Learning Effectively using Mental Models
How to learn better and not be overwhelmed in the information age.
What are mental models?
Simply put, mental models are explanations we build of what things are and how they work.
Let’s go through an example to conceptualize it better:
Look at the above image of how a fork and a spoon are balanced at the edge of a glass. At first glance, it might look surprising or unbelievable, but once you understand the concepts of Center of Gravity and Newton’s laws of motion, you’ll be able to provide an explanation of why this is happening and form a mental model.
And here’s the thing, next time you look at a balancing act or any other similar phenomenon, you’ll be able to pull out this mental model and form an explanation or make an analogy almost immediately without much effort thereby aiding in your decision-making process. This is what makes mental models so powerful.
There are thousands of known mental models, but we only need to conceptualize the key mental models that will help us most in our everyday life.
Mental Models are naturally evolving models[1]. We constantly modify, polish, or fine-tune them as we encounter new experiences or ideas.
Using Mental Models to Learn Effectively
Charlie Munger — vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and Warren Buffett's partner emphasized on the Importance of mental models by saying[2]:
“Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form. You’ve got to have models in your head”
This is so Powerful! It’s worth reading again and again.
You see, There is Information everywhere, and accessing it has never been so simple. To gain an edge, to stand out we need to be able to effectively use this information, and certainly, it’s not by remembering all of it. We need to make sense of this information, we need to form an explanation, we’ve got to build mental models.
And here’s something Important, In any discipline, we don’t need to understand all of the existing theory to build a mental model, we only need to focus on the key ideas, the key rules, the key 20% that’ll help us understand 80% of the model[3].
Elon Musk also has a similar theory on learning effectively. When asked how he is able to pack so much knowledge, he said[4]:
“One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to”
Most of the problems we encounter are recurrent. Once we’ve laid solid foundations of the fundamentals, and built mental models, we’ll be able to relate to them and use them to make an effective decision.
Building Mental Models requires you to put in the effort and understand the concepts, but once you’ve laid the foundation, you’ve another tool in your toolbox that you can pull out anytime you are solving a problem or making a decision.
Using Mental Models we can learn better, and also teach better
When we are trying to teach, our focus should be to understand the existing mental models of the student and teach the new Information in such a way that the student will be able to relate to them. This requires thinking and planning ahead, but is much more effective than spurting out Isolated Information or facts. Stories and analogies make a great example.
This brings us to the end. There’s been a great deal of research done on Mental Models, and also the key mental models that’ll help us in our everyday life have been carefully studied. I’ve linked to some of them below.
Hope you’ve enjoyed it! Let’s connect on Twitter.
References
- Some Observations on Mental Models, Donald A. Norman
- Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions, Farnam Street
- Pareto Principle or the law of the vital few
- Here’s Elon Musk’s Secret for learning anything faster, Inc.com
