Books and lectures don't work

The author’s premise is faulty. Most deep learning requires spaced repetition and practice. One unmotivated reading without study is not enough. That’s why we go to university instead of merely queuing up a list of books. Most people understand this I believe.

It's interesting how the author compares and contrasts learning from books and learning from lectures. I don't entirely disagree, but I think there's an implicit caveat here: these methods are often used inefficiently. They may be intrinsically inefficient, but I think there might be diminishing returns to designing an entirely new medium instead of encouraging a few comparatively simple - but significant - improvements to how we use what we have.

I'll use math as an example since it's what I'm most familiar with. Sheldon Axler, the author of Linear Algebra Done Right, recently released a new textbook on measure theory and integration[1]. He makes the following comment in his preface to the student:

> If you zip through a page in less than an hour, you are probably going too fast.

I loved reading that because it's true, but also because most authors of math textbooks don't spell that out for students. I don't think Guns, Germs and Steel should take an hour per page, but my point is that nonfiction material should be actively engaged with, rather than passively "absorbed." When you passively read a chapter of a math textbook you'll almost certainly fail the exercises. On the other hand if you actively read the material, attempt proofs before reading the author's, investigate how many and which definitions can be removed before a proof fails, come up with your own questions, etc. then you will master the material.

I don't know how you'd do that for a non-technical nonfiction domain, but at it's core I suspect it would dramatically improve the efficiency of learning from books. Likewise, I consider it bad technique to take notes during a lecture. If your professor is implicitly encouraging this by making it so that you have no choice but to do so in order to learn the material (i.e. some material is not in the book or easily found elsewhere, or there is idiosyncratic style), then I also consider that poor form. In my opinion you can significantly improve the efficiency of lectures as a transmission medium by having students lightly read through the relevant sections before the lecture, then actively listen with their entire attention while sitting the lecture.

I also think it would be worthwhile to have lectures recorded and uploaded for a course so students can review material without needing to rely on the book. If you combine these two mediums in the way I've suggested, I really think there is not a whole lot of improvement left to do. There might be a fundamentally novel and strictly superior way of learning, but it's hard for me to see which cognitive bases aren't covered by combining these two methods.

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1. http://measure.axler.net/MIRA10May2019.pdf

Wikipedia has a good summary of Adler's method:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book

The brain is very good at ignoring some sounds. Personally I'm fond of "white noise" generators - I have my own perfect combination of rain, wind, flowing water and nature noises that cancels everything else.

Exactly. Skimming through a book is not reading a book. Reading a book is not studying what's in a book. That's what I'd assume it's common knowledge about books.

That and the usual study techniques: you read the material once, read it again and underline the key material, maybe you write down a summary with that and/or a scheme, you memorise that a few times —possibly reading it aloud— and then you write it down in your own words.