Passion Struck with John R. Miles - The Science of Learning: What is it and How does it Work? EP 122 with John R. Miles

Starting point is 00:00:00 We all learn differently and understanding the science of learning helps us all uniquely learn better. And the more we know, the easier it is to learn and understand new things. Regardless of your profession, we all have in common that we are always learning throughout our lives. Welcome to Passionstruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people, and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts

Starting point is 00:00:49 to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to Momentum Friday, an episode 122 of PassionStruck, and thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And in case you missed it, earlier in the week, we had on New York Times Best Selling Author, Susan Kane, to coincide with the release of her new book on April 5th, Better Sweet. Susan discusses the background around why she wrote a book about sorrow and longing, and why they actually relate to us finding joy, happiness, and creativity in our lives.

Starting point is 00:01:40 We go through numerous personal examples and stories from the book, along with gems of advice that she provides throughout the interview. I highly recommend if you haven't listened to it, that you go back and check it out. And last week, my solo episode was on the topic of how do you create your own success. Please check them both out. And if you're new to the show or you would like to just introduce this to a friend or family member We now have episodes starter packs both on Spotify and on our website. These are collections of your favorite episodes Organized by topic which gives any new listener an easy way to get acquainted to everything that we do here on the show Just go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs

Starting point is 00:02:25 to get started. And if you'd like to watch these in addition to listening to them, you can go to our YouTube channel and subscribe at John Armiles, where we have over 260 different videos that you can consume. Now let's talk a little bit about today's episode. Have you ever wondered how, as human beings, do we learn? What exactly is going on in the

Starting point is 00:02:46 brain to obtain information, process it, and then rightly interpret it? You're not alone if you've considered this question before, but haven't found or don't understand the answer. And that is the basis for today's episode, in order to learn anything. Whether that's math, a foreign language, or learning how to dribble a soccer ball. You need to create and strengthen pathways in your brain. I want you to think back to the first time you tried to either kick or throw a ball. Your first time doing it, you don't have a pathway for that movement built into your brain. However, do you remember that feeling of when you have it down and don't even have to think about it?

Starting point is 00:03:29 That is an example of muscle memory and a form of learning. Today, I will be taking you through the scientific process and neuroscience through which our brains learn to help you understand the best way to assimilate knowledge and effectively apply it. By the end of this podcast, I want you to understand how evolution has helped make us as humans the ultimate learning machine. We can optimize our ability to pursue a passion-struck life effectively by understanding the science behind learning and building our lives around learning Intentionally. Now let's start off today by examining learning through the experience of Dr. Siddharth Warrior. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an

Starting point is 00:04:22 intentional life. Now let that journey begin. When Dr. Sidharth Warrior was 13 years old, he started to learn how to play guitar. However, he immediately began to face the challenges that hundreds of thousands of people learning to play guitar had faced before him. His fingers were too small to play the strings, too weak to press them down properly and his hands were untrained to move from note to note. So his first month of playing the guitar was filled with unclear, painful notes that sounded terrible. Then the second month came and nothing much seemed to have changed. However, by the third month, something had changed. His fingers had started to harden due to constant and repeated playing of the guitar. He started to form calluses, which made

Starting point is 00:05:17 them not hurt like they did before. He was able to press down on the strings a lot better, and the chords were actually starting to sound like chords. Finally, he could play his first chord after three months of practice. This is the A chord, which is arguably the easiest one to play. After six months, he could play his first R chord, which is relatively complex. Learning to play the guitar actually rewired Sidharst's brain over time and enabled faster access to the left cortex of his brain. As a result, his guitar playing wasn't the only thing that got better. Other cognitive processes also improved, including problem-solving.

