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How to use NotebookLM for deeper learning

NotebookLM is an instrument that can help you save time but cannot replace the effort required for real deeper learning. Illusion of learning is easy, but learning stuff and more importntly learn to apply it is hard.

It is well known that NotebookLM (and in general LLM i.e Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) cause the “illusion of learning” through summarization. Podcasts and summarizations are passive ways to engage the material, real expert continuosly test their knowledge and system of belief, engaging actively with it.

In general, summarization isn’t good because for example if someone asks you question, you may not able to respond, or respond with the same confidence and accuracy of an expert of it that actually went in deep in studying the material. Also you may able to recite back the summarization, but not understanding deeply what you are studying (as some italians teachers says “ripetere a pappagallo (senza capire nulla)”).

Here are some tips.

Flashcards I find automatic flashcards based on the material the best functionality of NotebookLM. What i try to do is to prompt NotebookLM such that flashcards go in deep and cover all the files/arguments. I don’t want shallow flashcards or not enough flashcards that something isn’t covered. Ofcourse, Anki it is better because it has an algorithm designed for long-term memorization.

Related: Notebooklm or Obisian to Anki flashcards.

Question instead of summaries This is smilar to flashcards. Prompts:

• Generate five questions that test my understanding of the main arguments in these sources
• What are three potential criticisms of the ideas presented here?
• Generate a list of potential exam questions, ranking them by probability
• If the materials contain data, theories, or case studies, highlight the most relevant examples likely to be discussed during the exam.

Concept Map Taken from this article. The prompt is:

Create a concept map showing the relationships between the key ideas in these sources. Identify the central concept, supporting concepts, and how they connect.

This approach works well for interdisciplinary topics, for creating a learning guide and to find new connections.

NotebookLM’s Study Guide

Create a study guide for ARGUMENT

Ofcourse, once you have a study guide you must dig the material yourself and test your knowledge.

What to avoid:

• Podcast require a lot of prompt engineering, but i would not dismiss them entirely, they can be useful to listen when you cannot actively engage with the learning material or testing it.
• Summarize the source (unless the next thing you’re gonna do is deep dive into that source).
• Extract the main 5 ideas/ the top 3 critics. Why don’t you extract top 3 book on learning and critical thinking and you main 5 read them?