Ideas

A Podcast Listening Strategy for Learning

February 2, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

Three steps to make the most of your podcast time

Podcasts are an excellent way to acquire new knowledge. Hosts boil hours of research down to digestible content.

Yet, while podcasts are growing into one of the largest knowledge libraries on our planet, many people are not as strategic about their listening practice.

Listening to podcasts doesn’t make you smarter per se — it’s what you pick and do with it that will make all the difference.

The following lines will give you three quick ways to make the most of any value-packed podcast you listen to.

1) Find high quality podcasts

The friction to publishing podcasts is lower than it is for publishing books. You don’t need a publisher. Anyone with a phone and internet connection can become a podcast host.

Hence the quality of podcasts varies, and most podcasts are not worth your time. But some are. Instead of choosing a podcast based on the thumbnail and title, make a short effort to find the best one for you.

You can check out charts in the category “education,” search by keyword and podcast (e.g., best podcasts for language learning), or look at a podcast curation site.

Here are three of my favorite value-packed podcasts for learning:

Huberman Lab
Dr. Andrew Huberman, a tenured professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, discusses science and science-based tools for everyday life.

Philosophize This!
Stephen West shares ideas that shaped our world. It’s for anyone interested in an educational podcast about philosophy where you don’t need to be a graduate-level philosopher to understand it.

NPR: It’s an independent, nonprofit media organization founded on a mission to create a more informed public. NPR has many great podcasts, but my favorites are Radio Ambulante (in Spanish) and TED Radio Hour.

2) Use apps that help you remember more

You won’t remember much from a podcast if you only listen to it. Your brain needs repetition and elaboration to make new knowledge stick.

Unlike books, you can’t highlight audio — or can you?

I listen to my podcasts while biking or walking. Hence, an extremely uncomfortable situation to open a notepad or Roam Research whenever I hear an interesting idea.

But two applications have transformed how I listen to podcasts: Snipd and Airr. Both are audio highlighting tools.

When you hear something you want to remember, you tap a button. In Snipd, this creates a snippet that includes a descriptive title with optimized start- and end-points to capture the context, a summary of your snip, and the full transcript.

Airr is very similar to Snipd. The app allows me to tap on my AirPod and pin a conversation so that I can reread it whenever I need it. I no longer need to scan back through an entire episode to find a snippet or thought I can’t quite remember.

I sync Airr with a service called Readwise, which extracts all my audio snippets to Roam and Obsidian.

I haven’t fully tried Snipd yet, but I like Airr (mainly because of the AirPod feature). However, an advantage of Snipd is that it works for Android as well as iOS. Snipd also offers you a direct integration to Obsidian, which makes the monthly Readwise subscription obsolete. You should be able to export markdown with Airr as well, but I haven’t managed to do this.

3) Become a teacher by learning in public

Have you ever read a book only to forget the quintessence three weeks later?

You don’t have a bad memory. Forgetting is natural and actually even essential for learning.

But to make information stick, you’ll want to interrupt this forgetting, ideally, through a meaningful learning practice.

All great books on learning that I have read agree on the effectiveness of teaching newly learned things to others.

In ‘How We Learn’, Benedict Carey writes,

“Many teachers have said that you don’t really know a topic until you have to teach it, until you have to make it clear to someone else.”

The attempt to communicate what you’ve learned to your family, friends or any online audience is a very effective learning technique. Carey again:

“These apparently simple attempts to communicate what you’ve learned, to yourself or others, are not merely a form of self-testing, in the conventional sense, but studying — the high-octane kind, 20 to 30 per cent more powerful than if you continue sitting on your butt, staring at that outline. Better yet, those exercises will dispel the fluency illusion. They’ll expose what you don’t know, where you’re confused, and what you’ve forgotten — and fast.”

Carey is not the only one who recommends teaching what you’ve learned to other people. In ‘A Mind for Numbers’, Dr. Barbara Oakley provides another powerful example:

“The legendary Charles Darwin would do much the same thing. When trying to explain a concept, he imagined someone had just walked into his study. He would put his pen down and try to explain the idea in the simplest terms. That helped him figure out how he would describe the concept in print. Along those lines, the website Reddit.com has a section called ‘Explain Like I’m 5’ where anyone can make a post asking for a simple explanation of a complex topic.”

You don’t have to be an expert on the topic you just listened to on the podcast. Having some knowledge gaps can even benefit your learning practice.

Oakley again:

“You may think you really have to understand something in order to explain it. But observe what happens when you are talking to other people about what you are studying. You’ll be surprised to see how often understanding arises as a consequence of attempts to explain to others and yourself, rather than the explanation arising out of your previous understanding. This is why teachers often say that the first time they ever really understood the material was when they had to teach it.”

So the next time you listen to an episode you want to remember, explain it to your flatmate in a blog post or a short video clip. You will be surprised by how much this practice improves your learning.

My free weekly Learn Letter will give you tools and resources to accelerate your learning. If you’d like to accelerate your online writing, register here.

This Mind-Changing Principle Shows It’s Never Too Late to Become a Better Self

January 3, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

How you can change your habits for good.

Which parts of your identity do you believe to be fixed?

The older we get, the more we tend to see our thoughts and actions as predetermined.

I’m a procrastinator. I can’t lose weight. I’m not a runner. That’s just how I am.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Your brain’s neuronal structure isn’t fixed once you cross a certain age.

No matter how long you’ve been telling yourself you can’t — you can always unlearn, relearn, and, as a result, change.

In recent years, researchers have better understood how our brains work. You’ll understand the science behind it and how you can change for good.

The Reason Why You Can Always Change

Neuroplasticity is your brain’s ability to change throughout life based on what you think, do, and experience.

“When you think or do something repeatedly, your brain actually changes its physical structure,” Shad Helmstetter writes in ‘The Power of Neuroplasticity.’

New thoughts and skills carve out new neural pathways. Every time you think, feel, or do something, you strengthen this pathway, and that’s how you form a habit. In other words: learning rewires your brain.

Traditionally, research associated brain plasticity with childhood. But now, it’s generally accepted that adults brains change as a result of learning.

But what exactly changes when you learn?

In a recent study, neuroscientists used magnetic resonance imaging to observe the brain’s structure while learning.

Your brain consists of gray and white matter. It’s white because it contains billions of axons that are coated with a fatty substance called myelin.

These myelin-coated axons play a critical role in learning: they connect the neurons in the gray matter into circuits. The myelin works like electrical insulation and, as researchers write, boosts the speed of transmission by 50 to 100 times.

Hence, myelin (the fatty white substance around the axons) is a critical factor for learning as it determines your brain’s information transmission speed. Myelin makes signals faster, stronger, and more precise.

And here’s where learning and practice come into play: Every time you repeat a practice, the myelin layer thickens. The more you practice a specific skill, the better insulated the circuit becomes. In return, your thoughts and behaviour become faster and more precise.

The authors of ‘Make it Stick’, one of my favourite education science books, write: “The thickness of the myelin coating correlates with ability, and research strongly suggests that increased practice builds greater myelin along the related pathways, improving the strength and speed of the electrical signals and, as a result, performance.”

How to Change Your Self-Beliefs Habits

Your brain’s innate ability to adapt enables change. Yet, before you dive into the self-help part of this piece, keep in mind that you are magnificent without self-optimization.

You can live a happy, fulfilled life without running a marathon, meditating every morning, or climbing up a corporate ladder.

Many of us constantly fight an inner battle between how we are and how we would want to be. Political scientist Minna Salami sees the root in our conditioning: “It is a tenet of Europatriarchal Knowledge that nonmales, nonwhites, and nonelites live lives of constant dissatisfaction.”

Before you focus on identity or habit change, ask yourself why you think the goal is worth pursuing. Is it because of your own wants or because of societies expectations?

Don’t use self-improvement to live up to societies expectations.

If you still want to develop the habit, the following can help. I applied the strategies to write and publish consistently, meditate almost every morning for six years, and spend an average then less than 1 hour on my phone.

1) Be Clear About Your Why

Why do you want to attain the specific habit? What will change as a result? Write your reason(s) on a piece of paper and place it at a place you look at every day.

When I started meditating, I wrote down, “I meditate every day because I want my mind to experience life with clarity and presence.” I placed the note next to my bed so I would see it every day when I woke up.

2) Make it Incredibly Easy to Start With

No matter how big your habit, start thinking small. When you start building a new habit, focus on micro-steps.

“Make it easy to start, and the rest will follow,” James Clear writes, “you have to standardize before you can optimize.”

The more you internalize the beginning of a process, the likelier you are to show up consistently. The goal is to make it so easy you can’t say no.

Run five miles → tie your running shoes and go for a walk
Eat healthy → google one new recipe and add items to your grocery list
Become a writer → write down one idea and a potential headline for it

3) Build a Habit Stack

Tie the new habit you want to form an existing habit you already have.

Every morning, after I brush my teeth, I drink a glass of water. When I started meditating, I decided to combine the existing habit with a new one: “After drinking a glass of water, I sit down on my meditation pillow.”

4) Utilize Your Physical Environment

Prepare whatever you need for making your habit. Pack your gym bag and place it next to your door.

When I started building a writing habit, I ensured to put my phone into flight mode and away from my desk and bed the evening before. I wanted to start writing with a clear mind. I closed all tabs on my computer and opened nothing but my idea board.

Removing friction for starting your habit can help you dive right into it.

5) Be Kind to Yourself

Reward yourself when you’ve met a specific streak, but also be kind to yourself when you miss a day.

The best athletes make mistakes just like we do. But they get back on track as fast as possible.

James Clear writes: “Research has shown that missing your habit once, no matter when it occurs, has no measurable impact on your long-term progress. Rather than trying to be perfect, abandon your all-or-nothing mentality.”

Don’t expect to fail, but make a plan for failure. What can you learn from it? How will you get yourself back on track?

Building self-efficacy through being consistent is more important than the intensity of your habit.

In Conclusion

The most important lesson to remember is: whatever you do repetitively has a lasting effect on your brain. If you want to manifest new thought patterns or habits, don’t quit too early. Your brain needs repetition to coat neurons with myelin.

Practice until your new neuronal pathways replace the old. You will soon realize your brain never stops changing in response to learning.

If you want to change, you can change. But keep in mind that whether you build new habits or not — you’re enough by just being.

Take genuine pleasure in being alive.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Subscribe free to The Learn Letter. I read a book and 50 articles a week, and each Wednesday, you’ll receive the best in your inbox. This newsletter will make you find tools and resources that help you on your path to health, wealth, and wisdom.

A Quick Manual to Turn You Into an Effective Learner for Life

October 15, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

It’s not what you’ve learned at uni.

I took ownership of my learning 16 months ago.

I produced 93 podcast episodes, wrote 33 newsletters, published 250 articles, created 13 websites, and hosted 27 workshops.

In the process, I learned more than in the five years of my Bachelor’s and Master’s studies.

Schools and unis work towards a purpose of education that was created a century ago. Most of them aren’t built on the insights from neuroscience. Students mostly move at the same pace, using the same means.

Effective learning doesn’t happen while you listen to a lecturer.

Effective learning requires a different state of mind.

Don’t wait for education systems to change.

You can take charge of your own learning.

This article will give you a lens to look at learning and five actionable ideas to get you started today.

How You Can Conquer the Pyramid’s Peak

When you read through educational theories, a couple of concepts plop up again and again: Piaget’s constructivism, Skinner’s behaviorism, Gardener’s theory of multiple intelligences.

But there’s one theory I keep coming back to — Bloom’s taxonomy.

Around 1956, educational psychologist Bloom and his colleagues did a couple of studies. Their goal was to determine factors that affect how students learn.

Teachers’ ability to individualize instruction was among the key factors they found.

Bloom and his research friends wanted to help teachers individualize learning. They came up with a so-called taxonomy.

This taxonomy is a hierarchical model that ranks learning objectives. On the bottom, you find the simple ones, on top the most complex goals.

Revision of Bloom’s taxonomy. (Source: Eva Keiffenheim based on Krathwohl and Anderson et al.)

