Learning Pyramid – Why It’s Misleading And How To Use It Better

Learning Pyramid

It’s a sunny morning and you are excited about your day at school (I know you aren’t, just go along with it for now). That day, your teacher introduces you to something that can change how you learn – the learning pyramid. You take a look at the learning pyramid, excited to see what it is all about and you see this:

The teacher tells you that the percentage you see represents how much of the material you are studying you memorize, depending on the method you use.

You look carefully and observe what you see, expecting it to be another garba… I mean useful thing the school teaches you. To your surprise, this learning pyramid actually makes sense, and you think it could be useful.

This was how I was first introduced to the learning pyramid. It’s just that it wasn’t a sunny day, nor did I learn about it in school, and I was impressed by it for about 10 minutes (but this scenario looked good, don’t you agree?)

Why learning pyramid is misleading

Why would I say that?

When you look at it, everything makes perfect sense. When you think back on the time you were listening to a lecture you could barely remember anything. But when you were teaching someone something, you could remember much more of it.

Doesn’t that mean that the learning pyramid makes sense?

Yes and no. The reason you can remember something you teach is because you are using active learning. That means that you are actively trying to understand what you are trying to memorize.

Let’s stop here for a second.

The learning pyramid focuses on how well you can memorize something. But that is not what I am trying to teach you. There are better ways to memorize something than using these methods. My main focus will be to show you how effective active learning is and how to use it in different ways.

So for the rest of the article, I will replace memorize with understand. Instead of “you memorize 5% of the material while listening to a lecture”, it will be “you understand 5% of the material while listening to a lecture” (I know that I am changing the whole definition of the learning pyramid, but trust me, this way it will become much more useful).

On the topic of percentages, can someone tell me why they all look so perfect? They all end with either number 0 or number 5 (that is suspicious, but it doesn’t matter to us, at least for now).

Active learning

Let’s get back to the important part – active learning. Look at the first 4 parts of the learning pyramid. The most common theme between them is that you don’t really have to think too much when you choose to study with any of these ways.

You can listen to a lecture while pretending to care. You could read through the material and not think about why something was written. Even in the case of the audio-visual, you can just stand there and think about how you understood what you saw and listened to. The same goes for demonstration as well.

Now, take a look at the last three parts of the learning pyramid.

When you are discussing the material you are studying, you have to think about what you are going to say. While practising what you are learning, you again, have to think about what to do. When you are teaching others you need to be able to answer the questions they have, which makes you think about what you are learning.

The difference is clear.

It’s obvious that you will be able to understand much more when you are actively learning the material. When you are using the last three methods you have no choice but to use active learning (I suppose you could refuse to study, so you do have a choice).

So the learning pyramid is not misleading?

It is misleading. Just because you don’t have to think too much when using the first four methods, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t think. You can use them to actively learn. What’s more, depending on how you study, these methods could be better for you than the last three methods.

This is why the learning pyramid is misleading.

How to turn passive learning methods into active ones

As previously stated (literally not even a minute ago) there is a way to turn passive learning methods into active ones. You don’t have to go out of your way to teach others so you can better understand the material, there are simpler ways to get a good understanding of the material (although if you want to teach others, be my guest, nothing is stopping you).

One important thing before we start: While it is true that the first four methods can be made to help with active learning, that doesn’t mean the last 3 are bad. As long as the way you study promotes active learning I consider it a good learning method.

Lecture – 5%

It’s normal that the lecture gets the lowest … let’s just call it score (I am not going to write the lowest percentage, that just sounds weird). If you think about it, most students don’t even want to attend lectures. What’s more what if you couldn’t sleep and had a lecture the next day? Do you think you will be able to understand something while thinking about your reunion with your bed?

That is why your main goal shouldn’t be to understand the whole material. When attending a lecture your goal should be to try and understand the big picture. Try to listen (I know it can be hard, especially if the lecture is boring) and find the key concepts.

This will be a great starting point when you seriously start to focus and study the material. By seriously focusing I mean:

• When you don’t feel annoyed while trying to study while everyone around you talks about some celebrity you never even heard of
• When you don’t feel like you are half dead because you didn’t get any sleep last night
• Or when you don’t have to convince your friends you don’t have time to hang out because you already messed up on the last 6 exams (if you have no friends, then this isn’t a problem for you)

Reading – 10%

Do you remember when I said that I was impressed by the learning pyramid for only 10 minutes?

This is the reason why. I study mostly by reading. And you are telling me that reading gets a score of 10? Something is definitely not right with this learning pyramid.

While I did just spend 49 words ranting about how reading got a low score, it’s kind of true. If you are just reading the material you won’t be able to understand all that much.

Instead, you need to actively think about what you are reading.

While you are learning a new material, every time you read through a paragraph, stop and try to recall what you read. Try to explain it in your own words to see if you really understand it. This way you actively think about the material you are reading.

You could ask yourself some questions after reading a paragraph for better understanding. Something like:

• What have I read? 
• Can I explain it to a five-year-old? 
• What are the key concepts? 
• How would I say it in my own words?

