Process > Arrange

Arrange—prepare for retention

Once you’ve explored your material, you then need to work out how you are going to memorize what you’ve learned. Long-term learning needs to change your brain. Consider this step as preparing your material to help you change your brain.

Arranging involves three basic steps. The first is to analyze your content to understand the type of knowledge it is. This then helps you with the second step—choosing the techniques to use to reinforce and memorize that knowledge. Thirdly, you then prepare the content to suit the techniques you’ve selected.

Choose how much time to spend on arranging. Simpler learning objectives may not need much arranging. For important or complex learning objectives, you may need to understand this Arrange step in more detail.

Learning changes the structure of your brain

Once we are adults, the neurons in our brain don’t move that much. When we learn though, the networks between the neurons change and expand. How does the brain achieve this? The networks change and expand through a process called “Synaptic Change.” Synapses are like muscles, in that repetition is needed to make the change that embeds learning. Continuing exercise is needed to maintain the learning. These similarities between muscles and synapses partly led me to use athletics in the “Memletics” name. The way the networks change depends on whether it’s a short duration memory or a long-term memory:

For short duration memories (from a few seconds to a few hours): These memories change the strength of the signals between neurons. The sending neuron changes the signal strength, the receiving neuron changes its sensitivity, or both.
For longer term memories (from a day to a lifetime): These memories change the number of connections between one neuron and another, or change which neurons a particular neuron connects to, or both.

What interests us is how short duration memories move to long term memories. The basic steps of this process are:

The brain places the memory into an area called “working memory” first. The memory only changes the signaling strength between neurons.
At various times, these memories move to longer-term memory structures throughout the brain. The hippocampus, a small region in the lower middle of the brain, plays a key role for many memories. It organizes and then distributes parts of those memories to the proper places in the brain. Neurons in these locations start to grow and change connections.
Repeated exposures to the experiences, and our recall of those, reinforce those memories we wish to memorize. More neuron connections grow and change.

Understanding knowledge types - the key for analyzing content

Here are my definitions of knowledge as used in Memletics. There are several differing definitions of knowledge, so knowing my views will help you better understand this step. I use two definitions or “knowledge types” in this book. These are:

Knowledge as stored. The brain stores and works with facts, principles, skills, procedures and other knowledge in different ways. This influences how you learn each of these knowledge types.
Knowledge as used. Knowledge is also the ability to express or use information through action. This ability may range from unconscious use, such as an automatic skill, through to finding and using some information in a book or reference manual.

Analyzing content involves breaking down your material into chunks you can classify according to these two definitions. Once you’ve done this, the task of choosing techniques becomes easier.

The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:

Analyze Content

An overview of what knowledge is (according to this book), and two knowledge types used to categories your content.
Use the five knowledge storage types – facts, concepts and principles, sensory-motor skills, procedures, and higher-order skills (eg problem solving, decision-making, judgment, critical thinking, reflection, communication etc)
Use the three knowledge usage types – automatic knowledge, working knowledge, and supporting knowledge.
Use these knowledge types to analyze your content. How to break down your training material into chunks of content. Includes a table to help you assess your own content.
How to alter your rankings to account for exams and tests.

Choose your retention approach

How to use the results from the first step to decide how to retain your content for the long term.
Use a table to help decide what to memories versus what to use an external reference for
How to choose techniques. Includes a comprehensive table that rates techniques according to the knowledge types. See the part of the table on the right.
How to vary your techniques for initial learning versus reinforcing, how to combine techniques, and how to use part task training and recombination approaches.

Prepare for Application

Basic examples on how to prepare content for use with the various techniques.

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