4 Layers of Learning Every Student MUST Master

There are four layers of learning that any student or learner of any age should master. When we're able to master all four layers of learning, it is genuinely one of the most powerful learning strategies that you can learn. It allows us to have a better understanding and better retention. It makes learning faster, and it even makes learning more enjoyable. Unfortunately, most of the students that I work with aren't able to follow the layers in the correct order.

When this happens, it creates a lot of stress, wastes a lot of time, and can make it feel impossible to achieve the results you want. Over time, we might start to think that maybe we'll never be good at learning. But that is probably not true. For me, learning to learn in these four layers is one of the reasons I was able to achieve top results in both medical school and for my Master of Education. And trust me, there's nothing special about me.

I'm not a genius. I've seen similar results with thousands of students and professionals that I've trained over the years. In this video, you'll discover exactly which layer you tend to focus on, but most importantly, how you can master all four layers of learning. The first layer of learning is called the Logic Layer, and this is by far the most overlooked, but also the most important layer. Without mastering this layer, the other layers will not work, which means you'll end up wasting hours studying without achieving the results you desire.

Why, you may ask? Well, as you can see from the diagram that I've drawn, each layer of learning stacks on the previous layer. Efficient and effective learning should always build on itself, which means the learning you do initially makes the learning you do later easier and easier. I always say the more you learn, the easier it should get. However, most students don't feel that way.

Most students feel that the more they learn, the more overwhelming it becomes. There are more things to try to hold onto in their memory. The reason this happens is that instead of approaching learning in the correct order—one, two, three, four—most students do it in the opposite order: four, three, two, one. As a result, they end up with confusion. If your learning process looks like this instead of this, then learning efficiently becomes almost impossible.

And the easy way to think about this is to consider learning as building a house. You have to start with layer one, which is the foundation. On top of that layer, you build the walls, the roof, and the overall structure. Then you paint the walls, and eventually, you decorate and put in your furniture. However, what you’ll see by the end of this video is that most students aren't doing this. Instead, they are engaging in the learning equivalent of trying to build the walls without a foundation. They are only constructing one corner of one room, painting it, and then putting a couch in the corner. At the same time, they start building the foundation for another room, putting up a wall, and somehow trying to make it all come together. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how much time you spend building the house; it will crumble if you don't have a solid foundation to start with.

And in learning what a crumbling foundation actually looks and feels like, I've technically covered this content. Why can't I remember and use this knowledge? It probably means that I had weak foundations. So when we're working on the logic layer, we are looking for the biggest ideas within that topic. We're trying to focus on getting a big picture, fairly basic understanding of the entire topic.

What are the main ideas, and how do those main ideas fit together in the big picture? Spending time to deliberately create this logic layer is crucial for efficient learning because it helps you build context about what you are going to learn. It doesn't take very long to develop this logic layer; for a one- to two-hour topic, it might only take you 10 to 15 minutes. However, this is a step that most students skip without even realizing it. This happens because most students believe that context is something they will develop as they keep studying. They think, "Okay, I've studied this now, and I don't really know how to apply the information, but I'm sure that if I keep studying and doing more practice papers and flashcards, I'll eventually get to a point where everything is connected." However, this is not true. Simply passing time does not mean the ideas will connect together.

The act of connecting information together and developing context is an active process we need to engage in. In fact, when we don't actively try to connect information, build context, and develop a big-picture understanding first, we run into the issue where the more we learn, the more overwhelmed we become. This happens because we are just loading our brains with bits of information without knowing what to do with them or where they fit. Yet, we somehow expect our brains to organize, process, and extract meaning from this information. Learning and taking in information without context and a big picture is like walking into a library where all the books are scattered across the floor, without any bookshelves to clearly organize the information. If you have ever studied something and attempted to solve a problem, only to find that you recognize some relevant concepts but can't actually connect them to arrive at a solution, it likely means you didn't actively take the step of integrating those concepts during the first layer of learning. Naturally, this can be a very frustrating, annoying, and stressful experience if it happens to you constantly while studying. However, this situation can be entirely avoided by doing the first layer of learning properly.

