Imagine if you had a bucket of water. And every time you attempted to fill the bucket, 90% of the water would leak out instantly. Every time, all you would manage to retain was a meagre 10%. How many times would you keep filling the bucket?
The answer is simple: Just once! Because the first time you notice this leak, you will immediately take action!! So, you would either fix the bucket, or you would get another one. But pause and ask yourself, why don’t I apply that to learning?
Almost all of us waste 90% of our time, resources and learning time, because we don’t understand a simple concept called The Learning Pyramid. The weird thing is that you are wasting time. You are wasting resources. You are just doing everything you can to prevent learning. And here’s why.
Learners retain approximately:
90% of what they learn when they teach someone else, or use it immediately.
75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned.
50% of what they learn when engage in a group discussion.
30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration.
20% of what they learn from audio-visual.
10% of what they learn when they have learned from reading.
5% of what they learn when they have learned from lecture.
So why do you retain 90% when you teach someone else or when you implement it immediately?
When you implement or teach, you instantly make mistakes. Try it for yourself. So as soon as you run into difficulty and start to make mistakes, you have to learn how to correct the mistake. This forces your brain to concentrate.
But surely your brain is concentrating in the class or while reading
Sure it is, but it’s not making any mistakes. What your brain hears or sees is simply an abstract concept. And no matter how clearly the steps are outlined, there is no way you are going to retain the information. There are two reasons why.
Reason 1: Your brain gets stuck at the first obstacle
Yes it does. And the only way to understand this concept is to pick up a book, watch a video, or listen to audio. Any book, any video, any audio. And you will find you have missed out at least two or three concepts in just the first few minutes. It’s hard to believe at first, but as you keep reading the same chapter over and over, you will find you are finding more and more of what you have missed.
This is because the brain gets stuck at the first new concept/obstacle. It stops and tries to apply the concept but struggles to do so. But you continue to read the book, watch the video or listen to the speaker. The brain got stuck at the first point, but more points keep coming.
Reason 2: Your brain needs to make the mistake first hand
No matter how good the explanation, you will not get it right the first time. You must make the mistake. And this is because your interpretation varies from the writer/speaker. You think you have heard, or read what you have heard/read.
But you have only interpreted what they have said, and more often than not, the interpretation is not very correct. You can only find out by how much by trying to practice or teach the concept.
So how do you avoid losing 90% of what you’ve learned?
- Write it down in a mindmap.
- Talk to others about the concept.
- Write something, anything about it.
- The reason is that a simple concept is never just learned. It needs to be discussed, talked, written, felt etc.
The next time you pick up a book or watch a video, remember this:
- Listening or reading something is just listening or reading.
- It’s not real learning.
- Real learning comes from making mistakes.
- And mistakes come from implementation.
- And that’s how you retain 90% of everything you learn.
Which is why most of the people you meet are always going around in circles. They refuse to make mistakes. So they don’t learn. They would rather read a book instead. Or watch a video. Or listen to an audio.
Their bucket is leaking 90% of the time. But they don’t care. The question is: Do you?
Source: psychotactics.com
