Sleep learning

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We often think of sleep as downtime. It’s anything but. Sleeping brain can actually encode new information and store it for long term and is able to make new associations. More importantly, sleep also seems to reorganize memories.

The premise of this educational service is that during sleep, the pupil will be told how to and to develop the understanding of the new subject, which forms the basis of learning through memory, plus the understanding of the concept. The aim is to teach pupil’s new vocabulary sounds and words until they can put them together into sentences.

Learning through memory

In recent years, studies have found that the brain may not be totally dormant during sleep. We now know that sleep is crucial for forming long-term memories of what we have encountered during the day.

‘Slow-wave’ or deep sleep has been recognised as a critical for memory consolidation – the stabilisation of memory from short-term to long-term. During slow-wave sleep, which tends to happen during the first half of the night, the firing of our brain cells is highly synchronised. The brain replays memories in fast-forward: neurons responsible for storing memories re-activate again as a network and stabilise the day’s experiences by moving them from the hippocampus, where they are first formed, to regions across the brain; essentially teaching the brain to remember. This replay action seems to help us formalize important learnings and life experiences into more permanent storage in our brains. Meanwhile, tangential memories—perhaps those that didn’t warrant much attention in the first place—are erased, in order to open up more room for storage.

This form of learning is extremely basic, much simpler than what your brain has to accomplish if you want to learn German or quantum mechanics. However, given that so much is happening to memories during sleep, it’s natural to ask if the memories can be altered, enhanced or even formed anew.

Sensory based learning that accompanies sleep learning

Some researchers theorize that many pupils have an area of sensory learning strength, sometimes called a learning style.

These researchers suggest that when students are taught using techniques consistent with their learning styles, they learn more easily, faster and can retain and apply concepts more readily to future learning.

The objective is to provide exercises in order to awaken and stimulate learning, for during waking time. This is based on conditioning the brain into a higher state for new learning activities whilst asleep.

  • In the classroom, pupils will build a stepped ladder of learning, over a 6 week period, using a combination of specific exercises and listening tools
  • Using outside stimuli, translated into a response in the brain (controlled electrical inputs)

Week 1 and 2: The Importance of Sleep in Learning

Research suggests that sleep helps learning and memory in two distinct ways. First, a sleep-deprived person cannot focus attention optimally and therefore cannot learn efficiently. Second, sleep itself has a role in the consolidation of memory, which is essential for learning new information.

The listening tools concentrate on the second way, the consolidation of memory for learning new information by stabilising a memory trace after its initial acquisition.

Week 3 and 4: Chunking

Chunking refers to the process of taking individual pieces of information and grouping them into larger units that your mind can easily access. For example, a phone number sequence of 4-7-1-1-3-2-4 would be chunked into 471-1324.

We’ll talk about how you can form chunks, how you can use them to improve your understanding and creativity with the material, and how chunks can help you to do better on tests. We’ll also explore illusions of competence in learning, the challenges of overlearning, and the advantages of interleaving.

Week 5 and 6: Retrieval practice

Retrieval practice is a strategy in which bringing information to mind enhances and boosts learning. Deliberately recalling information forces us to pull our knowledge “out” and examine what we know.

For instance, recalling an answer to a science question improves learning to a greater extent than looking up the answer in a textbook. And having to actually recall and write down an answer to a flashcard improves learning more than thinking that you know the answer and flipping the card over prematurely.

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