Here are my pro tips for doing Layer One the right way. First of all, do it upfront. Don't try to, as I said, develop context after you've taken in a huge mass of information. The easiest way to do that is, in step two, to list out your keywords. Take a textbook or whatever you're learning, then skim through it and collect the main keywords and concepts for that topic.

These Could Be the Titles and Subheadings - **Foundational Logic Layer** - New Terminology - **Lecture Objectives** By organizing your materials in this way, you create a clean and concise list of topics to review. This approach eliminates the need to constantly flick back and forth between different resources, making it easier to understand what constitutes foundational logic layer concepts.

And then what you do, tip number three, is look through this list that you’ve got and start grouping it together. Think about what the main similarities are. What are the main ways that you might be able to organize all of these different keywords and concepts? There are going to be similar trends, similar purposes, similar parts of a process, and similar reasons for why it’s important enough for you to learn them. Consider those factors and start creating groups, relating these groups to each other.

Tip number four: Keep it simple. You just need to have a very general, surface-level understanding of the overall topic—something that you could explain to a ten-year-old. By the end of layer one, you should be able to generally explain what the topic is about. You can say, "This topic covers these main ideas, and they are important because they influence and relate to each other in this way." You won't be able to explain any of those concepts in detail, and you won't really remember all the little sub-concepts and terminology that fit within that.

You're not going to be able to recite anything from memory necessarily. But in the later layers, when you go to learn that level of detail, you will be able to understand where it fits in the big picture, and you'll have ideas on why it's important and relevant to learn. So, this process of making it a bit more specific and adding extra detail onto that first layer, the logic layer, is layer two. Layer two is called the concepts layer. This is where we're taking those big groups of ideas and actually splitting them out into the more specific major concepts within them.

And Layer Two is important because this is what gives that topic depth. It's what provides more substance and makes it a little bit more specific. During Layer Two, we're developing the ability to explain things in detail, and we should be able to answer many of the questions that might arise in an example. Since in Layer One we generally determined how these big ideas relate to each other, it means that when we encounter a more complicated problem that requires us to connect different concepts from various parts of the topic and use them together, we understand how they connect and can actually do that.

Now, Layer Two is where we need to spend the majority of our studying time. Around 60 to 70% of all the time we spend studying a topic should be dedicated to Layer Two if we want to achieve top results. However, there is something that holds many students back from being able to do this correctly, which I will discuss later in the video. For now, I want to emphasize that this entire process, especially during Layer Two, where we are incorporating additional details and our big-picture understanding is becoming increasingly accurate and specific, takes time. For me, if I'm learning a large topic, this can require multiple study sessions across several days.

And if you've never tried learning in this way before, it can feel very confusing and even quite frustrating sometimes, especially when you're unsure if you're doing it right or wrong. However, just like with learning any new skill, those feelings are completely normal and to be expected as part of the process of improving your abilities. I'll also mention here that as an extra resource, I have a free weekly newsletter where I share more evidence-based tips and strategies that can help you navigate this process. I discuss the layers of learning in more detail, providing additional examples. Additionally, I cover many other strategies that can help you achieve top results.

So, if that's something that interests you, I'll leave a link in the description. Again, it's totally free. Now, at this point in our layers, once we've completed Layer One, the logic, and Layer Two, the concepts, we generally have a pretty good understanding of the topic. We see how it fits together, and we can really do it.

Let's talk about the big picture of what we're learning, why it's important, and how we can apply it. You can see how the ideas are interconnected, and you're able to explain these concepts in considerable detail. However, what we’re currently lacking are those specific details. These could include particular terms, the names of specific catalysts and molecules, or specific dates and locations where events occurred. These finer, granular details might be crucial for tests or necessary for inclusion in your essays and writing.

