both the same. Now this where I had a
  • 00:51:15
    student in my class say okay same big deal but I'm in anatomy and physiology. I said what's giving you a hard time? He says we're studying
  • 00:51:25
    the heart. I said well I took a really light anatomy course, what are you studying? The left and right atrium. What is deoxidated blood and the
  • 00:51:37
    other one's oxidated because one's on the weight of the lungs, the other one's coming back from the lungs and she said I can't keep it straight.
  • 00:51:45
    Now that's a factoid. She understood the function of them. The concept was there but every quiz she'd flip flop. The right is the oxidated, no the
  • 00:51:55
    left is the oxidated, buh buh buh...So I said okay, tell me which is which cause I don't know. She looked it up in her book and I've never forgot.
  • 00:52:04
    She said the right atrium is the oxinated. Am I correct? Better be. I said can you remember radio? This gal was shocked. She's like that's not
  • 00:52:16
    how you spell radio. I said you're correct, its an acronym. Right atrium deoxinated. (gasps) Her little eyes lighted up. With one little thing, she
  • 00:52:28
    could keep it straight. And if the right atrium is deoxinated, the left atrium is or LATO if you like LATO. I don't know its dumb. Now, this is where I
  • 00:52:40
    put a challenge to you. Sometimes acronyms can come up, they're very easy. Now I'm gonna go with one and you can help me on this. 12
  • 00:52:47
    cranial nerves, give me the saying? No not the...no not that one. There's 2 of em. Some hops...Now what she just gave you were the 12 cranial
  • 00:53:05
    nerves, the first letters, in descending, right? From the top to the bottom. And I've never learned all of them cause I didn't take that serious but if
  • 00:53:14
    you know ON OLD, obviously O O you're gonna have, what are they? Factory optic, and you go right down. Old Olympus Tower Top dah duh
  • 00:53:28
    duh duh duh. Now there's another one, O O to touch and feel. I don't go there. Only women instructors get away with that one. No no no no I
  • 00:53:36
    won't go there. If you can come up with an acronym, oh pardon me, a coined phrase...How about this? In 1492...there you go. How do you
  • 00:53:48
    unscrew something? You turn it counterclockwise. You turn it clockwise. So I tried to teach my son this, he says no dad it's righty tighty, lefty
  • 00:53:59
    loosey. That's another saying, its perfectly good. Its just one that I didn't know. How many days in the calendar? 30 days hath September, April,
  • 00:54:09
    June and November. We used to learn that, they don't do it anymore. You kids have learned knuckle counting. January, February, March, April
  • 00:54:16
    May. It'll tell you long short but it will not tell you the number of days in February nor the rule where leap year makes it 29. Little sayings can
  • 00:54:25
    allow you to remember things very well. My very good mother just served us nine pizzas. She knows it. What are they? Planets, from the
  • 00:54:38
    sun outward. Unfortunately, the pizza's no more. It got degraded, right, its no longer a planet. Those are the sayings. Sometimes a saying
  • 00:54:48
    allows you to remember things. For my money though, the third one, interacting images is the best of all. And I'm gonna draw from nutrition.
  • 00:54:58
    How many of you've taken human nutrition? A-ha. You can tell me then, how many calories per gram in protein? Dang. Do you remember? Oh
  • 00:55:16
    no. Its 4. By the way, some books say 4.5. Calories per gram in carbos, 4. Calories per gram in fat. That's why when you consume fats, you get
  • 00:55:40
    twice the package there. Its why eskimos eat a lot of what? Fat. They need energy. Its why if we eat a lot of fat, we get the gut going. I had a
  • 00:55:52
    woman come in, sweet lady, 40 years old, crying I'm too old to learn. What? I said I'm older then you I can still learn, come on what is this?
  • 00:56:03
    She was taking human nutrition. She understood the concept of protein, the concept of carbs, the concept of fat, and says I can't remember the
  • 00:56:10
    details. That's typical as we get older. I said okay, you're stuck on a fact, not the concept, what are the facts? So she told me. I said okay, lets
  • 00:56:21
    start with something easy, carbohydrates, you gotta remember 4 and only 4 to car-bo-hy-drates. Car-bo-hy-drates, starting to see? Interacting
  • 00:56:35
    image, how syllables in the word. Just say it, carbohydrate. 4. Now, I said there's an easier one. When I hear the word carbohydrate, that first
  • 00:56:46
    part, C A R is what? What's C A R? Car, how many wheels on a car? 4. Cars have 4 wheels, carbohydrate would have 4. Now, how many of you
  • 00:57:00
    know about racing? You got the pro car circuit, would a pro car have 4? Just like a car. Protein, pro car, 4. Now she's starting to see what I'm
  • 00:57:13
    getting at. Fat, fat. How do we remember 9 in fat? And she goes, that's my problem I can't remember. Well let me ask you cats, vet tech right?
  • 00:57:30
    How many lives do they have? 9 lives. Now there's also an expression for rich people. What do we call a rich person regarding cats? Would a
  • 00:57:40
    fat cat definitely have 9 lives? So I picture fat cats with 9 lives. This woman was almost gleed, gleefully happy. 9 calories per gram in a
  • 00:57:52
    fat cat. Now, I've used this in classes and I try to get people to realize interacting images work even better if they're a little weird. The weirder
  • 00:58:02
    the better actually. But if you share 'em with friends they may go Oh my god you're sick. So you may not want to share 'em all. I have a bunch
  • 00:58:09
    and I will not share them in this class. They keep things straight in my mind but they would sound weird. But one gal came down, and it was so
  • 00:58:17
    cute, she says Marty I have a way to remember 9. She goes I was stationed in Germany, I'd picture a very obese Fraulein looking at a
  • 00:58:27
    bowl of strudel going nine nine. I loved it cause its a homophone, but do you think she'll ever forget nine and fat? She'll just picture the two
  • 00:58:41
    together. Now, the more you can create those interacting images, easier it is to remember facts. By the way, alcohol, anybody know? 7 calories
  • 00:58:49
    per gram. How many letters are in the word alcohol? 7? And if you're a bartender, what's the classic call drink? Segrum 7 with 7 Up. They call
  • 00:59:02
    'em Seven 7s. Sevens everywhere. So, the more you know about Segrum Seven with 7, its like 7 calories per gram. By the way, thats
  • 00:59:10
    also why if you drink a lot you get heavy quick. Its not very utilizable but it is energy in your body which we convert to fat fairly quickly. Okay, by
  • 00:59:20
    the way, egg nog, fat and alcohol, yeah you can pork out almost instantly. I've gone beyond my time. I know that she has to be out of
  • 00:59:28
    here. I think there might be another class. I thank you so much. There's a handout up there. There's also, god, I'm not gonna do this. I've been
  • 00:59:42
    here long enough, I don't have to. If you have questions, come see me. You were a great group. Thank you.
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