Starting point is 00:06:02 Time went by and he grew older, and when it was time to choose a career path, he decided he wanted to become a doctor. He passed the entrance exams, got into medical college, and did quite well through his academic years, studying neurology before his medical residency. When he entered residency,

Starting point is 00:06:22 he faced a challenge that hundreds of thousands of resident medical doctors had faced before him. How do you build learning into your routine? His practical medical knowledge and clinical skills were still developing. His clinical instincts needed sharpening to understand all the standard neurological procedures. His time management was not good enough to be honed to allow him to keep track of and follow up on his patients. It was like he was learning the guitar all over again, but now lives were at stake this time. Siddharth required his receptors experience to become a better clinician. At the same time he needed to consistently study to update his knowledge so he actively participated in various activities to

Starting point is 00:07:14 broaden and improve his neurological expertise and practiced medical procedures to hone his clinical skills. Soon enough his efficiency started getting better. William Osler, a famous Canadian physician who developed the system of clinical medical education, articulates this learning cycle of medical residency when he says, to study the phenomena of disease without a book is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patience

Starting point is 00:07:48 is not to go to see it all. After three to four months of study, Sid Harth recognized the patterns that emerged between different neurological disorders and learned the time management skills necessary to track, care for, and follow up with his patients. He even learned how to get a good night's sleep on most days. Subconsciously, something was happening.

Starting point is 00:08:12 He discovered that just like when he was learning how to play the guitar, becoming a doctor required him to have a beginner's mindset. And the more he practiced, the more confidence that he gained. He also realized that the learning he would require to be the best in his field was a lifelong habit that he would have to build. Like the beginning stages of learning how to play guitar, residency is a strenuous time in a doctor's mental career, but when you look back, it only encompasses a very short duration. The best guitarist and doctors

Starting point is 00:08:47 make learning a lifetime pursuit. Most importantly, Sid Hearth was learning how to continuously learn and form positive habits, which equipped him to effectively tackle whatever challenges the future could bring him. We'll be right back to the Passion Struck podcast. I would like to emphasize that this podcast is part of my hope and desire to bring zero cost information to the general public regarding how do you create an intentional life. And in keeping with that theme, I would like to thank today's sponsors of this episode. Today's podcast is brought to you by Raycon. I've been wearing my

Starting point is 00:09:25 Raycons continuously for over the past month and I absolutely love it when I have them in because my podcasts and music have never sounded so good. I have used other earbuds and the thing I didn't like about them is that they would always fall out of my ears and with Raycons I never have to worry about that happening and I really also like their awareness mode. For when you need to listen to your surroundings, you can take Raycons anywhere. And they are priced just right at about half of the other premium brands. It is no surprise that they have over 48,000 five star reviews. And right now, passion struck listeners can get 15% off their Raycon order at buyraycon.com slash passion struck.

Starting point is 00:10:12 That's bui, r-a-y-c-o-n. .com slash passion struck to save 15% off Raycons. Buyraycon.com slash passion struct. Producing the passion struct podcast requires a ton of content creation, ranging from writing my solo episodes to creating interview show notes, the networking that I do with guests

Starting point is 00:10:38 and our daily social media posts. And so I'm constantly looking for ways to up my game and efficiency. That is why I absolutely love Grammarly and use it continuously throughout the day every day. It is a true life saver for me because not only does Grammarly help me with my spelling and grammatical checking, but it is also a writing tool that helps me ensure my content is professionally written. They even have unique capabilities for tone adjustments, clarity suggestions, and full sentence rewrites.

Starting point is 00:11:13 Get through your own emails and your work quicker by keeping it concise, confident, and effective with Grammarly. And they are offering passion struck listeners a special discount. Go to Grammarly.com slash passion struck to sign up for a free account. And when you're ready to upgrade to Grammarly Premium, you can get 20% off for being my listener. That's 20% off at at g-r-a-m-m-a-l-y.com slash passion struck. Please consider those who support our shows and make it free and available to everyone. And I know all those lengths can be difficult to remember,

Starting point is 00:11:54 so we've put them in one convenience spot at passionstruck.com slash deals. Now, back to passion struck. So now that we've discussed that story of Sidharth, let's go into what does learning entail? Learning is described as a change in brain structure in response to experience. It is basically the intake and storage of new information and the formation of new connections with existing knowledge. In the case of new connections with existing knowledge. In the case of psychology, the predominant definition, psychologist provide for learning,

Starting point is 00:12:32 is a somewhat permanent modification in behavior as a result of experience. The psychology of learning focuses on how individuals learn and interact with their surroundings. Learning is actually something that we spend a lot of time on. Almost all our childhood and a significant portion of our adult lives goes into the act of learning something, whether it's a new language, picking up the game of soccer or basketball or football