A quick caveat: There are a couple of things flawed with this theory. When you look at the pyramid, you might think that you need to climb each step to reach the top. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Learning is no linear process.

You don’t start at the bottom to move to the top.

The levels mentioned are interdependent, and you can start right at the top.

For example, the generation effect shows you remember information better once you create your own version of the material (according to this meta-analysis across 86 studies).

You don’t have to remember before you can create. You can remember because you create. While you create, you’ll also continue to analyze, apply, and understand.

27 Prompts to Become a More Effective Learner

Bloom’s theory got one thing right most schools and universities still haven’t: Learning is best when it’s active.

Creation is the essence of effective learning.

Instead of highlighting or taking notes, it’s much more effective to write, animate, draw, build, blog, or produce your own material.

“We have to apply and create in order to understand. The creation process is where we construct deep understanding,” educator Ron Berger writes.

“When I was a classroom teacher and my students were unusually successful, people often asked me what made my classroom different. One difference was basic: my students spent much of the day making things, not sitting and listening.”

Create your version of whatever you want to learn, and you’ll steepen your learning curve. Here’s the pyramid’s top with 21st-century creation prompts I created for you:

To make the most of what you consume, you want to become a creator.

Here’s an example from a student that created her own interpretation of Bloom’s taxonomy against Harry Potter movies (yes, it’s meta)./media/a243f4088d3d2ee82425a7748610e431

Four Actionable Ideas to Accelerate Your Learning

Whenever you tackle your next task, remember your learning is most effective when you create things.

Here are a couple of actionable things you can do to accelerate your learning:

Sign-up to Convertkit (or any other e-mail provider) and start a bi-weekly newsletter about a topic you want to learn. Take the readers with you on your learning journey.
Pick up your phone (or any other recording device) and record a 30-day video vlog about the habit you’re building. Sprinkle in some self-researched background information once in a while.
Sign-up to Buzzsprout (or any other hosting platform) and run your learning podcast. Do monthly interviews with thought leaders within your niche. Podcasts are the best excuse to book time with people you look up to.
Create a Medium account and publish twice a month. Write about what you’ve learned from books you read, conversations you had, or things you learned in your job.

Whatever you do, keep in mind learning is no static pyramid.

It’s the fuel that enables you to live the life of your dreams.

Even if you have the best mentors and teachers — they can only offer you the tools and a system. You are responsible for effective learning. Start today.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Most Online Courses Are a Waste of Your Time — Here’s How You Know

September 27, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

A quick guide that helps you find the worthy ones.

This year I spent around $5000 on online courses.

Warren Buffet said, “the best investment you can make is an investment in yourself. The more you learn, the more you’ll earn.”

But his statement is flawed.

Not all learning investments are created equal. People who’ve excelled at their craft are often not the best teachers. Likewise, creators who write the best sales copy don’t offer the most value.

Here’s precisely how you can spot bad online courses so that you won’t waste your time and money.

1) They Tell But Don’t Show

Most online courses are useless because they focus on the why and what instead of the how.

In a Medium writer’s online course, for example, the instructors spend 90% of the time exploring what writing consists of. They have an hour-long conversation about the importance of consistency. Yet, they don’t show the students how they can write consistently.

The medium star could’ve talked about the roadblocks and how he overcame them. He could’ve shared his calendar or accountability system. He could’ve shared strategies for when you’re struggling to get started. But he didn’t. For me, the course felt like a time-waster.

“Never tell us a thing if you can show us, instead.”

— Steven King

What to look out for instead:

Look for how material instead of endless talks on the why and what. Valuable things often include templates, tutorials, spreadsheets, and screen-sharings.

Here are some examples, so you know how to tell the difference:

2) Instructors Teach in One Direction

“Active learning works, and social learning works,” said Anant Agarwal, founder and chief executive of edX, in an interview with the New York Times. To back this up, a recent study suggests social learning helps you complete online courses.

Yet, most online course creators choose alow-maintenance model. They pre-record videos so you can watch them at your own pace.

But what’s scalable for the instructors isn’t the best for you. Data from Harvard University and MIT shows only three to four percent complete self-paced online courses.

To increase your chances of success, you need a community.

I love Cam Houser’s comment in a joint Slack channel: “People don’t take courses for information. That’s what google and youtube are for. They take courses for outcomes, accountability, process, community.”

What to look out for instead:

A slack channel or Facebook group isn’t enough. Great courses offer structured space for social learning. You have an accountability group, comment on each other’s work, and have regular live touchpoints with your instructors or coaches.

3) They Ignore the Principle of Directness

Online courses are often distant from the actual application. You watch videos about your desired skill, but you never actually practice.

Let’s consider one of my favorite examples.

Imagine you’re a frequent flier. Before every start, you watch the video of a flight attendant putting on the life vest. You watch the video again and again.

But as this study shows, actually putting on the inflatable life vest a single time would be more valuable than repeatedly watching another person doing it. You acquire true mastery by performing the procedure yourself.

The author of ‘Ultralearning’ calls this principle directness. It is essential for mastering any skill. Yet, most online courses teach skills far from direct.

What to look out for instead:

You don’t learn by watching things. You learn by doing them. So the more you engage with the content, the likelier it will stick with you.

What’s your desired outcome behind taking the course? Check whether you have assignments that are directly linked to your desired skill. Pick a class as close to your end goal as possible.

If you take a course on e-mail newsletters, write your e-mail and ask for feedback. If you take a drawing class, do your first drawing. If you take a course on online writing, write your first article.

Just like the minimum viable product, find a minimum viable action. What is the simplest thing you can do based on what you’ve just learned?

Foster a bias towards action. You learn best when you do the work.

“Just keep working at it, and you’ll get there is wrong. The right sort of practice carried out over a sufficient period of time leads to improvement. Nothing else.”

— Anders Ericsson

4) They Don’t Understand the Science of Learning

Masters might not be the best teachers. More likely, they’re beginners when it comes to instructional design and the science of learning.

Most online courses are built on the assumption that our brains work like recording devices. But students don’t acquire their desired skills by consuming content. Instead, learning is at least a three-step process — we acquire, encode, and retrieve.

Learning scientist Roediger writes: “Learning that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow. Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful.”

Learning through passive content consumption isn’t effortful. That’s why most online courses are a mere form of entertainment.

What to look out for instead:

Look out for active learning elements. Check whether the course uses evidence-based learning strategies such as:

retrieval practice ⇾ recall something you’ve learned in the past from your memory
spaced repetition ⇾ repeat the same piece of information across increasing intervals
interleaving ⇾ alternating before each practice is complete
elaboration ⇾ rephrasing new knowledge and connecting it with existing insights
reflection ⇾ synthesize, abstract, and articulate key lessons taught by experience
self-testing & calibration ⇾ answer a question or solve a problem before looking at the answer and identify knowledge gaps

“Mastery, especially of complex ideas, skills and processes, is a quest. Don’t assume you’re doing something wrong if learning feels hard.”

— Roediger et al.

Conclusion

Most online courses don’t help you reach your desired outcome. You can spend thousands of dollars and hours without learning anything at all.

Learning doesn’t help you per se — it’s taking the right courses that can make all the difference:

Check whether the course curriculum goes beyond why and what and teaches the how to do stuff.
Evaluate whether you’ve got regular touchpoints with your instructor and learning opportunities with fellow students.
Understand whether you’ll practice your desired skill.
Look out for evidence-based learning elements such as spacing, retrieval, or reflection.

I’m building a course on how to write online based on evidence-based practices to make the most of your time. You won’t sit in front of pre-recorded videos and struggle to stick with them. If you’re interested in joining a group of 25 people, you can pre-register here.

A Mind Hack You Can Use to Boost the Way You Learn

September 14, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Make metacognition work for you and become a learner for life.

Observe your thinking. (Source: Created by the author via Canva).

Do you ever feel like you’re not learning fast enough?

If you ever worry you’re learning slower than you should, it might be because you’re missing out on one of the most effective thinking tools.

You’re not alone here. Most people use countless hours diving into a task without using metacognition.

In the following 5 minutes, you’ll learn what metacognition is and how you can use it to level up your learning.

Once you make it a habit to use this skill, you’ll never wonder whether you’re progressing fast enough.

The Power of Metacognition

“Metacognition is essential to successful learning because it enables individuals to manage their cognitive skills better and to determine weaknesses that can be corrected by constructing new cognitive skills,” educational psychologist Schraw writes.

Metacognition means noticing and understanding the way you think. Most people describe it as thinking about thinking, knowing about knowing, or becoming aware of your awareness.

Nancy Chick, Teaching Assistant Director at Vanderbilt University, says: “It refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance.”

But metacognition is more than that.

Your own experience is used to regulate and improve future learning behavior. You self-monitor and self-regulate. Thereby, you steepen the learning curve towards your desired goals.

A large body of research in educational sciences testifies the importance of metacognition in learning. Different studies show high performers have better metacognitive skills than low performers across various disciplines.

“The best performers observe themselves closely. They are in effect able to step outside themselves, monitor what is happening in their own minds, and ask how it’s going.”

— Geoff Clovin in “Talent is Overrated”

How You Can Unlock This Learning Superpower

You can rely on this skill when you clean your apartment, study for an exam, or learn any new skill. Here’s the process you need to include metacognition in your thinking.

According to research, three steps are necessary for unlocking your metacognition:

Applying metacognition to tasks and learning (Source: Created by Eva Keiffenheim based on Schraw).

Before you start a task or learning endeavor, you plan. You think about your desired goal. You consider how you’ll use your time and which strategies you’ll apply.

Second, you use self-monitoring to remain aware of your progress. You question the steps you take and reevaluate whether you’re following your planned path.

Finally, you reflect on your performance. You evaluate what went well and what you can do better next time you approach the task or learning chunk.

While you might think reflecting on a task will slow you down, it will save you time and energy.

Here’s a personal story.

July 2009. It’s the first day of my summer holidays, and I open the door to my dad’s workshop. I see black dust and inhale the smell of welding. My dad is a blacksmith, and I’m about to work as a metalworker for the next four weeks.

The task is mundane, but I get paid on piecework. I treat the job like a game. The more parts I can perforate in a day, the more I earn. I can’t wait to get started. I push the parts into the punching machine, one hour after another.

A few days in, my dad asks me, “Haven’t you thought about how to make this easier for you?”

I looked around. I had no clue what he meant.

He then moved the table with the punches closer to the machine. The difference looked like this:

My dad’s smart move. (Source: Created by the author).

His improvement saved me two steps per task which gave me a precious extra hour a day.

More importantly, he taught me a lesson I will never forget: Before you work on anything, think about the best way to do it.

In Conclusion

Metacognition is one of the most important skills to become an effective lifelong learner. Evidence suggests you can learn and improve it, even long after adolescence.

Before your next task or learning endeavor, make sure to:

Plan. Say it out loud. Be explicit about the way you approach a task.
Monitor. Stay aware of whether you’re doing it right.
Evaluate. Reflect on how well you’ve done.

Don’t stress too much about the speed of learning. You set the tempo of your life. If you find yourself worrying, remember this short poem by Rupi Kaur:

if you tried
and didn’t end up
where you wanted to
that’s still progress

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Subscribe free to the weekly The Learn Letter. I read a book and 50 articles a week, and you’ll receive the best in your inbox. This evidence-based newsletter will make you find tools and resources that help you become a lifelong learner.

This Trap Prevents Most People From Clear Thinking

September 9, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

How to stop clouding your judgment.

In his book ‘Stillness is Key,’ Ryan Holiday wrote:

“Wisdom is […] the ability to rise above the biases, the traps that catch lazier thinkers.”

I disagree.

Mental traps not only catch the lazy thinkers — they snag all of us. Because cognitive laziness is how our brains save energy.

Among the most common pitfalls is our tendency to stick to what we believe. Warren Buffett said:

“What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”

Cognitive psychologists call this confirmation bias. It means we select and favor information aligned with our beliefs and values.

We can’t eradicate this thinking trap. But this article will equip you with tools that help you think better.

The Bias That Clouds Your Thinking

“Many startups fail because founders disagree,” my professor said. It was June 2017, and I listened to one of my last business lectures.

He continued explaining the specifics, but I had already stopped listening.

I just founded my first company and thought, “This doesn’t apply to us. We chose the right people.” I continued daydreaming.

Little did I know that wishful thinking would cost me loads of money and energy. Yet, I’m not alone in this. Many others tend to ignore disconfirming evidence.

In 1979, three researchers at Standford divided study participants based on their opinion on death penalties. One group included all believers, the other all skeptics.

Both groups read articles with evidence on death penalties. Half of the people in both groups read studies that disproved the death penalty efficiency. The other half read conforming studies.

Did the evidence influence the participants thinking?

It did. But not in the way you might imagine.

Evidence reinforced preexisting beliefs. No matter which of the two studies they read — both groups were more convinced of their initial opinion.

We do not change our opinion based on research. Instead, we interpret the facts in a way to supports our values and beliefs.

“ In an attempt to simplify the world and make it conform to our expectations, we have been blessed with the gift of cognitive biases.” — Sia Mohajer

How to Rise Above the Confirmation Bias

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson stated in 1789. But he was wrong.

Facts don’t make humans better thinkers or citizens. Often, they make us more ignorant.

“What we believe depends on what we want to believe,” Adam Grant said. “We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.”

Here are four strategies that help you see what you don’t want to see so you can think clearer.

1) Seek Contradicting Evidence

Test your hypothesis. If you read a book, use red post-its to highlight contradictions to your worldview.

Juvoni Beckford says: “If you read a book and there are very few red flags, then there’s no real reason to keep on reading the book. If you understand everything, why are you reading the book?”

2) Dare to be wrong

The enemy of learning is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge — the things you think you know.

When you’re convinced to know something, learning something new means you have to change your mind. Overcoming your ego is one of the big challenges for better thinking.

The further you’re in your career, the stronger you’re desire to be right. But this desire prevents you from seeing the truth. Embrace intellectual humility. Dare to be wrong.

3) Ask open-ended questions

If you google “Is Green tea better for my body than coffee?” you will see results that highlight the advantages of yoga. If you phrase the question in the other way, “Is coffee better for my body than green tea?” you will see the opposite tendency.

The search engine will show you what you asked for. By using open-ended questions (“Which beverage is best for my body?”), you’ll get closer to an objective answer.

4) Become a critical thinker

At age 21, Franklin gathered smart people in his city to form a mutual improvement club. Each Friday evening, the club’s members brought an interesting conversation topic. Once every three months, the members wrote essays on the topics they discussed.

Learning researcher Anders Ericsson writes about it: “By creating the club Franklin not only ensured himself regular access to some of the most interesting people in the city, but he was giving himself extra motivation (as if he needed any) to delve into these topics himself.”

As research shows, accountability increases your motivation to think critically. If people around you ask you to justify your thinking, you’re likelier to overcome confirmation bias.

Evaluating your worldview is exhausting. It requires mental energy. Even if you’re not lazy, your brain likes to take shortcuts.

Yet, confirmation biases can harm us in the form of misjudgments and bad decision-making.

The best recipe against unconscious biases is self-awareness. Now that you’re aware of our collective mental laziness, you’ll have an easier time overcoming the mental trap. Step by step, you’ll be able to think better.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Understand This Rarely Mentioned Concept and You Will Never Stop Learning

September 6, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Everything you know has an expiration date.

An old advertisement showing a doctor recommending cigarettes. — Country Gentleman, 1946 (Source)

From the 1930s to the 1950s, doctors recommended smoking.

People who believed cigarettes were good for you weren’t stupid. They followed the tenor of their times.

Much of what we believe today will be wrong 50 years from now. Here’s the reason why and what you can do about it. Knowing the following concept will help you keep an open mind so you can become a lifelong learner.

The Half-Life of Knowledge

Half-life is the time it takes for a certain quantity to halve in value. Nobel Prize winner Ernest Rutherford discovered the concept in his work on radioactivity, but it also applies to everyday life.

The biological half-life of caffeine is around 6 hours. So when you drink a cup of coffee with 200 mg caffeine at 6 AM, you’ll still have 100 mg in your system around lunchtime. Another six hours later, and you’ll have 50 mg in your blood (which is why sleep scientists recommend not drinking coffee after lunch).

The half-life of knowledge works similarly: it measures the amount of time before half of the knowledge in one area is outdated or proven untrue.

As a med student, my fiancé takes hour-long multiple-choice exams every year. Yet, the box marked correct in the last year might not be correct in the next.

The half-life of medical knowledge is 18–24 months. Half of what doctors believe to be true today will be outdated in less than two years from now.

This iteration is not only true in medicine but in other academic disciplines.

Scientist Rong Tang explored 750 scholarly monographs to determine the half-life of knowledge. Here’s what he found:

Adapted by Eva Keiffenheim based on Rong Tang (2008).

Can we derive history has a knowledge half-life of 7 years? No. Tang’s research hasn’t been replicated, and he solely focused on books.

But there’s one thing to learn here: knowledge isn’t permanent. Most of what we consider truth today decays within a decade from now.

“We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995.”

— Adam Grant

What Most People Ignore For Too Long

Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote almost a century ago, “the fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

Changing your opinion when presented with conflicting evidence is one of the most valuable skills of the 21st century.

Psychologist and researcher Adam Grant dedicated an entire book to rethinking. One line stayed with me long after reading: “The purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs.”

If Pulitzer Prize winner Kathryn Schulz read this statement, she would agree.

In ‘Being Wrong,’ she writes: “This is the pivotal insight of the Scientific Revolution: that the advancement of knowledge depends on current theories collapsing in the face of new insights and discoveries. In this model of progress, errors do not lead us away from the truth. Instead, they edge us incrementally toward it.”

Everything you know has an expiration date. But this change is nothing to be afraid of — it’s how you learn and progress.

Smoke a fresh cigarette. R.J. Reynolds, 1931, SRITA. (Source)

“Facts change in regular and mathematically understandable ways.”

― Samuel Arbesman

How You Can Benefit from This Concept

In 470 B.C. Philosopher Anaxagoras said, “Thunder was produced by the collision of the clouds, and lightning by the rubbing together of the clouds.”

We might laugh about ancient philosophers’ theories as they attempted to make sense of their world — but what are some of our current beliefs that will seem crazy in 50 years’ time?

Understanding that facts have a half-life helps you on many levels:

You don’t cling to outdated beliefs. You keep an open mind and can make better sense of the world.
You understand truth as an asymptote. We can never reach the absolute truth. But constant questioning and a curious mind lead to better approximations.
You ask yourself: What do I believe that might be proven wrong soon? Looking for evidence that contradicts your worldview is how you become a lifelong learner.

In Summary

Just because you read something in a study doesn’t mean it remains true. Many scientific studies are cited long after they’ve been proven wrong.

Consider Howard Gardner’s ‘Theory of Multiple Intelligences.’ According to it, all students have learning styles: linguistic, musical, kinaesthetic, and spatial. The theory was published in the 80s, proven wrong in the 90s, and, as Alex Beard writes, “enshrined in teacher-training syllabuses in the 2010s.”

Question what you read. Change is the only constant in knowledge.

It’s impossible to know everything. Even if you do nothing but reading tons of papers on your subject, you can barely keep up with new knowledge.

Here’s what to keep in mind:

update your beliefs when presented with evidence and new arguments
remain aware of what you don’t know
never stop learning

Because learning is the most valuable skill of our time.

“If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.”

— Adam Grant

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

3 Specific Ways to Benefit from the Zeigarnik Effect

August 31, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

How interrupting your tasks can boost your creativity.

Have you ever felt guilty about not finishing a task?

My parents used to tell me “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” (German: Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen.)

I grew up in the mindset believing anything that can be done today should be done today. Whenever I procrastinated on a thing, I felt bad.

But not finishing can be a good thing. Here’s a brief explanation of the Zeigarnik effect and four ways to reap the benefits in everyday life.

A brief explanation of the Zeigarnik effect

In the 1920s, soviet researcher Bluma Zeigarnik discovered people remember interrupted or uncompleted activities better than completed ones.

She observed the effect in waiters. They remembered orders only so long as the order was open and forgot it as soon as it was served.

As a scientist, Zeigarnik started experiments to test her observation. She asked probands to complete 15 to 22 tasks such as solving a puzzle, stringing beads, folding paper, or counting backward.

She let half of the participants complete all of their tasks while she interrupted the other half before they finished.

Zeigarnik then tested how many unfinished tasks the participants would remember. The experiment’s results were significant. Participants were twice as likely to remember incomplete tasks than complete ones.

You likely know this effect from earworms. When you stop listening to a song halfway through, your brain will start the song repeatedly to complete it. The music will be stuck in your head.

The Zeigarnik effect has also been explored more recently by two researchers from Florida State University. Baumeister and Masicampo discovered people did worse on a task when they were interrupted finishing a warm-up activity — because it is still stuck in their working memory.

How to use the Zeigarnik effect for you

Luckily, the Zeigarnik effect also comes with upsides. You can use it to improve your creativity, memory, and much more.

1) Better recall through interleaving

Learning scientists agree unfinished things stay longer in your memory. If you interrupt a learning session and resume later, you’ll likely remember more of the content.

Researchers call this learning strategy interleaving: “In interleaving, you don’t move from a complete practice set of one topic to go to another. You switch before each practice is complete. If learners spread out their study of a topic, returning to it periodically over time, they remember it better.”

So the next time you’re trying to remember information, schedule strategic breaks in the middle of your learning session.

2) Boost your creativity with this trick

Creativity doesn’t work with willpower. You can’t sit down and force your best ideas to come to your consciousness. Creativity works better in your brain’s diffused mode.

This mode feels like daydreaming and enables new neural connections. When you let your mind wander without actively thinking about the problem, you likely come up with a solution you hadn’t thought about.

Adam Grant writes in his book Originals: “When you’re generating new ideas, deliberately stop when your progress is incomplete. By taking a break in the middle of the process, you’re more likely to engage in divergent thinking and give ideas time to incubate.”

The Zeigarnik effect can help unlock your best ideas. Start thinking about a topic or an unsolved problem. Write the question down and bring it to your mind. But then, do something unrelated where you can let your mind wander, e.g., washing the dishes, cleaning the apartment, going for a phone-free walk.

“These were all situations which occurred to me-while showering, while driving, while taking my daily walk and which I eventually turned into books.”

— Steven King

3) Get people’s attention with cliffhangers

Ever binge-watched a series? Likely, every episode finished unfinished with a story thread that hadn’t been resolved.

But even if you don’t write a playscript, you can increase people’s interest with informational teasers.

When you give presentations, for example, the Zeigarnik effect can help you retain your audience’s attention. Tease a piece of important information early on, but don’t reveal it until the end.

The next time you feel guilty about not finishing a task, remember the Zeigarnik effect — a strategic break can actually help you be more creative, improve your recall, or get people’s attention.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

How Cohort Based Courses Can Help You Master Any Skill You Want

July 28, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

MOOCs are dead. Here’s what’s next.

Having access to content is not enough to master a subject. Learners ace a skill via direct practice of the skill they’re trying to master.

In 2011, people believed massive open online courses, so-called MOOCs, would revolutionize online learning.

Yet, data from Harvard University and MIT revealed three devastating data points against these courses:

Completion rates. Only three to four percent complete MOOCs — a rate that hasn’t improved in the past six years.
Retention. Only seven percent of MOOC learners start another course after their first year.
Accessibility. While MOOCs promised to bring high-quality education to all corners of the world, only 1.43 percent come from countries classified as “low” in the Human Development Index.

As a result, the future of education doesn’t belong to MOOCs any longer. Instead, a new model emerged. Whether you’re a content creator or a lifelong learner — here’s how Cohort-Based Courses can help you master any skill.

What are Cohort-Based Courses?

