In one of my earlier atomic essays on learning, I had mentioned chunking, spaced repetition, and active recall and one of the commenters had indicated (perhaps jokingly!) that I could knock off essays on these topics.

I did not have any topics identified today for Ship 30 for 30, so I thought I'd write a short note on these aspects of learning as I understood it from the book A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley.

Chunking is the process of breaking information into smaller useful chunks and being able to combine or integrate them usefully into a more cohesive pattern to solve a bigger problem/apply them as needed.

Spaced Repetition is the process of transferring any information from our short-term or working memory into our long-term memory. If you think about the human mind as analogous to a computer, this would be the equivalent of transferring information from the RAM to the hard disk. This would be by repeatedly exposing our brains to the same information but with increased time intervals between exposures. Utilities like Anki or Quizlet can be utilized for this purpose.

Active Recall is the process of retrieving information from your long-term memory when needed and being able to apply them. Check out this video by Ali Abdaal where he talks about using Active Recall as a technique for exam prep and testing yourself using Anki as a learning aid.

While I was not aware of these concepts during my school and college days, I think knowing of them may have been helpful and I intentionally try and incorporate aspects of these while trying to learn a new skill now.