**Summarizing** involves creating a verbal description that encapsulates the most important information in a given learning context. **Drawing** does the same thing with a graphic representation. Both have been shown to be effective learning strategies.^[Dunlosky et al., 2013; Fiorella and Mayer, 2015a & 2015b] Both strategies involve the following **cognitive processes**: 1. **Selection**: Identify the most important material in the lesson or session. 2. **Organization**: Arrange the selected information into a coherent structure. 3. **Integration**: Relate the new information with relevant prior knowledge from long-term memory. This is something that [[Tim Urban]] does incredibly well — e.g., see [his blog](https://waitbutwhy.com/) or his book, [[What's Our Problem]]. ### Benefits Summarizing and drawing support the **understanding and integration** of new material. ### Nuances Richard E. Mayer (2019) refers to the process of selection, organization, and integration as "generative learning." **Generative learning** is a theory that involves the active integration of new ideas with the learner’s existing schemata.^[Seel, 2012, p. 1356] The main underlying idea is that learners have to [[Active construction of meaning based on one's experience leads to deep and usable knowledge|actively construct meaning]] in order to deeply understand the material. An example would be to try and answer a question oneself (see [[Developing explanations involves deep reasoning and explaining the material to oneself and others|developing explanations]]) instead of being presented with the answer. - This reminds me of [[Constructivism is a learning theory which posits that learners actively construct new understanding and knowledge through experience, using their prior knowledge as a foundation]]. **Taking notes** while listening to a lecture or reading a book is a form of summarizing. However, there's a risk of taking too many (even verbatim) notes and not engaging enough in the underlying processes of selection, organization, and integration. Taking notes by hand rather than typing supports these processes because it's slower and more effortful. ### Application - **Summarize in your own words**: Summarize the main ideas in a lesson in your own words. This supports the integration of new information with prior knowledge. - **Create knowledge maps**: Create knowledge maps that spatially represent the content of the lesson. There are a number of ways to do this:^[Mayer, 2019] - **Outline**: The most common form of mapping, which contains key concepts and subordinate concepts represented by the degree of indentation. - **Hierarchy**: A superordinate concept is on top and it is linked by “example of” or “type of” lines with subordinate concepts. - **Matrix**: A table with rows corresponding to two or more concepts and columns corresponding to dimensions along which they are compared. - **Flow chart**: A series of boxes with arrows among them showing the steps in a process. - **Make drawings**: Create drawings that depict the essential content of the lesson, including the key concepts, elements, and processes. - [[One-page the thing you're trying to learn]] %%### Mechanism Via [[How People Learn II]]: >Literature reviews by Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) and Fiorella and Mayer (2015a, 2015b) have identified **factors that appear to contribute to the effectiveness** of summarizing and drawing for learning. ==What are those factors? Maybe look into this later.==%% --- Created: [[2022-09-24]] Type: #permanent Topics: [[Learning (Index)]] Related notes: - [[What are the most effective learning strategies?]]