Learning for Yourself and Others
| medium-archive | 550 words
TAGS: Medium archive
ORIGINAL: https://medium.com/@brennanbrown/high-impact-learning-dbcd00c598fd
We should always strive to learn new things -- throughout the entirety of our lives. Education should not be something that we suddenly leave at the door when we're done our schooling.
But the question arises of how do we learn things? How can we best take in and apply new knowledge that's both time-efficient and meaningful? The art of the Digital Garden aims to help aid with that.
I've created my own project specifically for this -- utilizing techniques and methods to help us better understand what we're trying to learn -- as well as the broader world around us.
"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
― Isaac Asimov
With so much else taking our time and energy, it can be easy to just simply read or listen to material -- an audiobook or podcast -- and think that's the end of that. But there's so much more. Here are a few of my favourite techniques:
- Spaced practice: This is one of the most popular ideas when it comes to studying. Put simply, taking a look at the same materials several times over the course of a few weeks can drastically improve our ability to remember it.
Anybody that's watched their favourite movie multiple times in a row can memorize the entire two-hour long script effortlessly. - Retrieval practice: This kind of practice simply involves only having a partial amount of review material in front of you, with you having to put in the effort of recalling the rest of it yourself. Flashcards a great example of this, with Anki being the most popular digital equivalent.
- Varied practice: Although it might seem counter-intuitive at first, the idea of having a variety of review materials from completely different fields (arts, sciences, maths, etc.) can actually help you learn in a number of ways.
This variety will help you maintain an interest in studying for a longer period of time, and the act of interdisciplinary learning has shown to have a number of benefits. - Interleaving: Similar to the above, this is the idea of having a variety of tools and strategies to your approach instead of just one. The idea that we have specific learning styles has largely been debunked, and instead using a combination of all of them is the most helpful.
- Evaluation: Going beyond just understanding and identification, the act of evaluation means to assess, critique, or defend the materials that you're reviewing. Bringing it up (perhaps argumentatively, even) with a friend is a great way of making things stick.
- Creation: Finally, going back to the idea of Digital Gardens, creating and producing new projects that centre around what you're trying to learn is easily the best way to actually learn it.
Show your work and do the world good by publicly displaying your learning journey.
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young."
― Henry Ford