This is much more effective than passive reading and re-reading of the material. You don’t have to take my word for it, try it for yourself.

Audio-visual – 20%

You could pretty much apply everything you read about reading to audio-visuals. Watch a video or listen to an audio for a few minutes, stop and try to recall what you saw/heard in your own words.

If this is the same as reading why would we need audio-visuals?

Everyone learns differently. For some reading is the preferred method. For others it’s audio-visuals.

Don’t just assume which category you fall into.

Try both methods and see which one works best for you. Trying the method yourself is the best way to test it’s effectiveness.

Demonstration – 30%

There are two types of demonstrations – a good one and a bad one. Well besides that, there is a live demonstration and a demonstration that is not live (kind of obvious, huh?). While this might sound trivial there is one key difference between those two:

You can’t see a live demonstration again.

If your professor presents a demonstration, you won’t be able to watch it again unless it is filmed. That makes it a really bad learning method. If you don’t understand what is happening or don’t understand the professor’s explanation, then … good luck, I guess? (I hope you find something on the internet to help you)

If you are watching a demonstration, the best way to actively learn from it is to guess what is going to happen next. For example, let’s say the professor is doing an experiment to see if salt in water conducts electricity.

Before the demonstration takes place try to guess what happens, on your own, based on the knowledge you have. If your guess is incorrect, ask the professor what about your train of thought was wrong. This is the best way to take advantage of a live demonstration.

If are just watching a filmed demonstration, you could do the same, but this time you will have to rely on the internet to provide you with a good explanation (you could always ask some AI for the answer, and what happens, happens).

However, you have the bonus of being able to re-watch the demonstration as many times as you need. Use that to your advantage. If you don’t understand the demonstration, maybe you missed something important that could be the key to understanding the whole concept.

Learning pyramid – active learning methods

The three methods that are considered active learning methods in the learning pyramid are:

1. Discussion
2. Practice doing
3. Teach others

These methods naturally promote active learning and that is why they get such high scores. Since there is no point in explaining how these methods work (it’s literally in their names) and we already know that they are active learning methods, can’t we just skip them?

Not really. Remember when I said that the learning pyramid was misleading? That doesn’t only apply to passive learning methods, but the active ones as well.

If you are not engaged enough when using these methods, then they can turn into passive learning methods, making them no better than the other 4 passive learning methods. If you are going to use these methods instead of the first 4, then make sure to use them in the right way.

Discussion – 50%

Imagine that you are in a group of 5 students and are assigned the task of discussing the meaning of life (kind of random, I know). As the other 4 students give their opinions and argue with each other about who is right, you just sit there and wait for the class to be over. If someone asks you about something you just agree with whatever they are saying to not cause any unnecessary trouble.

This doesn’t look like active learning, now does it?

If you are not participating in the discussion, that score of 50 next to discussion doesn’t mean anything. If you are serious about learning the material and there is a discussion, throw your opinion out there and see what others think. Even if everyone disagrees, you can ask the reason why and learn from it (there is always the option to stubbornly believe that you are right, don’t ever forget that).

Practice Doing – 75%

I don’t really know what to make of this one. On one hand, practising what you are learning is a great way to understand it. On the other, some things just can’t be practised. Let’s say you are learning about Napoleon and his revolutionary tactics while waging war.

You can’t exactly go out and practice that to better understand it.

The most you can do is imagine the battlefield and how his tactics worked, but anything beyond that is out of your control.

If you can learn something by practising it, then that is a great way to learn. Just remember that not everything can be practised.

Teach Others – 90%

Can you see what the problem with this one is?

That’s right, you need to have someone to teach, you can’t do it alone. You need someone who cares enough to ask questions and listen to you while you are speaking. And more than that, you need someone who is not smart enough to know the answers, but not someone who doesn’t know anything about a topic because he needs to ask the right questions.

How complicated!

But there is no need to worry. There is a way to do this even when you are alone. Think about how you were before you started learning the material and what questions did you have. Then give answers to those questions while explaining them in as simple terms as possible.

You could also do this with a classmate. They can ask you questions and you give answers. If your answer is not clear enough that means you don’t know the material well enough. The classmate can ask you follow-up questions to see which part you don’t understand the best.

This is probably the best way to learn something.

If you are teaching someone who doesn’t know anything about the subject you wouldn’t get this kind of feedback. At the same time, if you manage to recognize the questions you struggle with while teaching someone, then it doesn’t really matter who you are teaching.

Just remember that all of us have things we don’t know that we don’t know and a classmate who knows the material might be able to point out what those things are.

Final thoughts

Hopefully, by now, you understand why I said that the learning pyramid was misleading. Depending on how you learn reading can be better than discussion. Whatever method you pick, try to learn as actively as possible.

Ask questions, predict what is going to happen next, think about key concepts and how they fit together and make sure to explain all of that in your own words.

It doesn’t matter what method you pick, what matters is that it works for you.

If you want to learn more about active learning (or in this case active recall) you can go here.