Ever found yourself muttering under your breath while trying to solve a problem? It's not just a quirky habit. Speaking out loud to oneself, a phenomenon known as self-talk, can actually enhance learning and problem-solving capabilities. Let's delve into the science behind it.
How to employ self-explaining in your own learning
Talk to yourself
- One study shows that people who explain ideas to themselves learn almost three times more than those who don’t.
- Ask yourself questions out loud
- How will I know what I know? What do I find confusing? Do I really know this?”
- Self-talk helps us think about our thinking
Summarize
Summarizing is a simple way to engage in self-explaining, since the act of putting an idea into our own words can promote learning
- For instance, read an article in a magazine and then detailed its argument for a friend.
- You’re more likely to have learned and retained information from that article after you did it.
Make connections
One of the benefits of self-explaining is that it helps people see new links and associations
- Seeing connections helps improve memory
- When we’re explaining an idea to ourselves, we should try to look for relationships
- A lot of what you’re doing in self-explanation is trying to make connections