Starting point is 00:13:03 or cricket, it could be a new skill, a new concept. Whatever it is, learning is key to achieving and pursuing a rewarding life, a topic that I covered in episode 112 if you want to check that one out. So now that we've discussed what learning is, let's discuss the aspects of learning. From a neuroscience perspective, there are actually three aspects of learning. The first is known as intake. This is the brain's taking in of new information through a sensory apparatus,

Starting point is 00:13:37 such as the skin, tongue, nose, ear, or eye, to generate the sense of touch, taste, smell, sound, or sight, respectively. For example, when you're listening to a talk such as this podcast, the information reaches you through your ears. It hits you in your tempanic membrane and the cochlea inside your ears converts it into electrical signals. These electrical signals are then taken up into your brain into a place called the auditory cortex, which is inside your temporal lobe. This is where these electric signals are decoded

Starting point is 00:14:15 into the information that you perceive as sounds, words, and meanings. Similarly, when watching a live show or video, the gestures and expressions of the performer or speaker reach your eyes and images hit your retina, which is then converted to electrical signals that are sent to your visual cortex inside your occipital lobe. Again, this is where your brain understands these signals like images, shapes, and meaningful visualizations.

Starting point is 00:14:45 The first step of learning, though relatively effortless, is very crucial. The more information you intake, the more you get to learn. The next aspect of learning is informational synthesis. At this stage, the brain combines all the received information to make complete sense of it. Like the auditory and occipital, every primary sensory cortex has a secondary association cortex that arranges all the pieces of information back together and forms a big picture. Here the brain constructs a three-dimensional view of the world around us and what we actually perceive as reality.

Starting point is 00:15:25 It then derives meaning based on this perception and context of all the information keys together, but it's not enough just to let information in and process it. The information must also be stored. This brings us to the third aspect of learning known as memory. Memory is the glue that holds reality together and links each moment to the next. Memory creates the existence of the uninterrupted feeling of time passing. There are two main types of memory, which I will now briefly discuss. The first is what we can think of as immediate or short term memory. Also known as the working memory, this immediate memory is stored in the prefrontal cortex,

Starting point is 00:16:12 which is in your frontal lobe. A great example of this is being in class and seeing the teacher right on a chalkboard. Short term memory is when you go through the process of remembering what you just saw and read on the board. And then processing it and writing it down in your notebook. The second type of memory is long-term memory. The hippocampus located deep within the temporal cortex comes into play here.

Starting point is 00:16:38 It uses practice and repetition to turn short-term memories into long-term memories and makes complete learning possible. Most of the information we get is subconsciously processed and lost in our daily routines. This information typically only stays in our working memory for a few seconds before it fades away. As a result, we must be deliberate in paying attention to any information that we want to store in our long-term memory. So with all that as a backdrop, you may now be wondering how does the brain learn new information? When a piece of new information enters the hippocampus, one thing that happens is the formation of a new synapse. A synapse is the connection between two neurons, but a new synapse is fragile and can easily break, or rather the memory can get lost

Starting point is 00:17:32 unless it is strengthened. Repeated firing of the synapse leads to long-term potentiation, which is one of the fundamental building blocks of learning. With this repeated firing, the synapse gets stronger, needing progressively less effort to fire until you're performing the action without much thought at all. This is why the example I gave at the beginning of learning to kick a soccer ball goes through the stages of practice leading to habit formation and eventual intuition. I recently discussed the science that goes into habit formation in episode 108 if you'd like to learn more about it. So now that we've learned how the brain processes

Starting point is 00:18:14 new information, let's talk about what concepts are associated with learning. Over the last few decades, a broad range of brain regions and cognitive processes have been discovered and associated with learning, including memory, logic, decision making, and reward processing. For learning to be complete, certain concepts have to be in place.