And this is where Layer Three comes in. Layer Three is what we call important details. The reason it's called an important detail is that these are the specific pieces of information that are crucial for helping us understand Layer Two. This is actually very important because it indicates that this specific piece of information, which you might initially think is something you need to rote memorize, is actually connected to a concept that you'll learn. There is a reason for you to learn that detail, which means that, from your brain's perspective, there is a place for it to fit.

There is a way to organize it in relation to everything else you've been learning. Figuring out what is in Layer 3 is actually kind of simple. All we have to do is look at that piece of information and ask ourselves, "Does this help me understand something from Layer 2 or make something from Layer 2 more concrete?" If the answer is yes, then it fits into Layer 3. If the answer is no, then we'll discuss that in the next layer. However, even though it's technically very straightforward to determine what is in Layer 3, here is the issue: the reason so many students feel overwhelmed with learning—especially for big topics—and the more they learn, the more overwhelmed they get, is that they jump into Layer 3 without having done Layers 1 and 2 first. That is actually disastrous.

And as soon as you've done that, you can say goodbye to your efficiency. Think about this: when you ask yourself whether a detail is important for helping you understand a concept or making it more concrete, how can you know the answer if you haven't actually figured out the concepts in the first place? How can you determine whether it's going to be important if you don't know how you're going to use those concepts, which is something we figure out during the logic layer, Layer One?

Spoiler alert: the answer is that you can't. When you start with just layer three, ramming through all the details as much as possible can be overwhelming—there's so much to learn. It’s better to try to memorize absolutely everything from start to finish, but then everything becomes irrelevant because there is nothing to connect it to. We end up with a disorganized mass of disconnected, isolated facts, individual concepts, explanations, and processes. This means our retention is not going to be very good, our understanding will not be very deep, and we won’t be able to use the knowledge the way we need to. We then have to compensate by attempting to memorize all of that even more—doing more repetition, using more flashcards, and spending more time studying.

And the key to avoiding that, and ensuring that learning becomes easier the more you engage with it, without feeling overwhelmed or falling into the trap of endless repetitive memorization, is to understand that learning in the right order allows knowledge to build upon itself. Layer three is the perfect example of this. When you first go through a textbook on a topic you've never studied before, everything appears very detailed. It all feels very specific, as if the only way to learn it is through memorization. While it may seem like everyone else is doing it this way, just because everyone is doing something doesn't mean it's effective.

But common and widespread does not mean desirable. After all, you know, COVID was also pretty widespread. However, there are lots of detailed, specific pieces of information that become relevant, logical, intuitive, and easy to understand and remember when you know a little bit more about the topic. What once seemed irrelevant and detailed, requiring memorization, can now be understood in context. When we look at it, we think, "Oh yes, that makes sense; I can see how that fits in." You can only get to that feeling by learning the layers in the right order. So, let's say we have gone through Layer One, then Layer Two, and now we're at Layer Three. We have identified which details seem to be important for Layer Two and which aspects make that concept more concrete. What do we do with that? Well, first of all, we can add them into our notes.

If you're using mind mapping, you can add them to your mind map. We can also incorporate them into flashcards, which are great for helping us remember those detailed specific pieces of information. This way, we are covering both bases and ensuring that we won't forget those details.

We're documenting them. We're making sure that we're not going to forget those details. We're documenting them using flashcards, which provide us with the benefits of decent cued recall and spaced repetition. However, we're also ensuring we know how to use that information correctly by connecting it through a mind map. While I will say that flashcards are a great tool to use during this layer, layer three, they are a very ineffective way of trying to learn the bottom two layers.

And so, by the end of Layer Three, we have a big-picture understanding of how things are connected to each other with specific concepts. We also have specific details that make those concepts more concrete. At this point, we are scoring 80%, 90%, or more on our tests and exams. So, what could possibly be left? Well, what's left is Layer Four.

