Austin Scholar #144: Why your kid loves Heimler’s History videos (& how to recreate them)

& lessons learned in my first quarter at Stanford

Hey, y'all!

This week from Austin Scholar...

1. Austin’s Anecdote: Lessons learned in my first quarter at Stanford

2. Why your kid loves Heimler’s History videos (& how to recreate them)

3. Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…

And now, ladies and gentlemen, my first quarter at Stanford is complete!! I head back home on Wednesday after my Calculus final on Tuesday, but classes are officially over.

Although I’m super excited to take some down time and spend time with my family and friends, I am pretty sad to be leaving campus for three whole weeks. My roommate and I are already planning FaceTimes to meet each other’s friends and keep each other updated. I feel like I’ve had, overall, a successful first quarter in college, so I thought I’d hold space in this newsletter to write about the lessons I’ve learned in my first quarter at Stanford. I've also been digging deep into the learning science work of David Ausubel, which is the topic of this week's article, so just keep in mind that the anecdote and article aren’t connected this week :)

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Austin’s Anecdote: Lessons learned in my first quarter at Stanford

1. Smile

The most important thing that I do every single day is smile. I smile at my roommate, my friends, the people I see in the dining hall. I smile at myself, even when I’m not feeling happy.

I’ve learned that if you’re happy, optimistic, and enjoyable to be around, you will attract all of the best people. Despite my social anxiety and general introverted-ness, my charisma levels skyrocket when I introduce myself and converse with a smile on my face.

And if you smile to yourself, you can remind yourself of all of the good things in your life. When I’m homesick, when I feel alone, when I feel like I’m aimless, when I’m worried I’m going to fail – smiling to myself puts into perspective how lucky I am, and how grateful I should be. It’s completely okay to feel angry, sad, lost, or anxious, but sitting in those feelings doesn't do anything for you. Cry, scream into a pillow, let it all out, but then put on a smile and start problem solving (even if all you solve for is how to have radical acceptance of the situation).

2. Do schoolwork during the day

The best thing I took from Alpha was the 2 Hour Learning mindset. I’ve been able to complete all of my academic school work in the morning for eight years and I don’t want to stop now.

Although I now take the full day to finish schoolwork because I have to go to this weird thing called class, I have full belief in my ability to master content without pulling all-nighters.

I know how to lock in during the day to maximize my learning and productivity and ensure that I don’t have to stay up late writing a paper or finishing a p-set.

I choose to work alone during the day and have “social time” at night – whereas a lot of my friends aren’t used to that. They operate under a “school and social time is from 9-4, then I do homework and extra stuff at night” mindset that high school trained them on. This, unfortunately, leads to becoming extremely sleep deprived and more frustrated with the workload.

Learn to get your work done during the day and you’ll be so much happier.

3. Do small things lighten your cognitive load

I never understood the whole “Steve Jobs wore the same thing every day so he had one less decision to make.”

But I’m sorry to say that, unfortunately, I’m beginning to realize he may have had a point.

Now, I don’t wear the same thing every day, but I never pick out my outfit in the morning. I do small tasks like packing my bag, laying out my outfit, and doing my hair before I go to bed at night, when I don’t need to have complex thoughts. I don’t want to have a million smaller to-dos taking up brain space in the morning before I head to my math lecture – that entire cognitive load should be reserved for learning.

I’m so much more productive and clear-minded when I don’t have small, menial tasks to worry about and can have my full brain power focused on learning.

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Why your kid loves Heimler’s History videos (& how to recreate them)

This week, I read scientist David Ausubel's 1968 article on meaningful Learning. It talked about the patterns and logic of how we learn. If you know me, you know I love patterns and logic, so of course I became immediately obsessed.

In the essay, Ausubel explains that your existing knowledge can be thought of as schemas in your long-term memory. A "schema" is a package of logic or knowledge that helps you understand how part of the world works. Each schema has "branches" or "hooks" that related knowledge can hang on.

The value of understanding schemas is that you can then use "organizers" – clear and strategic ways of presenting new information – to help students organize incoming ideas. Organizers deliberately help students find or create the correct "hooks" in an existing schema that knowledge can hang on.

The idea is that when you’re learning new material, it’s easier to learn if you just hang it on an existing schema instead of creating an entirely new one. It also highlights the interconnected aspect of education and that learning is a continuous process, not a discrete one.

I like to visualize the schema as a tree diagram, like this:

Then, the different organizers can help you figure out how to add new information onto the diagram (basically where new information connects).

There are four types of organizers:

1. Expository: “provides descriptions of new knowledge that learners will need to understand what follows and is often used when the new learning material is relatively unknown to the learner by relating the new information to what is already known” (read a summary before starting)

2. Narrative: “presents new information in a story format to the learners to activate background knowledge so that learners can make connections to what they know, often creating a personal connection to inspire learning” (tell yourself a story)

3. Skimming: “gives a helicopter overview of the new learning material, focusing on and noting what stands out in the new material such as headings, subheadings, and highlighted information” (use Sparknotes)

4. Graphic: “includes different types of visuals such as concept maps, pictographs, Venn diagrams, and so forth” (look at pictures and graphics)

A perfect example of these organizers can be found in every AP history kids’ holy grail: Heimler’s History videos.