The Best Learning Tool in History - 400 years ahead of its time!

you won't believe how effective essays are as a way of learning I I know you're jub I was but I wish I discovered them much sooner I've missed out and I don't want you to miss out so in this video I'm going to show you why essay writing is such a powerful learning technique I'll show you how it can improve your thinking and in case you're wondering whether it works for subjects like maths and physics it does and I'm going to share some really useful essay writing techniques and learning resources to get you started it's

a story where we go from mid-6th Century France to modern day Neuroscience a story about the science of learning the human brain George Orwell Virginia wolf we even mentioned Jordan Peterson and by the end you will have transformed your ability to learn and think do with that what you will it's easy to see essays as homework like an assignment set by a Cher and they can be that but if that's all they are to you then you're really missing out have you heard of the French writer and philosopher Michel de monana on the 28th of

February 1571 which was his 38th birthday he did something unexpected he was a nobleman he lived in a castle just outside Bordeaux and you could say he had a midlife crisis but instead of buying a sports car or ill advised fashion items or chasing women half his age Montana moved a desk and a thousand books into one of the towers in his castle and started to write the result of that decision was the creation of the modern essay form and with it one of the most original and influential thinkers of the Renaissance Montana innately recognized

the power of writing as a way of developing understanding and insight and he turned that in on himself and despite writing in the introduction to his book on essays I am myself the matter of my book you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject it became a bestseller of its day and had a profound impact on English and French literature Shakespeare was a fan of Montana here's an apology I think I've been mispronouncing his name it's Montaine not Montana sorry but what's all this got to do with using

essays as a way of learning well we're not ready for that bit yet it is coming incidentally the word essay comes from the French SI I've probably mispronounced that too meaning an attempt or a trial some of the greatest thinkers in recent human history wrote essays I don't have time to list them all but there's Carl San George Orwell Joan didan Virginia wolf that's just four out of hundreds the essayist and novelist Jan didan said I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking what I'm looking at what I see and what it means and

that's the point even renowned thinkers writers and essayists aren't writing simply to share their thoughts and ideas they write to form those ideas they write to find meaning explore thoughts and develop arguments but what's that got to do with you will writing essays make you a well-renowned thinker probably not but it will make you a better thinker and it'll improve your understanding of the world there's another benefit too you will see a huge Improvement in your ability to communicate your ideas written and verbal if you have that kind of mind you're probably thinking show me

some evidence that what you say is true okay I will let's start with Bloom Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist he spent his entire career researching learning in particular he studied the different levels of cognitive function required for certain types of learning and what it takes to become an expert he classified the cognitive steps needed to develop expertise on the topic these have become known as Bloom's taxonomy actually that's not completely true what I've just shown you is the revised blooms taxonomy it was changed in 2001 to make the steps verbs rather than nouns but

looking at it again what do you notice can you write an essay without going through these steps I don't think it's possible let's try and experiment which of these steps could you drop remember That's essential understand and That's essential too apply we'll come back to that one analyze to write a good essay you need to analyze the sources break down their arguments and work out exactly the ideas that they're attempting to convey which ideas are the most convincing and why are some of the ideas flawed that's evaluation and create where does that come in well

you're going to be writing an essay an original work based on these steps that's everything well apart from apply maybe but it doesn't really matter that apply isn't included because it's these top three steps the analyze evaluate and create which are the most important here's why did I say that essay writing would make you a better thinker I did let's look at how that works now we're going to talk about critical thinking critical thinking is the ability to identify evidence and evaluate it to probe to investigate to spot flaws in logic to reason and draw

conclusions instead of saying the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066 which is descriptive critical analytical writing would say Williams victory at the Battle of Hasting transformed England forever it was the start of Norman rule over the country which changed the culture language and economy wait a minute is that really critical analytical writing can you believe me when I tell you that how did it transform England how did it change the culture language and economy how was that significant when you're thinking critically about your own work or other people's work these are some of the

questions that you should be asking yourself I'm going to give you some advice on essay writing soon but before I do that I want to give you some other reasons as to why it's really effective to write an essay you usually need to read something first which gives you the opportunity to use the most effective learning strategy that researchers have found now if you watch this channel regularly you'll know what it is because I rarely stopped talking about it study after study has shown retrieval practice to be the most effective form of learning this metaanalysis

