Austin Scholar #42: How A Jeopardy Game Helped Me Improve My Studying Strategy
& Three Learning Science Techniques That Will Help Your Teen Learn Faster
Hey, y'all!
In today's newsletter, I'm going to tell you about how a Jeopardy game helped me improve my study habits, what the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz can teach us about the learning process, and my favorite three science-backed techniques to improve how quickly and effectively teens learn.
I promise these are all connected somehow.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: How A Jeopardy Game Helped Me Improve My Studying Strategy
Three Learning Science Techniques That Will Help Your Teen Learn Faster
Scholar’s Sources: My Favorite Resources On Learning Science
I’ve gotten some feedback from y’all that my newsletters can be a touch too long. Oops :) So, I’ve thought about creating a TL;DR version of each newsletter edition for paid subscribers. I’d love to hear your thoughts–a DM on Twitter or reply to this newsletter would be fantastic.
This has been quite the chaotic week, I’m not going to lie. I got my hair cut, drove in 5 o’clock traffic for the first time, and received my PSAT score. The Liftoff Beta Program also started this past Tuesday, which is insanely exciting as well.
Also, a bit of a funny story: the electricity in my entire apartment building went out after a thunderstorm last weekend, so everyone (including my family) was kicked out and sent to a hotel. Yep. A chaotic week.
Austin’s Anecdote: How A Jeopardy Game Helped Me Improve My Studying Strategy
At the beginning of this school year, Alpha (the high school I go to) had all of the students participate in a Jeopardy board competition on learning sciences.
(If y'all have ever wondered where I've gotten my nerdiness from...)
Anyway, one of the learning science techniques we were being quizzed on was called interleaving.
Interleaving is a process where students mix multiple subjects, topics, or problem types while they are studying to improve their learning. Basically, this means that when you’re interleaving at the most extreme level, you answer one math word problem, then recall a historical fact, then describe the steps to a scientific experiment, then answer a reading comprehension question, then back to math.
According to my Jeopardy notes, this allows for strengthening problem-solving skills and memory associations.
Let me be clear, though: I did not think too highly of this learning science when I was answering Interleaving for $500. I thought it was completely stupid to go back and forth between subjects and questions like that. I thought it would make my brain hurt and my thoughts jumbled.
So, I put interleaving behind me.
Two months later, I was scrolling through study motivation TikTok videos after spending the day struggling with Free Body Diagrams in Physics.
I saw this quote that compared working out to learning: "Guys... Your muscles will hurt when you work out, but you won't stop because you know that you're just getting stronger. Why would you stop learning just because your brain hurts? You're just getting smarter."
That was certainly thought-provoking.
I didn't know what to do with the quote, but it definitely stuck with me.
Then, over Thanksgiving break, I had to watch 6 AP Daily videos per AP class I was taking in order to start my AP preparation.
Originally, I tried to split the videos up by watching six videos on one subject per day over the course of three days.
As it got closer to the break, I remembered how I had done similar things in the past (watched one subject of AP Daily videos each day) and how I had gotten so incredibly bored watching those videos.
I was dreading each hour I would have to spend on AP Daily.
But then, I remembered interleaving.
I decided to try changing my schedule up.
Instead of watching six videos in one subject, I would watch two videos in each of my three AP courses for three days.
And, as I was doing it, I realized that I didn't get as bored.
My eyes didn't glaze over and my ears didn't tune out the videos.
My brain was working at its maximum capacity–going from Statistics to Literature to Physics in short periods of time.
Neurons were firing and making new connections as I switched from subject to subject.
Yeah, it was tiring. It did make my brain hurt.
But I was completely engaged and ended up learning a lot more than I would have if I didn't interleave.
Three Learning Science Techniques That Will Help Your Teen Learn Faster
A lot of people feel like they're learning when they're practicing things they're relatively good at.
When they're flying through practice problems or reciting the textbook answer verbatim, they feel like they're being productive.
But if they start to have trouble understanding the question or keep getting the answer incorrect, they feel stuck - or maybe just stupid.
Of course, this makes sense.
The Pleasure Principle explains that humans will naturally avoid doing things that give them pain - at all costs. Struggling with a math problem can be painful, so we want to avoid it.
But the best learning actually happens when we're challenging our brains. Flying through worksheets is just practice, not true learning.
Learning is supposed to be magical. It's supposed to be a journey of following the Yellow Brick Road–making connections and creating experiences along the way–until you reach the Emerald City.
But even though the movie didn't mention it, you can bet that Dorothy's legs hurt after all that walking through the Land of Oz. And we all know she ran into some challenging adversaries on her way (trees that pelted her with apples and evil flying monkeys, just to name a few).
In the same way, learning happens when we're being challenged.
The good news is that we can challenge ourselves deliberately, in a way that's optimized to help us build these muscles.
Here are three learning science strategies you can teach your teen to truly maximize their learning potential: