Knowing What You Know

51 CHAPTER 7 K NOWING W HAT Y OU K NOW What makes you say, “Now I get it!” or “I see what you mean”? You have learned something— whether it’s parallel parking a car or understanding terms in a psychology class—when you know that you know it. K nowing something and knowing that you know something are two different things. You may know things you don’t know you know—odd little facts lying around in your head like Ted Williams’ batting average or the phone number of your childhood home. On the other hand, you can think you know something that you don’t really know, like the contents of that chapter you read or lecture you heard but didn’t think about afterwards. To study effectively, you have to realize what you don’t really know. It is then that you will develop an awareness of your knowledge and learn- ing processes. What Is Awareness? Shirley read the assigned lesson on thinking for her psychology class. She felt she knew the material she studied. Yet, in class when the instructor started talking about cognition, she felt lost. She looked at Charlene sitting next to her, and whispered, “I don’t remember reading about that!” “It’s here, on page 27,” Charlene answered, showing Shirley the textbook. Shirley asked Charlene after class, “How could I think I understood something, when I didn’t?” Charlene laughed, “That’s just what the lesson was about— needing awareness so you know when you know, and know when you don’t.” Shirley shook her head, “I felt really involved reading about the experiments with the monkey in the beginning of the lesson. I guess I just skimmed over the rest of the reading, so I thought the whole lesson was on the monkey. It’s obvious that I didn’t read it carefully enough.” HOW TO STUDY 52 It is not easy to develop awareness. You must bring up to the level of consciousness things you’ve more or less taken for granted, things you’ve let lie low. Awareness is like a cog in the machinery of the brain, because it helps you move and connect other information. Another word for aware- ness is cognition. Cognition is knowing when you know something. BUILDING AWARENESS Realizing exactly how you go about mentally processing what you read and hear may not come naturally to you. It’s difficult because reading and hearing are things people do automatically. For example, someone wouldn’t say to himself, before opening a book, “I’ll open this book now and turn to the page where I left off last time. Then I’ll move my eyes across and down each page until I get to the end of this lesson ”He just does it. How do you know when you know something? How do you know for sure? How do you know, for example, that one plus one equals two? You might say, “Of course, I know it!” But—how do you know you know it? KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW 53 Use your own learning styles to build an awareness of what you know: • If you learn best by seeing: You might say,“Here’s one pencil, and here’s another pencil. I can see there are two pencils.” • If you learn best by hearing: You might say, “Here’s the sound of one pencil making a tap on the table, and here’s the sound of a second pencil tap. I hear two taps.” • If you learn best by images: You might say, “I know one plus one makes two because I picture one pencil and then the other and I see that there are two.” • If you learn best by ordering things: You might say, “The order is right. I know that I start with two individual pencils and end up with a pair.” • If you learn best by doing: You might pick up one pencil and pick up another, and say, “I see them, I feel them. Here they are, one plus one equals two.” There can be many different ways to know that you know; you just have to figure out which way is yours. PUTTING AWARENESS TO THE TEST It’s one thing to think you know, and another to actually know. Test your- self to find out how well you know something you are studying. S EEING I S B ELIEVING One way you know something is by seeing it in your head. Using images to reconstruct what you brought away from chemistry class, a good movie, or a dance recital comes naturally for many people. Charlene, who we met in the beginning of this chapter, knows she learns well using images. Read on to see how she made sense of the cognition chapter. 1. 2. 3. HOW TO STUDY 54 Charlene checked to see that she knew what she thought she knew by drawing a picture of her study material. Since the images that came to her mind were so clear she could draw a detailed and coherent picture, she was able to say, “I know that I know this because the pictures are clear in my head.” M AKING O RDER Another way to test your understanding of what you’ve studied is to review the order of events. Charlene also used an order-oriented approach to sup- plement her picture: Charlene listed events and drew a timeline to demonstrate what she absorbed from studying. This helped her notice where the part about the monkey ended and the definition of cognition began. She was able to say, “I know that the subject is changing because there is a clear sequence of events.” T HE Q UEST FOR Q UESTIONS Another way to check yourself is to come up with questions. Charlene was an extremely thorough student, and ended up answering all her own questions. Charlene came up with several questions based on her picture and timeline. She then went back to her text and answered those questions and changed her picture and timeline until they were both clear. Then, when she had no more questions, she was sure she knew the material. At that point, the picture and the timeline were clear in her mind, the order of events was clear, and the timeline and picture were obviously related. Then she was able to say, “I get it!” BUILDING ON WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW Thinking about what you’ve read or listened to helps you identify what you know, and this helps you make sense of what you studied. When you can connect new material to things you already know, you learn the material faster and remember it longer. The best way to make connections between new and old material is to use your learning styles. Use the ideas below to build on what you already know. The more connections you make between and within topics, the more coherent your study material will become. KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW 55 • If you learn best by seeing: Compare old notes to new notes; look for common words and phrases, and make connections between ideas. • If you learn best by hearing: Read your notes aloud. Listen for familiar words and phrases. Where have you heard them before? • If you learn best by making images: Draw pictures or maps of what you see when you study. Do these images bring to mind| something you’ve learned in the past? • If you learn best by order: First review old material and then take a look at a new assignment in the same subject. Make a timeline or list of events starting from the old material and working through the new. See how things progressed, or didn’t. • If you learn best by doing: Role play. If you’re reading a novel, act out the part of the hero or heroine. Does that character remind you of anyone you know? This familiarity could help you write your essay. As you try one or more of these methods, are you aware of how you are studying? Think, write, or talk about it. D ISCOVERING THE F AMILIAR Here’s a sample version of how you can use what’s familiar to help you learn and remember something that’s unfamiliar. • Skim through a page of a text you’re studying or a newspaper and find a word that’s new to you—for example, the word crumpet. • Find parts of that word you already know: crum and pet or et. • In your notebook, write down other words that have the same letters as those in the parts you’ve identified: crumb and petty. • What similar meaning is in your list of words? You might say that crumb is a small piece of food and petty describes something that doesn’t matter very much. Try It! 1. 2. 3. HOW TO STUDY 56 Now you have a general idea of what the new word could mean. For example, crumpet could mean a small piece of food that’s not important. To be sure, you may want to check your definition with the dictionary’s definition. For example, the dictionary definition of crumpet is “a light bread, often toasted.” By coming to your definition first, you’ve made what you learned meaningful to you. And you’ve used cognition. You used what you already knew! I N S HORT The first step in studying is to recognize what you know. You know when you know something when: • You can make clear images in your mind of what you’re studying. • What you’re reading or listening to follows a clear order. • You’ve answered all your own questions. KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW 57 Practice Tips The next time you study, test if you really know a paragraph: • Draw a picture or a cartoon of what the paragraph was about. Then, write a paragraph describing your picture or cartoon. How are they similar? The more similar your paragraph is to the paragraph you’re studying, the more you know the paragraph. • Make a timeline, showing the order of events in the paragraph. Check by going back to the paragraph. • Draw lines connecting the pictures to the events listed on the timeline. . do you know you know it? KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW 53 Use your own learning styles to build an awareness of what you know: • If you learn best by seeing: You. class—when you know that you know it. K nowing something and knowing that you know something are two different things. You may know things you don’t know you know odd