This learning style may surprise you

Mistakes are a part of being human. We make them, learn from them and move on. Yet, generally speaking, we don’t like making them in the first place.

Good news! Your brain learns from mistakes.

According to Charan Ranganath, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Davis, we are wired to learn from our mistakes and challenges, a phenomenon called error-driven learning. Breaking it down, computers and AI systems learn through trial and error and research has shown that it’s also effective for human learning as well. 

Other factors that influence error-driven learning are the importance of frequent testing which exposes what has been learned and what still needs to be learned, and the duration of study time. While students are often resigned to prepping for finals with all-nighters, studies have proven that redistributing those hours into shorter sessions with breaks in between results in higher test scores.  

And strange as it may seem, if learning comes effortlessly, you aren’t getting the most out of your experience. Struggling to learn something new is considered to be a good thing – it means you’re actually acquiring new information. So, the next time you’re grappling with an uncomfortable learning experience, just remember that making mistakes in the process benefits both your brain’s memory and the additional knowledge gained.

ARTICLE: MISTAKES IMPROVE MEMORY