Layer four is a major source of confusion and overwhelm for many students. This is because layer four is what I call arbitrary details. Arbitrary details are the kinds of details that are simply not important. They don't help you understand a concept, and they don't seem to fit into the big picture anywhere. It's as if there's no reason to learn them if you are not going to be tested on them. Essentially, it's all the information that is left over after you've completed layers one, two, and three. The reason why layer four trips up so many students is that you can only identify what is layer four—what constitutes an arbitrary detail—once you have already determined what is layer three, an important detail.

You can only figure out what's important if you've done Layer Two, which is the concepts. And you can only figure out the concepts if you know where they fit, which is Layer One, the logic. At the start of this video, I mentioned that the reason many people struggle and feel overwhelmed with learning is that they're not learning in this order; they're learning in the opposite order. This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is the major trap you need to avoid if you want to be more efficient and achieve the results you’re looking for.

When we open a textbook, the information presented biases us into starting at layer 4. This is because, when we open a textbook, the majority of the information is very detailed, typically found in layer 3 or layer 4. As a result, feeling overwhelmed by the amount we have to learn, we dive right in. We spend our time trying to navigate through all these details to remember and understand every single aspect.

Remember, if we start this way, we don't know what's important. We don't have context. We don't know how we're going to use that information. We don't know where it fits. As a result, our brain is trying to do multiple things at once.

It's not just about understanding what you're reading and comprehending it; it's also about not desperately trying to hold on to and remember that information. Additionally, it's about figuring out why it needs to retain that information in the first place. Why is it relevant? Where does it fit?

How does it relate to anything else? He spent hours and hours just churning through the details. Over time, we can get a sense of which aspects seem to be more important. As the layer three important details become clearer, we start thinking, "Hold on a second, maybe these are related to this particular concept." These connections make those concepts clearer, enabling us to understand them in greater depth.

Eventually, maybe if we have enough time to do enough practice questions and test ourselves, we might see how they all connect together and experience that "light bulb moment" of understanding the purpose of what we were learning and how to actually use it. That is when we reach layer one. However, sometimes we never reach that moment because we run out of time. So, the question is: how do we avoid that experience? And how do we learn in the right layers in the first place when we are faced with so many details to sift through?

Well, the solution is to actively filter the information in these four layers to begin with. So, if you have a single page in a textbook, you're no longer going to look at it as just one page of information. Instead, you'll recognize that this page contains four layers of information. It becomes a process of skimming the content to deliberately identify the elements that you believe belong in layer one, focusing your attention solely on that layer. Once we've gone through our material to find all the layer one information and built a strong foundation, we will go through the content again a second time, this time filtering and searching for the elements that feel like layer two.

And remember, Layer Two takes the longest. Once we've done that, we can go through it again to filter out the things that are Layer Three or Layer Four. Usually, you can complete those last two layers in the same step. If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of needing to learn these Layer Four concepts as well, that's when you might consider putting them into some flashcards.

But on top of doing this, you also need to be able to detect when you're doing it in the wrong order. One of the telltale signs, or red flags, that you're going in the wrong order is when you are very early on in your studying process and already making flashcards, or in your mind, trying to remember and hold on to what you're learning. That’s your mindset, and that’s what you’re doing. That’s a very clear sign that you’re focusing on the wrong layer. If you want to be a top learner, or even if you just want to make learning a little bit easier than it is now, I can promise you, I can guarantee it.

If you start thinking of learning in layers, you will find that you are more efficient—easier than it is now. I can promise you, I can guarantee it. If you adopt a layered approach to learning, you will notice improvements in your efficiency, memory retention, and overall results. You'll also start feeling more confident in your learning process. If you want more specific strategies and tips on how to navigate these four layers, remember to check out my free weekly newsletter; the link is in the description.

And if you want to learn even more learning strategies and techniques, then I recommend checking out this video here. I think you'll like it.