Starting point is 00:18:37 These concepts include motivation, attention, and memory. Motivation drives you to seek knowledge and information in the first place without the desire to learn, it simply will not happen. Attention enables you to concentrate on receiving information and understanding it enough to be stored. And memory, as earlier mentioned, makes learning possible by storing, representing, and reactivating information when it's needed. If there's no memory to store what we've learned,

Starting point is 00:19:10 then we simply will not be able to use it. So how do you help others to learn better? When teaching or giving information that you want others to retain, keep in mind that the individuals that you're interacting with have unique brains that interpret information differently. Also realize that the brain has limited computational power

Starting point is 00:19:32 as well as attention span. It can't process a vast amount of information all at once. Instead, it takes up a fraction of data over the course of time. Recognizing this, you should aim to give practical and understandable information when you're trying to pass something new on. You need to provide that information in a brain-friendly way that focuses on the aspects of learning that I have discussed throughout today's episode. Also, understand that different people each have their own unique way of learning. When using learning examples, be aware of the context in which you are presenting them. Recognize that no piece of information exists in isolation.

Starting point is 00:20:15 Everything that you know is connected to something else that you know. The brain is constantly looking for patterns so that every new piece of information fits into a pre-existent pattern to be understood. The details of what you teach and how you prepare it make a huge difference and how people remember what they learn and how they can apply it. Now you may be wondering, can stress facilitate learning? Often we think about stress as a negative trait, but stress is also a sign that your brain is taking the lessons it is learning seriously. If a new piece of information doesn't elicit any stress, it might not register long enough to be converted into long-term memory.

Starting point is 00:21:01 However, it should be minimal enough as too much stress can trigger things like anxiety and panic, which is detrimental to learning. So I have covered a ton of information today, so let me give you some synthesis of how you can apply today's lessons to your life. The former First Lady of the United States, Abigail Adams once said, learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with order and attended to with diligence. Her statement emphasizes the need to consciously seek knowledge

Starting point is 00:21:35 and make intentional learning efforts. As with every worthwhile thing in life, learning is only improved by practice and consistency. We can see the evidence of this through the story of Dr. Sidharth Warrior, who, with enough focus and consistent practice, got better at playing the guitar and in his chosen field of neurology. We all learn differently and understanding the science of learning helps us all uniquely learn better. And the more we know, the easier it is to learn and understand new things.

Starting point is 00:22:09 Regardless of your profession, we all have in common that we are always learning throughout our lives. There are strategies that you can use to improve how you learn as well as what you retain and how you apply what you have learned. Finally, realize that the value of learning is found in its application. So make constant learning and intentional choice and effectively put your required knowledge to practical use. And doing so, you will be bettering yourself and those around you in the world at large by extension. And I wanted to thank you,

Starting point is 00:22:45 again, for joining today's podcast. And if you truly love today's episode, please consider giving the show a five star review. We now have over 4,500 of them on iTunes alone. And that goes so far in helping the popularity of the show grow and help people realize the value that it's providing them. And if there is a guest like Susan Cain that you would like to see me interview and we have some amazing ones coming up including Admiral James Stavridis, astronaut Nicole Stott, podcast host Kathy Heller and Jordan Harbanger, New York Times best selling author, Brechen Rubin, to name just a few. You can reach out to me on Instagram at JohnRMiles or the PassionStruck podcast,

Starting point is 00:23:30 or you can connect with me on LinkedIn at JohnMiles, or if there's a topic like today's that you would like to hear me discuss, or maybe you just have questions that you'd like to hear me answer, you can go and email us at MomentumFriday at passionstruck.com. Now go out there, take today's knowledge and live life passion struck.

Starting point is 00:23:52 Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make passion go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the PassionStruck podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcast ad. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five-star rating on iTunes, and you sharing it with three of your most group-minded friends so they can post it as well to their

Starting point is 00:24:24 social accounts and help us grow our passion-struck community. If you'd like to learn more about the show and our mission, you can go to passionstruck.com where you can sign up for our newsletter, look at our tools, and also download the show notes for today's episode. Additionally, you can listen to us every Tuesday and Friday, or even more of Inspiring Content. And remember, make a choice, work hard, and step into your sharp edges.

Starting point is 00:24:53 Thank you again for joining us. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - The Science of Learning: What is it and How does it Work? EP 122 with John R. Miles

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