In the last video, I talked about how we're gaining an understanding of the
neuroscience behind how we learn. While neurobiology can be hard to grasp,
we are fortunate to be joined in this course by Professor Barbara Oakley,
the creator of Learning How to Learn, one of the world's most popular massive open
online courses of all time as well as the author of many acclaimed books on the subject.
Most importantly, she has an incredible knack for providing simple analogies to
help us understand and apply these concepts. We, in the healthcare professions,
have an ever increasing body of information to learn. This provides a crucial
foundation for us which we'll need to properly diagnose and treat patients. Although
we all need to be lifelong learners in this profession, very few of us have been
taught the best ways to learn. So, Barb is here with us to share what researchers
have discovered about the neurobiology of learning which can help all of us
become more effective learners. Barb. So I think it's important to start with the idea
of the brain and how complex it is, but we should simplify to begin with. The
brain's fundamental building blocks, at least as far as learning goes, are the neurons
and there is about 86 billion neurons in the brain. So, neurons are really quite
simple in their overall aspect. They have legs which are called dendrites and they
have little toes on those legs and those are called dendritic spines. And lastly,
they have an axon that reaches up and goes out and what it's actually doing is it's
reaching out with that hand with the fingers on the hand to touch the toe of an
adjoining neuron. And that's really what is happening physically in your brain
when you're learning. Those neurons are connecting together and they're residing
in long-term memory in the neocortex. So I am showing here 5 connected neurons
but in actuality it's more like hundreds or even thousands as you're learning things
like how to conjugate a verb or how to take a derivative in math or how to do a
dance step. Whatever you're learning you are simply creating links in long-term
memory. Now the more you practice with those sets of links, the stronger and
richer those neuro links become. So, you practice more and more, they strengthen,
they become like links in a nice long necklace of sorts and the more you practice
with those links, the more they link into other neurons and you have a really good
solid grip on whatever you're learning. And sometimes people will tell you things
like "Oh, you know you can always look things up so you don't need to remember
this fact or that fact." But be wary, because in actuality you do need to have things
in your long-term memory. You can't always just look it up. Would you know
French, for example, if you just always used Google Translate. So, creating solid
sets of links in long-term memory is a really important aspect of learning. Now, I
had mentioned that long-term memory is in the neocortex. So what is the
neocortex? If we look at our set of links, we can see they're going very small on to
the surface of the brain which is where the neocortex is and actually they become
so small you can't even see them. But if you spread that neocortex out, it becomes
something like a dinner table napkin of that size, it's about 2.5 mm thick and that's
where most of your memories are actually stored. So, as you're learning what you
are doing is you are linking; learn it, link it, and that's the heart of how you learn.
Barb, you know that is so important, the point you made about you can't just look it
up. Students often ask me "You know, why do I need to know all these stuff." And
I can tell you from my standpoint as a heart surgeon you're in the middle of an
operation, you can't just look it up, you've got to know it. Even if you're talking to a
patient beforehand, getting them ready for surgery, you really need to have that
confidence, that knowledge so that they feel reassured. You need to link it so that
you know it and take good care of your patients.