In Cohort Based Courses, so-called CBCs, a student group moves at the same pace through the same curriculum. Typically, CBCs include a mix of life lessons, remote assignments, and peer learning.

If you ever attended school, you’re familiar with cohort-based education. Schools and universities rely on cohort learning models — students take the same lecture, assignments, and tests simultaneously.

Both have in common that you don’t pay for the content’s quality. Studying with free videos can teach you as much as attending universities or CBCs. What you pay for is the likelihood of completing the learning track and achieving the desired outcome (e.g., land a job or acquire a specific skill).

Why CBCs Are Better Than MOOCs

Socrates tutored two learners at a time; a MOOC scaled learning up to 100,000. With CBCs, the teacher-student ratio increases, and relationships are at the core of the learning process again.

If you want to master a skill, access to instructors will help you stick with the course.

A study found interaction with instructors affects MOOC learner retention directly. CBCs use online tools like Zoom or Slack to give feedback and help students complete the course.

“Active learning works, and social learning works,” said Anant Agarwal, founder, and chief executive of edX, in an interview with the New York Times.

Seth Godin’s altMBA, a cohort-based online MBA, supports this fact with a completion rate of 96%. Other CBCs report, the completion rate is up to 85%.

Building relationships with instructors and peers, plus the limited time factor, is a way to force yourself to complete a course. Through more teacher-student and student-student touchpoints, you’re more likely to hold yourself accountable.

The Distinctive Learning Features

There’s more to CBCs than the tutoring and completion ratio: collaboration and community.

While you go through the course, you interact with your peers. Thus, learning is not one-directional (teacher to student) but also bi-directional (student to student).

Through regular collaboration, you form a community. You network with like-minded people from across the globe. As you follow the same learning goal, these relationships can be very powerful.

If you join a community of future data scientists, this network can give you access to opportunities and resources in the future that will enhance your career.

How You Can Distinguish Average from Great

You don’t absorb information and knowledge by consuming content. Instead, learning is at least a three-step process — you acquire, encode, and retrieve.

Learning by doing is much more powerful than learning by watching. When you pick a course, evaluate whether the curriculum design will help you achieve your desired outcome. Here are key features to look out for:

Real-time feedback on learning progress.
Assignments that are directly linked to your desired skill.
Structured access to a subject-specific community.
Evidence-based learning design, e.g., spaced repetition features and testing mechanisms.

7 Promising Cohort-Based-Courses

Here are seven courses you might want to consider:

Career Advancement
Reforge teaches the systems and frameworks that help you take the next step in your career. CBCs include product management, marketing, and growth strategies.
Writing (Beginner level)
Ship 30 for 30 teaches online writing through active learning. You will establish a writing and publishing routine with 500+ other writers.
Writing (Advanced level)
Write of Passage helps you develop a process for cultivating ideas and distilling them into writing.
Knowledge Management
Building your Second Brain can support you in saving your best ideas, organizing your learning, and expanding your creative output.
Video Creation
Minimum Viable Video is a 5-week live cohort that helps you creating and publishing professional videos that move the needle.
EdTech, NoCode, Deep Tech, Scale, and More
In 2021 Be On Deck launches 120 cohorts of 25 programs. They attract top talent to accelerate your ideas and careers, surrounded by a world-class community.
Youtube
The Part-Time YouTuber Academy teaches you how to grow your YouTube channel from 0 to 100,000+ subscribers and transform it into a sustainable, income-generating machine while keeping your day job.

In Conclusion

In a podcast interview on the future of education, Udemy founder Gagan Biyani stated how in 2009, nobody believed in online learning. Since then, everything has changed.

Apart from MOOCs, like EdX or Coursera, other EdTech solutions emerged. Platforms like Udemy or Skillshare created marketplaces for online education. Teachers competed with keywords and content and shared their earnings with the platform.

Then followed a third iteration: direct-to-customer solutions, such as Teachable, Kajabi, and Podia. On these platforms, online educators bring their own audience while keeping most of the revenue.

The new iteration towards CBCs is more student-focused than any previous solution, and it’s one of the most effective ways to master skills online:

Accountability through communities and instructors helps learners follow through when things get hard.
Because CBCs are outcome-focused (e.g., mastering a skill, landing a job, growing an audience) instructors focus on the how instead of the why.
CBCs help learners build skill-relevant communities that will support them in their future endeavors.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

3 Promising Opportunities to Teach Your Kids From Home

July 22, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

These organizations innovate homeschooling.

“What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children’s growth into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools,” educational theorist John Holt said, “but that it isn’t a school at all.”

Holt argued schools work as oppressive environments and turned kids into compliant employees. And that’s how in the 1970s, the modern homeschooling movement began.

The debate is still ongoing, and many people argue schools enforce and prioritize compliance and consumption over critical thinking and creativity.

Learning in home education is often less formal and more personalized than school education — ranging from traditional school lessons to free forms such as unschooling.

Reasons for homeschooling vary from better educational opportunities, a healthier learning environment, special needs, or being the only option in remote areas.

Homeschooling is legal in many countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States) but outlawed by others (e.g., Germany, Japan, Brazil).

Homeschooling legality Source: Fobos92 and Svenskbygderna

What follows are three organizations that rethink the way children learn from home.

1) Primer — A home for ambitious kids.

Primer is the world’s first community built for curious and ambitious kids to find and explore their interests together. Their goal is to “free the next generation of kids to be more ambitious, more creative, and to think for themselves.”

Unlike connected learning networks that replace core curricula, Primer is supplemental. To foster kid’s curiosity, the team offers various learning formats:

Clubs. Students collaborate on projects such as writing, storytelling, coding, inventing machines, music, or nature.
Rooms. Live audio chat spaces allow students to experiment with new ideas, solve problems, and tap into their interests (e.g., debating, writing, puzzling, coding, starting a business).
Journals. In journals, kids can document their projects by creating and organizing blocks of text, images, videos, and links.

There is no set schedule for a day with Primer, as all their activities happen in addition to set curricula.

After a free trial month, Primer is $49 a month for the first child and $19 a month for each additional child.

Primer was founded by Ryan Delk and Maksim Stepanenko, who both have been homeschooled. Previously, they helped build companies like SpaceX, Square, Gumroad, Lyft, and Coinbase.

“We studied the American Revolution by driving to historic locations in the original 13 colonies and crawled through cardboard tubes to learn how the digestive system works.”

— Ryan Delk, Co-Founder of Primer

2) Outschool — Where kids love learning.

Outschool online marketplace of virtual classes for children aged 3–18. Outschool’s goal is to engage and inspire learning through various classes and subjects.

The platform offers kids the opportunity to explore their interests in-depth with interactive classes taught via live video by experienced, independent teachers.

Like Primer, Outschool doesn’t suggest a fully-fledged curriculum. Instead, the platform offers more than 100,000 live lessons to more than 900,000 learners in 174 countries.

Pricing starts with $10 a course, and the most expensive multi-week course I found on the platform costs about $75.

The platform was founded by Amir Nathoo, who is a former investor and holds various patents.

“If we just stick to the core curriculum, then it is very difficult for kids to develop differentiated skills. More of the school day needs to be spent on kids pursuing their interests with the benefit of increased autonomy and self-direction — with this, kids’ motivation to learn can increase. There’s going to be so much change in technology and society in the next 10 years, I think we will head in a direction of hybrid core + self-directed.”

— Amir Nathoo, Founder of Outschool

3) Synthesis — Where kids become
problem-solvers.

Synthesis started as a school spin-off from Elon Musk’s AdAstra school. As of now, it’s a weekly, 1-hour enrichment program for students who want to learn how to build the future.

They offer a simulation-based learning experience built around complex team games. Students work through case studies, simulations, and game-based challenges.

Synthesis doesn’t design simulations for content but the experience. Simulations are complex and have no right answers. For example, 18–20 kids work in groups with one facilitator. But facilitators don’t lecture. Instead, the student groups explore and learn game rules on their own.

The idea of the simulations is to change the way kids approach real-life problems and prepare them to navigate the complexity and chaos that comes with life.

While playing, kids teach themselves how to win. In the process, they learn new problem-solving skills. Here are two game examples:

Art for All. Students compete in an auction game for the best art exhibits. The simulation covers negotiation and covers mental models such as auction theory and the winner’s curse.
Fire! In this collaborative game, students fight forest fires with varying conditions. It covers mental models such as positive-sum vs. zero-sum games.

Pricing is $180 per month, and a sibling discount is available.

Synthesis is led by Chrisman Frank. On a visit to Elon Musk’s AdAstra school, he fell in love with Synthesis.

In 2020, Frank convinced the AdAstra principal and his former colleague Josh Dahn to spin-off Synthesis as a for-profit company. Frank’s vision was to scale the learning software and develop a generation of super thinkers.

“When mistakes are not penalized, people are more likely to just keep trying. And if you keep trying, then naturally, you have more chances of eventually succeeding.”

— Ana Fabrega, Chief Evangelist at Synthesis

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

5 Quick Fixes for a Calmer, More Focused Life

July 21, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

How to not be distracted all the time.

Do you ever feel time runs like sand through your fingers?

If you’re struggling to live a more present life, you likely focus on the wrong things. Improving your inner peace is about what you do less of, not more of.

Taking a moment to integrate these quick fixes can help you find an inner state of calm while staying on top of things.

None of these suggestions should take you more than three minutes to set up, but every single one will help you reach more focus and presence.

1) Change Your Social Media Passwords

Without your active consent, social media’s persuasive design tricks you into screen time with severe consequences.

Different research attests to a relation between social media usage and mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and even suicide-related thoughts.

Not knowing your password is one of the most effective ways to spend less time on social media. I follow this technique since 2017, and it has given me weeks of time. I created a threshold that prevents me from impulsive social media checks.

How to do it:

Go to all social media you use regularly and change your password to a random combination you can’t remember.

Don’t save the new password in your browser. Instead, write it on a piece of paper. Then log off your social media platforms and place the paper in some drawer.

2) Don’t Consolidate Messaging Apps

Self-labeled productivity apps like Shift or Franz sound tempting. It seems convenient to aggregate all communication channels in one place.

Yet, these apps lead to context switching and thereby destroy your focus.

Cal Newport says: “Switching your attention — even if only for a minute or two — can significantly impede your cognitive function for a long time to follow.”

Once I deleted Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and Franz from my desktop, I focused better on one project at a time.

How to do it:

Delete all messaging aggregators from your computer. Anytime you need a specific communication channel, open it in your browser.

Instead of being surprised by new messages, you actively decide when to open and read the messages.

3) Delete Mail from Your Phone

I used to check my email when walking up the stairs and while waiting in a line. My mind revolved around work even while I wasn’t at my desk.

But our brains need off-time. To get maximum focus during working hours, we need enough time away from work. Plus, boredom brings benefits.

How to do it:

Pick your phone and delete your Mail app. Nothing is so urgent it can’t wait until you’re back at your desk.

“Are you distracted by breaking news? Then take some leisure time to learn something good, and stop bouncing around.”

— Marcus Aurelius

4) Use Site-Blockers

Compulsive social media checks will make your thoughts bounce around like a ping-pong ball. A study from Irvine University found it takes 20 minutes to refocus after distractions.

Chamath Palihapitiya, former Facebook executive, says: “We were not evolved to get social approval being dosed upon us every 5 minutes.”

For better productivity, fix your environment. If you don’t want to get distractions, use a site-blocker.

How to do it:

I use this free chrome extension to block LinkedIn, Facebook, and Mail from 9 PM to noon.

Block all sites that dilute your focus. You’ll be surprised how much more you can achieve in less time.

5) Charge Your Phone Outside Your Bedroom

If you charge your phone in your bedroom, you’re likely poisoning your mind with trash at the most important times of your day — before you sleep and after you wake up.

Here are the three of the most damaging effects of using your smartphone in your bedroom:

You lose time
You lose focus
Your sleep quantity and quality drops

By abandoning your phone from your bedroom, you can implement new bedtime and morning rituals such as reading, meditating, journaling, or letting your mind wander.

Keeping my phone out of my bedroom was the single most effective habit to read more books. Since I managed my phone habits, I have read one book a week for almost three years.

How to do it:

Get an alarm clock and stop waking up to your smartphone’s alarm. When you sleep with your phone in another room, you don’t need to exert your willpower first thing in the morning. Instead, you’ll start your days with a clear mind and ease into a distraction-free morning.

Often, anxiety and hurry are caused by distraction. These quick fixes help me live a calmer life that’s full of focus. I hope they do the same for you.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

9 Influencers Worth Following That Tweet About the Future of Learning

July 15, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

A curated list of inspiring edupreneurs.

Anything you read, watch or listen to shapes your thoughts. Hence, it’s worth paying attention to what you consume online.

I left teaching in Summer 2020 to make education fairer and better for as many learners as possible. Parts of what I do now includes connecting and reporting about education transformation.

Here’s a selection of thinkers who inspire me through their thoughts and projects on the future of learning.

1) Salman Khan

Salman Khan is the American educator who founded Khan Academy. His online education videos have been viewed more than 1.8 billion times. On Twitter, he shares ideas about bridging the digital divide and education transformation.

“Shying away from something where you are well suited to make a positive impact — especially because it is risky or can draw criticism or unwanted attention — is just as damaging as not realizing areas where your actions are counterproductive.”

— Salman Khan

2) Alain Chuard

Alain is the Founder & CEO of Prisma, a connected learning network that fully replaces regular school. Prisma didn’t transfer the core curriculum to the online world but created its own learning framework. On Twitter, Alain shares ideas on how to create learner-centric online schools./media/4dc1ab9cd7b5e747464e2f6d1a17abea

3) Richard Culatta

Richard is the CEO of ISTE — a community of global educators who believe in the power of technology to transform teaching & learning. He recently published the book ‘Digital for Good: Raising Kids to Thrive in an Online World’ and is a popular speaker on EdTech and innovation. On Twitter, he shares opinions on the digital divine and responsible device usage.

4) Ana Lorena Fabrega

Ana Lorena left teaching in 2019 to explore alternatives to traditional education. She’s now the Chief Evangelist at Synthesis, an online program partly initiated by Elon Musk. I love her Fab Friday newsletter, where she explores the future of education./media/57742cf1e5f6d6fdf684a7ed93cf0da0

5) Jelmer Evers

Jelmer is a history teacher, author and was nominated twice for the Global Teacher Prize. He is currently building an international teacher leadership network. If you understand Dutch, you can follow him on Twitter. Alternatively, watch his TEDx talk on flipping the education system.

6) Vlad Stan

Vlad is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Galileo — a global learning community for 8 to 18-year-olds. At its core, Galileo strives for self-directed (the freedom to choose what you want to learn) and self-organized (the freedom to design your daily schedule) education. Vlad tweets about homeschooling and EdTech./media/90cc016a4213594bfd498a8af5345e52

7) Saku Tuominen

Saku is the founder of HundrED — a not-for-profit organization that seeks and shares innovations in K12 education. I love to be inspired through their yearly global collection. Saku isn’t very active on Twitter, so instead, you might want to explore innovations curated by his company.

8) Wes Kao

Wes co-founded Maven, a platform for cohort-based courses. While MOOCs completion rate is just 3 to 6 percent, CBCs aim to improve completion rates through active, synchronous, hands-on learning. Wes published an excellent article on a16z and tweets about learning and thinking./media/98a3c16f3957046274b53bcbe649d16d

9) Jo Boaler

Jo is a professor of Mathematics education at the Standford Graduate School of Education and co-founder of youcubed. During my two years as a full-time Math teacher, her books drastically improved my teaching. On Twitter Jo shares insights on the growth mindset and mathematics.

“A lot of scientific evidence suggests that the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is not the brains they were born with, but their approach to life, the messages they receive about their potential, and the opportunities they have to learn.”

— Jo Boaler

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

How Connected Learning Networks Shape the Future of Education

July 7, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Learning innovation with Sora, Galileo, and Prisma.

Image created by Eva Keiffenheim via Canva.

Education visionary Sir Ken Robinson once said:

“Our task is to educate their (our students) whole being so they can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it.”

Yet, many kids grow up in an education system that stems from the industrialized age. Most schools batch children by age and expect them to learn at the same speed with the same means.

Connected Learning Networks follow a new paradigm. The approach to learning is defined as “learning that is socially connected, interest-driven, and oriented towards educational, economic, or political opportunity.”

Here are three schools that build on Connected Learning Networks and how they might shape the future of education:

1) Sora — High school built for you

Sora is a virtual high school that aims to accelerate students toward their wildest dreams.

Teachers are no longer teachers who deliver lectures but so-called guides who challenge students, structure individual curricula, and facilitate learning.

Sora offers various learning formats:

Independent projects. Students follow their learning interests (e.g., computer science or 18th-century Victorian fashion) and work towards their project goal.
Learning expeditions. Live learning sessions (e.g., saving the coral reef and shellfish industry) happen three days a week. These expeditions have deliverables, and students are assessed based on a mastery scale.
Career tracks. Learning advisors help students design their school experience around their desired career track, e.g., engineering, design, or health sciences.

Here’s what a typical schedule at Sora looks like:

A Day at Sora

9:30am daily standup on discord
10:00am project work (e.g. programming a game or writing a book) 
11:00am first learning expedition (e.g. history of buddhism)
12:00pm lunch break
12:45pm second learning expedition (e.g. saving the coral reef)
3:00pm afternoon checkpoint
4:30pm 1-on-1 check-in with experts to work through questions
5:00pm virtual club (e.g. movie club, school feedback sessions)

Tuition is $3,600 to $9,600 per year with flexible tuition options for families with a non-working parent or any extenuating circumstances.

The school was founded by Wesley Samples, Indra Sofian, and Garrett Smiley. They have work experience in venture capital, content marketing, as well as financial and entrepreneurship education.

I rate this approach 2/5 — Here’s why:

I love how Sora rethought curricula and moved away from a factory schedule. Their learning design can indeed foster self-directed learning enthusiasts.

What’s also great is the mastery-based curriculum where skill levels go along with learning science (e.g., 0 for exposure, 1 for recognition and recall, 2 for elaboration, 3 for application, and 4 for transfer).

Moreover, I like is their student focus. They state: “Schools suck because they are so far removed from the students that they serve. Our students know that we hear them, and though we make mistakes, they know that we all can learn from them.”

Yet, there are a few aspects that make me question Sora schools. First, their curriculum isn’t holistic. I can’t see subjects that focus on relationships, physical education, or arts.

Their site says, “relationships are one of the most important aspects of an education.” But a virtual book club isn’t enough to reinforce social skills.

Sora also lacks a clear roadmap to physical education. There’s the subject on an exemplary grade certificate. Yet, there’s neither a sports teacher on the team list nor a subject in their curriculum.

The online school doesn’t seem to offer art classes. It’d be great to take a more open approach to career tracks. Next generations need more than engineers, designers, and health scientists.

Sora seems like is the perfect school for parents who can’t wait for their students to join the high-achieving workforce.

2) Galileo — Online self-directed global school

Galileo is a global learning community for 8 to 18-year-olds. They offer live learning experiences and online courses.

At its core, Galileo strives for self-directed (the freedom to choose what you want to learn) and self-organized (the freedom to design your daily schedule) education.

Their mission is to improve the way we learn. Here’s how they do it:

Clubs such as Minecraft education, history clubs, coding, or theater clubs. These are ongoing teacher-led experiences where students connect and collaborate on topics of their interest. Students may join clubs on a week-to-week basis.
Nanocourses such as Logo design, artificial intelligence, space exploration, food innovation, or photography. They are 1-month project-based courses where the students learn a new skill. Students present their products during the final week of the course.
Bootcamps on game development, anthropology, or documentary making. There are two or three-month-long project-based learning experiences to inspire and give students a jump start on topics they want to learn about.

The school states the schedule looks different for every student, but here’s an example of how it might look like:

A Day at Galileo

9:00am daily check-in
9:30am 3D modeling club
11:00am Spanish club
1:00pm psychology crash course YT
3:00pm Math Khan - decimals
5:00pm Dance ballet

Their curriculum builds on existing solutions like Khan Academy, BrainPop, CodeCombat, Coursera, CrashCourse, or Duolingo. In addition, they invite mentors for inspirational speeches.

Tuition is $300 per student per month or $2000 per student a year (with a 20% siblings discount).

Kelly Davis and Vlad Stan founded Galileo. Kelly has taught in various countries throughout Asia, and Vlad is a serial entrepreneur.

I rate this approach 3/5 — Here’s why:

The school’s founders share a noble motivation: “ We want you to be obsessed — or at least passionate — about the topic you are teaching, no matter if your passion is related to the core curricula or it’s just something completely different you pursued on your own.”

Galileo offers a holistic curriculum that includes dancing, singing, writing, languages, coding, maths, books, science. In addition, they provide more than 70 live learning experiences that go beyond economics and business skills.

Unlike Sora, they add a personal layer to online learning. They have student-led check-ins and local dojos — small, local, in-person learning experiences. So far, these local communities exist in Romania, Japan, the USA, Kenya, and Portugal.

They give people the opportunity to individualize their kids’ curriculum, and their team shares a passion for lifelong learning.

Yet, I’m not sure whether un- and deschooling with local dojos encompass the future of education is. So, while Galileo is an interesting niche product, I can’t see how this solution would work at scale.

Galileo seems like is the perfect school for world travelers and digital nomads who want to offer their kids connected, self-directed, world-class education.

“We have to personalize education, not standardize it.”

— Sir Ken Robinson

3) Prisma — The world’s first connected learning network

Prisma is a personalized, full-time online school for 9–14-year-olds. They reinvent learning.

Their vision is to create the world’s most effective and inclusive Connected Learning Network dedicated to preparing millions of kids for life and work in the 21st century.

Prisma offers various formats to their students:

Peer cohorts. A group that meets daily to collaborate, socialize, and learn with.
Coaching. Learning coaches meet and assist with learning on a daily basis.
Live workshops. A selection of virtual workshops that focus on communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. According to their website, these workshops are optimized for engagement.

For students, a typical schedule looks like this:

A Day at Prisma

10:00am standup
10:30am independent learning routines (e.g. math, English, arts)
12:00pm lunch
1:00pm live workshops (e.g. debates, strategy simulation, writing)
3:00pm projects
3:30pm coach-learner 1-on-1 (once a week)

Prisma didn’t copy and paste a bricks & mortar curriculum to online videos. Instead, they’ve custom-designed their learning content.

Unlike other programs, this school places a focus on inclusion: “Each learner, regardless of disability status, develops an individualized learning plan along with their Learning Coach and family.”

They do so by adjusting individual learning plans, for example, through more structure or learning accessibility.

The school enrollment works in 6 x 5-week learning cycles per year and costs $7415 a year. In addition, Prisma offers financial support options to support 40% of learners in each cohort.

Prisma was founded by serial entrepreneurs and parents Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard. They built Prisma as a quest to reimagine school and for their children.

I rate this approach 4/5 — Here’s why:

Prisma mastered many aspects I missed at Sora and Galileo.

Most importantly, their curriculum is holistic. They didn’t transfer the core curriculum to the online world but created their own learning framework consisting of:

Foundational knowledge (language literacy, numeracy, history, technology literacy, and science principles)
Powers (creativity, critical thinking, communication)
Perspectives (global perspective, empathy & compassion, mindfulness)
Practices (collaboration, design thinking, reflection, discussions, self-care)
Mindset (self-efficacy, emotional awareness, purpose, growth mindset, ownership & self-direction, love of learning).

Prisma also mastered to include physical education in a virtual learning environment. They acknowledge the difficulty of physical online education but have found three solutions that seem to work for their students:

Live dance, yoga, and fitness instructors
Fitness and other off-screen breaks that encourage movement
Fitness badges by joining athletic endeavors in their local community

Moreover, they relied on learning evidence and eliminated grading: “There has been considerable research showing that grades reduce kids’ intrinsic motivation and encourage them to do ‘just enough’ rather than their best.”

I’d be curious what students say about the rather big group size with 50–70 learners per cohort and 12–18 learners per coach. In an online setting, this appears to make personalization difficult.

While their site states they’re a global online school, admission is only open to anyone who can operate in US time zones. So unless parents want to mess up with their child’s sleep cycle, Prisma is instead a US online school.

Prisma is the ideal online school for US homeschoolers and kids who don’t like traditional schooling.

In Conclusion

The application of Connected Learning Networks is still very young. Sora and Galileo started in 2018, Prisma in 2020.

These three online schools point us towards the future of education — personalized, global, and student-centered.

Yet, we mustn’t forget the entry barriers. To provide fair innovative learning experiences, all students need equitable access to devices, reliable wifi, and a safe place to learn.

Unless we focus on providing these resources to all students, Connected Learning Networks will further increase the digital gap among income levels.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Antilibraries Are the Better Libraries

July 2, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Here’s how they can accelerate your learning.

Do you ever feel guilty about the book staple you haven’t read? Polymath Nassim Nicholas Taleb says you shouldn’t:

“Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.”

Yes, you read it right. The pages you haven’t studied indeed add value to your life. Here’s why.

Antilibraries protect you from ignorance

When you just read a few books in your life, you’re likely aware of what you don’t know. But once you’ve read through some hundred books, you tend to become ignorant.

You might be too confident, too sure, and less aware of the things you don’t know. That’s where antilibraries come into play.

The books you haven’t read (and will never read) assemble your antilibrary.

They represent unknowledge and are the best cure for overconfidence. Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes:

“A private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool.”

Antilibraries help you overcome the biggest enemy

The illusion of knowledge — the things you think you know — is learning’s biggest enemy. The authors of the learning bible ‘Make it Stick’ write:

“The illusion of mastery is an example of poor metacognition: what we know about what we know. Being accurate in your judgment of what you know and don’t know is critical for decision making.”

Stuart Firestein, professor of Biology at Columbia University, adds an important point:

“We know a lot of stuff but of course there is more stuff that we don’t know. And not only is there more stuff that we don’t know — but the more we know, the more we increase the amount of stuff we don’t know, because there was all that stuff that we didn’t know that we didn’t know before. […]

An image I always like is of a circle of knowledge — but as the circle grows, as the diameter increases, so does the circumference that’s in contact with all that darkness outside the circle of light — that ignorance.”

When you’re convinced, you know something, learning something new means you have to change your mind.

People who don’t want to change their minds keep stuck in the same place. So overcoming our egos is one of the big learning challenges.

Antilibraries accelerate your learning

“You will never read all those books,” friends say when they look at my want-to-read list. The list grows by 2–3 books every day.

My friends are right. Even though I read 1–2 books a week, I will only get through some of them.

But that’s the point: My antilibrary is a constant reminder of what I don’t know. It helps me stay curious and humble. Psychologist Adam Grant writes:

“No matter how much brainpower you have, if you lack the motivation to change your mind, you’ll miss many occasions to think again.”

How to move forward

Don’t ever feel discouraged by the books you haven’t read. Instead, see them as a reminder to be humble and curious. Combined, they’re the essential ingredients for life-long learning.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?
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This Quick Mental Model Can Improve How You Navigate Life

June 2, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Understanding entropy changed the way I think.

“With every birthday, life gets more complicated,” my wise friend said last Sunday. When I asked why he replied:

“When I was a child, I thought the world made more sense the older you get. But with every year, the world becomes more complex. Life feels like a growing puzzle while you’re struggling to put the pieces into the right places.”

His words lingered with me long after the weekend. Does life get messier the older we get?

Murphy’s law says, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” But once you research further, you find a deeper truth.

While pieces might just fall into the right places, most of the time, they don’t. And that’s not bad luck.

This quick read will help you regain trust and support a calmer and happier life.

What You Should Know About Entropy

According to Dan Brown entropy is just a fancy way to say things fall apart. I disagree. Entropy is more than that.

Imagine you open a big puzzle and dump the pieces on your floor. What are the chances every piece will fall into the right places?

Theoretically, it’s possible. But the likelihood is close to zero. Unless you hit the jackpot probability, the pieces won’t fall in perfect order.

There’s a single state where everything falls in order but nearly infinite states in disorder. Congrats — you just grasped entropy’s quintessence.

Entropy is a measure of disorder and randomness for even smaller units than your puzzle pieces.

Physicist Ludwig Boltzmann says entropy is a measure of the number of possible arrangements of atoms and molecules of a system, that comply with the macroscopic condition of the system.

Entropy is about probabilities. And as time moves forward, more possibilities emerge.

The second law of thermodynamics confirms what my wise friend felt: entropy will always increase over time. Life gets more chaotic when you grow older.

“The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time.”

— Stephen Hawking

Believing life gets less messy with age is a waste of energy. The English scientist Arthur Eddington said: “ If your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

Now you know about entropy’s existence. But what does it mean for you?

What This Universal Law Means for Your Life

You can’t go back in time. You can’t reverse entropy and reduce complexity, uncertainty, and chaos. Entropy is present in every aspect of life.

Here’s a helpful metaphor by Tom Stoppard: “When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before.”

For every step you take, most scenarios won’t bring you to your desired destination. Nevertheless, you can’t go back in time and reverse it.

A tidy room gets dirty; your computer breaks, your relationship ends, you lose a piece of your life’s puzzle. In all of these cases, life isn’t against you. It’s entropy at its best.

The question isn’t how to stop entropy. It’s how you navigate through life despite its existence.

“The ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order.”

— Steven Pinker

How You Can Use Entropy to Your Advantage

Adopt John Green’s mindset: “Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything. The chair I’m sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I’m going to fall apart, probably before this chair. And you’re going to fall apart.

The cells and organs and systems that make you — they came together, grew together, and so must fall apart. The Buddha knew one thing science didn’t prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases. Things fall apart.”

Don’t expect things to stay the way they are. Don’t feel like life’s against you when things become chaotic or complex.

Any disorder or chaos isn’t your personal mistake. It’s the universe’s default. Any order is unnatural, temporary, and subject to change.

Sounds scary? When you imagine the opposite, you see it shouldn’t. In a world without entropy, everything would always stay the same. Rooms wouldn’t get dirty, things wouldn’t break and people wouldn’t change.

Life would become predictable.

In a world without entropy, creativity and innovation wouldn’t exist.

Whether you run a business, have kids, or look for meaning in life —the next time you face a problem, know that life doesn’t work against you.

Once you know disorder is the default, you can decide how and where you want to use your energy to create stability.

Use attention and care to foster your relationship, clean your house so it won’t get messier, build an emergency fund so you’re forearmed against unpleasant surprises. Use energy to create your desired state of order.

Final Thoughts

My friend was right. Things get more complicated. With every birthday, the degree of disorder and randomness increases. Statistically, more things turn out different than your version of “right.”

But life doesn’t conspire against you. It’s only entropy doing its job.

This mental model helped me reach my goals and stop being so hard on myself. I hope it does the same for you.

Want to join a community of lifelong learners? Subscribe free to The Learn Letter. Each Wednesday, you’ll receive the best in your inbox. My newsletter will make you find tools and resources that help you on your path to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Elon Musk Disliked His Kids’ Schools — So He Started His Own

May 29, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Is he quietly revolutionizing education?

Image edited by the author (Source: Duncan.Hull — CC BY-SA 4.0)

“So you want to keep your kids away from regular schools?” a reporter asked Elon Musk in an interview.

You know Musk’s mindset: If he doesn’t like something, he builds his own versions — cars, rockets, highways, energy companies.

Musk replied: “I just didn’t see the regular schools weren’t doing the things I thought should be done. I thought, let’s see what we can do. Maybe creating a school would be better.”

In 2014, Elon Musk asked Josh Dahn, a former Teach for All Fellow and his kid’s teacher at the time, if he’d start a better school with him at SpaceX. Dahn agreed. The school Ad Astra, Latin for ‘to the stars,’ was born.

Ad Astra School’s Two Core Principles

Musk reimagined education on First Principles thinking: boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there instead of reasoning by analogy.

Instead of accepting the prices of rockets, Musk asked himself, “What’s a rocket made of?” He listed the components and calculated the costs. He found that raw materials were nearly 100 times cheaper. He decided to build his own rockets instead of buying some.

For education, Musk came up with these two principles.

1) Batch children by ability instead of age.

Regular schools batch children by age, assuming it’s is the most important denominator. Traditional school systems expect students of the same age to learn at the same speed. Musk disagrees with age segregation:

“Kids have different abilities at different times. It makes more sense to cater the education to match their aptitudes and abilities.”

2) Don’t teach to the tool. Teach to the problem.

Ever asked a teacher why you learn something? Most answers don’t go beyond you’ll need this..someday. If the relevance isn’t clear, learning feels irrelevant.

Learning to use tools is pointless and boring unless those tools help you solve a real problem. Listing the tools you need to take an engine apart isn’t the same as trying to disassemble the engine yourself. By doing the work, you see the tool’s relevance as you go.

This EdTech Startup Scales Musk’s Ad Astra School

A few years later, Chrisman Frank, Dahn’s former colleague at ClassDojo, visited Ad Astra. He fell in love with one part of the school — Synthesis.

In 2020, Frank convinced Dahn to spin off Synthesis as a for-profit company. Frank’s vision was to scale the learning software and develop a generation of super thinkers. Here’s how it works.

Synthesis is a simulation-based learning experience built around complex team games. Students work through case studies, simulations, and game-based challenges.

While playing, kids teach themselves how to win. In the process, they learn new problem-solving skills. Two game examples:

Art for All. Students compete in an auction game for the best art exhibits. The simulation covers negotiation and covers mental models such as auction theory and the winner’s curse.
Fire! In this collaborative game, students fight forest fires with varying conditions. It covers mental models such as positive-sum vs. zero-sum games.

In a recent podcast episode Chrisman Frank, Synthesis CEO, and Ana Fabrega, Chief Evangelist, shared details about ‘the most innovative learning experience.’

Replacing Lectures and Books with Software and Games

Lectures remain the dominant teaching method in most schools. But they don’t allow for dialogue, discussions, and disagreement. Instead of training students to become active thinkers, schools train them to become passive listeners.

Books don’t train for problem-solving. From my time as a Maths teacher, I remember ‘real-world’ textbook examples. But students knew I had the right solution in my teacher’s book. Reality is more complex than right or wrong. Most schools teach students to follow the rules as opposed to thinking for themselves.

Synthesis doesn’t design simulations for content but for the experience. Simulations are complex and have no right answers. 18–20 kids work in groups with one facilitator. But facilitators don’t lecture. The student groups explore and learn game rules on their own.

The idea of the simulations is to change the way kids approach real-life problems and prepare them to navigate the complexity and chaos that comes with life.

Students make decisions that have consequences and meaning. They have to understand trade-offs and analyze their choices where there is no binary answer — and the teacher doesn’t have it either.

Expectations Outside Students’ Comfort Zones

Fleas can jump 8 inches high, but when put in a closed jar for three days, they will never again jump higher than the lid’s height. Their offspring mimics their parents and settles on the same height.

A school system’s low expectations are like flea training. Low expectations are a glass ceiling for children and one of the fastest ways to fail them.

Synthesis claims to have in-built high expectations that make kids step outside of their comfort zone.

At Synthesis, there is no teacher to ask for the correct answer when things don’t work. The students know the teaching team trusts to solve these challenges.

Fabrega says children crave complexity. She describes after a while; kids feel comfortable with all the uncertainty. Synthesis teaches kids to feel comfortable being uncomfortable.

Using the Super Mario Effect for Faster Learning

As a teacher, I fostered my student’s growth mindset. I planned entire lessons around it and focused on praising efforts instead of outcomes. I showed my students mistakes help us learn.

Yet, the system beat me. When a kid received a bad grade, they felt demotivated. When mistakes mean you get a worse grade I can’t blame children for trying to avoid them.