of 217 studies into retrieval practice confirms that it's more useful than rereading which is counterintuitive but although it feels reassuring rereading is not particularly effective because when you're doing it you're not engaging with the material like you are when you're trying to retrieve it and you can use retrieval practice in your notetaking process what you do is you read a page and then close the book and then with the book still closed you write everything that you can remember about that page write as much as you can and if you take notes that way you'll

remember much more quickly and thoroughly essay writing also encourages you to use another technique the research has shown is highly effective can you think of something that could improve your understanding as you're reading a book how about asking yourself how and why questions so you're learning about photosynthesis instead of just trying to remember what photosynthesis is you ask yourself why is this important how does it affect other life on Earth what would happen if photosynthesis wasn't possible what does photosynthesis rely on why should you do this because it deepens your understanding of the subject and

you can take it further by connecting what you're learning to what you already know in their book on Common Sense teaching which despite its title is also a great book about how to learn effectively efficiently Barbara Oakley Beth rowski and teren sski delve into the science of how our brains work and learn they suggest the learn it linked approach doing this will help move information from your limited working memory to your almost unlimited long-term memory so as you're summarizing notes ask how and why questions and Link what you're learning to what you already know because

that will help you learn but you know what that's exactly what you should do when you're writing an essay if you want to write a good one you see essay writing encompasses almost all of the most effective learning strategies so you want to learn something quickly and well write an essay on it so how do you write an essay well that's what this bit's about first you need a title now if your essay has been set by a tutor they would have given you a title if it hasn't then you'll have to come up with

the title yourself what makes a good title usually something that gives you the scope to reason analyze and evaluate consider the importance of photosynthesis to life on Earth could be an interesting title the essay should State your position and a reasoned argument of how you've arrived at it it will analyze and evaluate it will raise objections and then respond to them with an exquisitly argued position as to why those objections don't stand up depending on the type of essay The Objective could be to persuade the reader that this is the only sensible conclusion that can

be drawn and now it's time to talk about Jordan Peterson now he and I are probably not natural bedfellows actually I haven't read any of his books and what little I know about him is just from a few YouTube videos that I've seen and most of those have been about lobsters so I don't really know enough to form an opinion on him but I'm about to recommend something that he's created so it's important that you know that I'm not receiving any money or benefiting in any way to do so now he has created a free

essay guide uh you can download it from the link in the description and it is very good I found it by chance when I was looking for essay writing resources to share for this video and I think you'll like it now I've since discovered that he has a paid for essay advice platform which I'm not endorsing because I've never used I've no idea what it's like but I have read his essay guide it's 25 pages long the tone and style are a bit arrogant but I like the advice it explains the benefits of writing and

gives a step-by-step guide on how to write an essay it suggests how to structure it 100 words split into 10 sentences per paragraph with each paragraph covering one idea the paragraphs should follow a logical progression towards the destination of your argument it talks about topics and how to create a reading list how to create an outline and then how to start writing how to edit and how to improve prove it's a comprehensive guide on how to write an essay and Peterson says that students following it will produce something that is at least very good I

agree with that um I've linked to it in the description as well as a couple of other essay writing resources too if you want to set yourself a challenge learn something new and become an expert Problem Solver then I think you should take a look at brilliant.org the sponsor of this video brilliant is where you learn by doing with thousands of interactive lessons in math data analysis programming and AI it's created by experts from places like MIT Caltech Microsoft and Google the interactive problems are where you learn through exploration by Hands-On interaction with the underlying

Concepts it's a method that's proven to be six times more effective than watching videos as you're challenged to think deeply about New Concepts to work with them and understand them you develop something else too problem solving skills and critical thinking skills with brilliant it's easy to develop a daily learning habit which is one of the most important things you can do learning to code can be difficult but Brilliance programming courses are a great way to build foundations and learn real world applications I love the thinking en code course you'll start building programs on day one

and you'll also develop your mind to think like a programmer building a strong foundation in writing robust programs to see just how far brilliant could take you you can try everything it has to offer free for a full 30 Days by going to brilliant.org python programmer or just click on the link in the description or scan the QR code and you'll also get 20% off brilliant's annual premium subscription