The question is: How can you frame a learning process so you’re not obsessed with failure?

Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer turned Youtube star, explored this question and says games are the answer: “The focus and obsession are about beating the game, not about how dumb you might look. And as a direct result of that attitude — of learning from but not being focused on the failures — we got really good, and we learned a ton in a really short amount of time.”

Rober continues: “It feels natural to ignore the failures and try again in the same way a toddler will want to get up and try to walk again or in the same way you want to keep playing Super Mario Brothers.”

Other research attests to the power of game-based learning. Synthesis applied this insight. They reframed the learning process and created game-based learning experiences.

The result: fear of failure isn’t a problem anymore.

Fabrega says: “When mistakes are not penalized, people are more likely to just keep trying. And if you keep trying, then naturally, you have more chances of eventually succeeding.”

“The more we can gamify the process of learning, the better.” — Elon Musk

Did Elon Musk Quietly Revolutionize Education?

Elon Musk did his thing again. He saw something that didn’t work well and changed it. From being unhappy with his kid’s obsolete education, he planted a seed to innovate the education sector.

The idea that our school system was built for the industrial age and the need for a paradigm shift isn’t new. Schools teach to follow instructions when reality has changed. Yet, systemic change is slow.

Musk’s assets and influence enabled people to rethink and rebuild learning environments. Their aspiration to put students’ learning experience front and center is great. If only half of what the kids say is true, Musk’s initiative is doing a great job on this.

Ad Astra recently changed into Astra Nova. Their philosophy is honorable: student centricity, a value for individual abilities, praising curiosity, and encouraging problem-solving and critical thinking:

“What if students were taken seriously and their time well spent? Astra Nova believes in meaningful student experiences across age levels and domains.”

I couldn’t agree more — there’s no reason any child should not enjoy learning.

Want to join a community of lifelong learners? Subscribe free to The Learn Letter. Each Wednesday, you’ll receive the best in your inbox. This newsletter will make you find tools and resources that help you on your path to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Mastering the Diderot Effect Can Help You Stop Wanting More

May 11, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

How to get off the consumer escalator

Photo by Victoria Borodinova from Pexels

Have you ever wondered how your life would change if you received $50,000?

Denis Diderot, a French philosopher, had lived his previous 52 years in poverty. But in 1765, when an Empress of Russia wanted to buy Diderot’s books, everything changed.

From one day to another, Diderot got $53,000 plus a monthly income to spare. And so he did what any good philosopher would do — buying a new scarlet robe. And that’s when things started going wrong.

How the Diderot Effect Makes You Buy Things, You Don’t Need

Diderot’s new clothing was beautiful. In fact, it was so beautiful; everything else he owned looked misplaced. In his words: “All is now discordant. No more coordination, no more unity, no more beauty.”

So he bought things that matched his new robe’s beauty: a stunning rug from Syria, unique sculptures, a shiny kitchen table, and a magnificent mirror.

When you have money to spend, you see what Diderot calls “a void disagreeable to the eye. There was a vacant corner next to my window. This corner asked for a writing desk, which it obtained.”

Diderot’s behavior coined what we now know as The Diderot Effect. Buying new things can lead to a spiraling consumption of complementary goods. As a result, you crave for more and more things to feel happy and content.

Unlike Diderot, I never lived in poverty, but everything changed when my income quadrupled in 2020.

From one day to another, I had money to spare. While I followed my mentor’s recommendations and invested most of it, I also bought a lot of stuff. I upgraded my desk with a new monitor and noise-canceling headphones.

For the monitor, I also needed a better webcam. And for the webcam, additional cable clips, and sockets, so everything looked clean. I was trapped in a vicious consumer circle.

But even if you don’t get an unexpected sum of money, you likely feel other possessions should match your new possessions:

You buy a new suit and have to get a belt to match.
You buy a new phone and suddenly need insurance, a protective case, new headphones, or a second charger.
You upgrade a part of your home and suddenly need the new decor to match it.

Juliet Schor, a professor for sociology, compares the effect to an escalator:

“When the acquisition of each item on a wish list adds another item, and more, to our “must-have” list, the pressure to upgrade our stock of stuff is relentlessly unidirectional, always ascending.”

How to Get Off the Consumer Escalator

There are a few things you can do to break free from The Diderot Effect.

Awareness. If you realize you’re in the consuming spiral, you reclaim your decision power. Once you understand marketing mechanisms, you’ll likely stop buying luxury brands. Not because you’re wasting your money but because you’ll feel foolish doing so.

Self-imposed restraints. Voluntarily change your environment. Stay away from malls, catalogs, online shops, or shopaholic friends.

Durability. Buy things not because of novelty but in terms of how long they can help you. Once you are emotionally attached, it’s harder to replace them with new stuff.

Additional costs and tradeoffs. Before you buy something new, think about the implications and consequences. Does your current software run on a new computer? What else do you need if you acquire that thing you want?

Downgrading exclusivity. New things don’t reflect prestige but ignorance. As Juliet Schor says: “What if, when we looked at a pair of Air Jordans, we thought, not of a magnificent basketball player, but of the company’s deliberate strategy to hook poor inner-city kids into an expensive fashion cycle?”

Final Thoughts

Buying new things can make you dissatisfied with what you have. You’ll end up in a spiraling consumption pattern that has severe psychological and environmental impacts.

As Denis Diderot once said:

“My friends, keep your old friends. My friends, fear the touch of wealth. Let my example teach you a lesson. Poverty has its freedoms; opulence has its obstacles.”

If you’re serious about breaking the consumer spiral, start with the suggested steps and free yourself from the shackles of ever wanting more stuff you don’t need.

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How Better Non-Fiction Books Would Look Like

May 3, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Using learning design to make knowledge stick with us.

By inventing the printing press in 1440, Johannes Gutenberg made books scalable. Since then, our means to record, store, and access text information haven’t changed much. The 1993 invention of PDFs and the 2010s commercialization of e-books didn’t innovate the medium itself. Books still consist of words forming paragraphs and chapters.

I love reading. In the past months, I explored evidence-based reading strategies and avid readers’ habits like Bill Gates, Richard Feynman, and Ali Abdaal. It wasn’t until I discovered Andy Matuschak’s blog that I grasped the limited nature of the medium itself.

Andy Matuschak is a software engineer, designer, and researcher who helped build iOS at Apple and led R&D at Khan Academy. He works on technologies that expand what people can think and do. After reading his evergreen note systems and his exploratory ed-tech solutions, you might agree with me on his humble brilliancy. The quotes in this article are from his essay on books.

Why Books Don’t Work

Books are designed on the flawed assumption that people absorb knowledge by reading sentences. Your own experience might show learning doesn’t work that way.

How much can you truly remember from your last read non-fiction book? What can you recall from ‘Thinking Fast and Slow,’ ‘Sapiens,’ or ‘Good Economics for Hard Times’? Andy describes what we often recognize in conversations about non-fiction books.

“But just as often, as I grasp about, I’ll realize I had never really understood the idea in question, though I’d certainly thought I understood when I read the book. Indeed, I’ll realize that I had barely noticed how little I’d absorbed until that very moment. “

He describes what cognitive scientists call the illusion of knowledge. Often, we feel like we understood something, while in truth, we barely grasped a concept. Many of us fail to connect the dots to facilitate deep understanding. Reflecting on his inability to remember content from non-fiction books, Andy writes:

“All this suggests a peculiar conclusion: as a medium, books are surprisingly bad at conveying knowledge, and readers mostly don’t realize it.”

So, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey are wrong when they praise books’ power? Don’t we expand our minds by reading through pearls of wisdom of philosophers, business leaders, and humble geniuses?

We might. But we aren’t as effective as we wish.

When we look at how humans learn, we find books don’t work in our favor. Words on paper build on a concept called transmission — the idea that knowledge can be directly transmitted from pages to the reader’s mind.

No idea could be further from the truth. Our brains don’t work like recording devices, and we barely learn through consumption.

This isn’t the mistake of authors who don’t write great content — it’s the nature of the book medium itself. What helps us better understand and remember what we read?

How to Make Books Work For You

Thinking about thinking helps readers understand and better remember new knowledge. Here’s how meta-cognition while reading would look and sound like according to Andy:

“The process is often invisible. These readers’ inner monologues have sounds like: “This idea reminds me of…,” “This point conflicts with…,” “I don’t really understand how…,” etc. If they take some notes, they’re not simply transcribing the author’s words: they’re summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing.”

He describes a truth we often forget. Learning is not visible and works best when it feels slow and difficult.

Non-fiction books don’t have built-in learning mechanisms. Readers need to plan, execute, and monitor how they think and engage with the book’s ideas and principles. They have to do the meta-learning work on their own.

Thinking about thinking is challenging. It tasks time, practice, and effort. And as this peer-reviewed study shows, many people struggle to meta-learn while reading. Adults overestimate their reading comprehension. Andy states:

“When books do work, it’s generally for readers who deploy skillful metacognition to engage effectively with the book’s ideas.”

How Better Books Would Look Like

Books that work for us would build on existing insights from learning theory and cognitive science. How can we design mediums to nudge us into meta-learning habits?

We know that effective learning strategies include retrieval, elaboration, spaced repetition, interleaving, self-testing, and reflection. A better medium would design the user’s journey around it.

Andy’s book “Quantum computing for the very curious” is the first effort towards a better composition. Reading his medium doesn’t feel like reading a book. The explanatory text is tightly woven with brief interactive review sessions to exploit the ideas they introduced.

“Reading it means reading a few minutes of text, then quickly testing your memory about everything you’ve just read, then reading for a few more minutes, or perhaps scrolling back to reread certain details, and so on.

Here we have self-testing, a tool that helps you overcome the illusion of knowledge. Spaced repetition is also part of the book’s design:

Reading Quantum Country also means repeating those quick memory tests in expanding intervals over the following days, weeks, and months. If you read the first chapter, then engage with the memory tests in your inbox over the following days, we expect your working memory will be substantially less taxed when reading the second chapter.

Lastly, Andy’s book also includes the practice of interleaving — a switch of a topic before a completed task. Alternate working on different problems feels more difficult as it facilitates forgetting, a process needed to make information stick to our long-term memories.

What’s more, the interleaved review sessions lighten the metacognitive burden normally foisted onto the reader: they help readers see where they’re absorbing the material and where they’re not.”

While this is an interesting idea towards improving written information, the future of books is still unresolved. Current books don’t work in favor of human memory and learning. So, how do you change your reading game to make non-fiction books stick?

The Butterfly Effect: How Tiny Changes Massively Impact Outcomes

April 25, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Embrace the chaotic nature of life.

Have you ever wondered how things would have gone differently if you tweaked your starting condition just a tiny bit?

Tiny changes can lead to entirely different results.

In 2013 I failed my undergrad studies’ most important exams by 0.25 points. I had to wait for six months before I was allowed to retake it. I was furious and disappointed. I doubted my aptitude and looked for things to do instead of studying.

I paused my studies for a year and worked for a startup in India, a German bank in Shanghai, and an education project in Argentina. These experiences shaped my drive for education and entrepreneurship — the things I work for now.

But what if I hadn’t failed the exam? I would have followed the beaten track, doing an internship at KPMG or PWC and pursue a corporate career. A minimal change in the starting conditions (such as 0.25 points in an exam) can have a tremendous effect on the outcome.

Understanding the butterfly effect can alter your perspective on decision-making and predictability.

The Butterfly Effect — And Why Nobody Can Accurately Predict the Weather

“You could not remove a single grain of sand from its place without thereby … changing something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole.”

— Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Many people have heard of the butterfly effect because of the American science fiction film from 2004. Ashton Kutcher travels back in time to change his troubled childhood.

But only a few know that the movie misinterprets the effect. The storyline suggests you can calculate the effect with certainty, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The butterfly effect is about the unpredictability of specific systems.

The concept is called the butterfly effect because a small act like a butterfly flapping its wings and cause a typhoon. And while the metaphor is exaggerated, small events can be a catalyst depending on starting conditions, as Lorenz’s discovery shows.

Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist, mathematician, and professor at MIT, discovered the Butterfly Effect while observing his weather prediction model in the 1960s.

He entered initial conditions slightly different from each other into his computer program (0.506 instead of 0.506127). As a surprising result, these tiny differences led to completely different predictions. A tiny change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.

“I found that the new values at first repeated the old ones, but soon afterward differed by one and then several units in the last decimal place, and then began to differ in the next to the last place and then in the place before that. […] The initial round-off errors were the culprits; they were steadily amplifying until they dominated the solution.”

— Edward Lorenz in The Essence of Chaos.

A small error at the start can magnify over time (Source: Created by Author).

“It’s impossible for humans to measure everything infinitely accurately,” says Robert Devaney, a mathematics professor at Boston University, in an interview with the Boston Globe. “And if you’re off at all, the behavior of the solution could be completely off.”

So what Lorenz showed is that even if we think we have precise initial conditions, certain systems aren’t predictable. That’s why meteorologists can’t predict the weather beyond a few weeks.

Lorenz concluded that most weather predictions are inaccurate because we never know the exact starting conditions. In essence, the butterfly’s wing is a symbol of an unknown change.

Examples of the Butterfly Effect that Changed the World Forever

But there’s more to this effect than my statistics exam and inaccurate weather predictions. The butterfly effect can change history, and knowing these examples helps will help you be more realistic about forecasts and decision-making.

Franz Ferdinand

In 1914 a gunshot reshaped the world. It was June 28, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand had just escaped a bomb attack aimed at his car. To save Ferdinand from further attacks, the driver was supposed to change the route — yet he didn’t get the message and took a wrong turn. Franz Ferdinand and his wife were killed, which set off a chain of events that led to World War I.

What if the driver would have gotten the message?

Covid-19

The World Health Organization supports the hypothesis that the Covid-19 outbreak started through a transmission from a living animal to a human host.

What if there were no living animals in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market?

Adolf Hitler

In 1907 and 1908, he applied for art school but was rejected twice. Historians and scholars argue that these rejections formed him from an aspiring bohemian artist to the human manifestation of evil. We don’t know how things would have gone, but for sure, humanity would have been better of if Hitler spent his lifetime drawing watercolors.

What if the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna accepted young Adolf Hitler as a student?

Final Thoughts

Even though we love to think we can predict outcomes by our actions, the butterfly effect shows we can’t. Seemingly insignificant moments can shape entire destinies.

We want our world to be comprehensible, but nature proofs us wrong. Our world is chaotic and can change from moment to moment. We’d love to use science to make precise predictions and get clear answers about the world we live in — yet science suggests we can’t.

Science can help us understand the universe, but as the butterfly effect shows, it does so by unraveling the limits of our understanding.

Yes, we can aim to create excellent starting conditions, but we don’t have the power to predict the outcome.

Small imprecisions have a significant impact — our world is unpredictable. If there’s one thing to be learned here, it’s that we can stop obsessing over outcomes.

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The More You Learn the Richer Your Life

April 14, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

Three ways to make learning a daily habit

Naval Ravikant once said:

“The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner.”

And while life-long learning pays great dividends, many people struggle to make it a habit for life. They never learned how to learn or don’t know where to start.

Continuous learning is one of the most powerful habits you can build. The following three ideas will spark your desire to learn and help you make learning a habit you’ll stick with.

1) Create your want-to-learn list.

The best motivator to continue learning is a long list of things you want to learn in life. Similar to a want-to-read shelf, your want-to-learn list creates urgency. If you don’t realize the first two items on it, you’ll never get to all the other things you dream about.

Ask yourself, ‘What do you want to learn before you die?’ and note your answers in your journal or note-taking app. I use a simple table in Notion to collect my want-to-learns. Here’s a sneak-peak of how it looks like:

Notion Want to Learn List (Source: Eva Keiffenheim)

Don’t worry if you don’t have many learning desires in mind. The ideas will flow once you start looking for answers, and your list will grow organically.

When you write down what you want to learn, think beyond online skills. While it’s nice to know how to start and grow your newsletter, the world will become richer when diversifying your skillset.

2) Follow your curiosity.

When was the last time you did something out of pure curiosity? With full calendars, there’s not much time for undirected exploration.

Many people optimize their days for focused mode thinking — through deep work, flow states, and other work sessions. Learning can happen during focused attention. But the diffused mode is equally important.

Diffused thinking only occurs when our minds can wander, for example, during a shower or while going for a walk. While this feels like taking a brain break, our mind continues to work for us.

While you gaze through the window, your subconsciousness consolidates knowledge. It connects the dots. Stephen King writes his best novel ideas came to him while driving, showering, or walking:

“Pow! Two unrelated ideas, adolescent cruelty, and telekinesis came together, and I had an idea.”

Give your mind regular breaks and make space for exploration. Follow your curiosity — it will drive discovery. It’s the ultimate fuel for your desire to learn.

An excellent way to follow your curiosity is by asking yourself every evening, ‘Did your day help you cultivate curiosity?’

3) Ban your cell phone from the bedroom.

What if developing learning habits is about what you should do less of rather than more of? The smartest way to start learning every day is by identifying the patterns that hold you back. All you have to do is eliminate them.

If you charge your phone in your bedroom, you’re missing one of the most significant learning opportunities — reading before sleeping.

Once you ban your phone from your bedroom, you’ll realize learning is way easier than you thought.

“What I know for sure is that reading opens you up. It exposes you and gives you access to anything your mind can hold,” Oprah Winfrey once said.

And it’s true. Reading gives you access to the brightest brains on earth. Learning from the most remarkable people is the fastest way to become not only wealthy but also wise.

If I had to name a single learning habit that improved my life, it’d be reading. Books made me wealthy, transformed my sex life, expanded my worldview, and improved the way I work.

Follow your curiosity and order a few books that resonate with you. Replace your pre-sleep phone scrolling with reading, and witness how the pages will get through to you.

In Conclusion

Following these steps isn’t complex or exhausting. On the contrary: These ideas make learning fun and worthwhile.

Start and grow your want-to-learn list.
Use your curiosity as a guiding principle.
Replace your phone with a book.

Instead of feeling discouraged by all the ideas about what you could do to turn learning into an ongoing habit, enjoy experimenting in your rhythm. Think for yourself and keep the things that work for you.

Choose one or two new learning habits until you find a pattern that helps you on your journey to health, wealth, and wisdom.

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Albert Einstein Was a Genius, but a Terrible Husband

March 5, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

How his life can change the way you look at productivity.

Albert Einstein is one of the most genius contributors to science. At age 26, he discovered light exists as photons and laid the basis of nuclear energy. At 34, he published the general theory of relativity.

He was considered so brilliant that the pathologist who inspected Einstein’s dead body even stole his brain. Nowadays, when you google genius definition, you find Einstein’s name in the explanation.

But what made him a genius in the first place? When asked, Einstein replied,

“Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work.”

And while that’s the story we continue to preach, it’s only one part of the equation. Einstein’s insane productivity came at high emotional costs for the people close to him.

Einstein treated his wife as an employee he can’t fire

When studying in Switzerland, Einstein fell in love with another student named Mileva Marić, the only woman in his physics classes at ETH Zurich.

And while their first years of marriage are told to be romantic, things changed soon. According to biographer Isaacson Einstein said, “I treat my wife as an employee whom I cannot fire.”

Specifically, Einstein handed her a list of martial demands and only remained together if she agreed to the following conditions.

A) You will make sure:

— that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;

— that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;

— that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.

B) You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. Specifically, You will forego:

— my sitting at home with you;

— my going out or travelling with you.

C) You will obey the following points in your relations with me:

— you will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you reproach me in any way;

— you will stop talking to me if I request it;

— you will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.

D) You will undertake not to belittle me in front of our children, either through words or behavior.

The irony of Einstein’s popular life lessons

For preparing this article, I read through primary sources, like his letters and more recent articles on his life. And while his work is undoubtedly a great scientific contribution, we should be wary when it comes to his life lessons.

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” — Albert Einstein

Really, brother? Do you say your marriage contract is based on understanding and has not much to do with emotional force? Dude, it’s 1913. For the sake of your two young children and her own social standing, your wife can’t just leave you.

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” — Albert Einstein

Bro, I absolutely agree with your powerful quote. But here’s the catch: Are you aware that because of your marriage demands, your wife couldn’t take her exams and finish her physics studies? You treated her like a personal servant. You limited her intellectual growth.

Now what?

Historians argue Einstein also erased Mileva Marić’s contributions to the Theory of Relativity. Plus, Einstein cheated on Marić with his cousin Elsa Löwenthal whom he would eventually marry (and also cheat on).

When you remember the third point from the martial demands, you can put this into perspective: Einstein would sleep with whomever he wanted, and Marić shouldn’t expect any intimacy from him.

If there’s one life lesson he preached and practiced, it’s the following:

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” — Albert Einstein

Isaacson wrote about Einstein that “he worked as long as he could, and when the pain got too great, he went to sleep.” He even died while working.

In his biography, it says, “One of his strengths as a thinker, if not as a parent, was that he had the ability, and the inclination, to tune out all distractions, a category that to him sometimes included his children and family.”

Einstein was able to become an insanely productive monomaniac because he sacrificed his relationships.

The point is: For every successful genius, there are broken relationships we rarely hear about. So before reading the next article on Einstein’s, Musk’s, or Darwin’s productivity routines, ask yourself:

Do I see the full picture or only the productivity’s shiny side?

Ideas

Three steps to make the most of your podcast time

1) Find high quality podcasts

2) Use apps that help you remember more

3) Become a teacher by learning in public

How you can change your habits for good.

The Reason Why You Can Always Change

How to Change Your Self-Beliefs Habits

1) Be Clear About Your Why

2) Make it Incredibly Easy to Start With

3) Build a Habit Stack

4) Utilize Your Physical Environment

5) Be Kind to Yourself

In Conclusion

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

It’s not what you’ve learned at uni.

How You Can Conquer the Pyramid’s Peak

27 Prompts to Become a More Effective Learner

Four Actionable Ideas to Accelerate Your Learning

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

A quick guide that helps you find the worthy ones.

1) They Tell But Don’t Show

What to look out for instead:

2) Instructors Teach in One Direction

What to look out for instead:

3) They Ignore the Principle of Directness

What to look out for instead:

4) They Don’t Understand the Science of Learning

What to look out for instead:

Conclusion

Make metacognition work for you and become a learner for life.

The Power of Metacognition

How You Can Unlock This Learning Superpower

In Conclusion

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

How to stop clouding your judgment.

The Bias That Clouds Your Thinking

How to Rise Above the Confirmation Bias

1) Seek Contradicting Evidence

2) Dare to be wrong

3) Ask open-ended questions

4) Become a critical thinker

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Everything you know has an expiration date.

The Half-Life of Knowledge

What Most People Ignore For Too Long

How You Can Benefit from This Concept

In Summary

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

How interrupting your tasks can boost your creativity.

A brief explanation of the Zeigarnik effect

How to use the Zeigarnik effect for you

1) Better recall through interleaving

2) Boost your creativity with this trick

3) Get people’s attention with cliffhangers

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

MOOCs are dead. Here’s what’s next.

What are Cohort-Based Courses?

Why CBCs Are Better Than MOOCs

The Distinctive Learning Features

How You Can Distinguish Average from Great

7 Promising Cohort-Based-Courses

In Conclusion

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

All of them are free.

1) Refind — the 5 most relevant links.

How you can use it:

2) Bookshlf —curation by humans.

How you can use it:

3) Feedly — smarter news reader.

How you can use it:

In Conclusion

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

These organizations innovate homeschooling.

1) Primer — A home for ambitious kids.

2) Outschool — Where kids love learning.

3) Synthesis — Where kids becomeproblem-solvers.

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

How to *not* be distracted all the time.

1) Change Your Social Media Passwords

3) Synthesis — Where kids become
problem-solvers.

How to not be distracted all the time.