
Learning How to Learn - maxan
https://max2c.com/learning-how-to-learn/
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commondandy
Very interesting roundup. Another article that takes the same line would be
[1].

[1]: [https://www.davidculley.com/learning-how-to-
learn/](https://www.davidculley.com/learning-how-to-learn/)

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Benjammer
Another simple trick is to really make a strong effort to learn the jargon of
whatever you are learning. It can seem corny from the outside at first, and if
you start using jargon with non-enthusiasts, you might not get the best
reactions. But learning the ontology of a topic can help balance between
finding unknown unknowns through exploration ("I just need to do it and get my
hands dirty to learn") and filling in known gaps in your mental
knowledge/skill framework. (Disclaimer: I learned this concept from Tim
Ferriss' book, 4 Hour Chef)

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Qision
Thanks for this, it's a nice summary. The final section about what doesn't
work is really interesting and in fact too short! I really thought there was
"learning styles".

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I've seen this about learning styles before and it doesn't seem to tally with
my own learning - I need to write stuff to retain it, and I need visuals for
quick learning. If I see a map of a place for a few minutes then I can
navigate, talk to me about the place (this is in the North, this is next to
that) for an hour and I'd still be hopelessly lost. You can argue that this is
just using the best medium, but other people don't appear to be able to pick
up map based info in the same way; other people seem to prefer oral/aural
reptition.

I can see that all learning styles work for all people, but the idea that
there's not some people who receive learning better under different styles
seems really unlikely, and thus needing very strong proof.

Doing pottery teaching I definitely would say that students split in to those
who one could simply explain to, and others who needed to see it done, and
others that wanted something diagrammatic but could grasp without necessarily
seeing the specific actions. I always approached the learning tasks the same
way and relied on the students (all ages) to lead me, and transformed the
style according to the group: so this is a fascinating result to me. The
students never said "oh I'm a X-style learner" (eg "I'm a visual learner") so
it seems unlikely to me that they were demanding a learning style because of a
false pre-conception of themselves. It could be that there was a range of
intelligence, and that those who were more "intelligent" could do the 3D
mental manipulations/visualisations to grasp the concepts, and so didn't need
images/demonstrations ... but that would still be different sorts of people
having different educational styles that benefited them more.

Anyone reference some more, readable, developments of this concept over the
last couple of years since the result was announced?

>"So most students are not employing study strategies that mesh with self-
reported learning preferences, and the minority who do show no academic
benefit. Although students believe that learning preferences influence
performance, this research affirms the mounting evidence that they do not,
even when students are mastering information on their own. These findings
suggest a general lack of student awareness about the processes and behaviors
that support effective learning. Consistent with this notion, Hussman and
O’Loughlin also found negative correlations between many of the common study
strategies reported by students (e.g., making flashcards, use of outside
websites) and course performance. Thus regardless of individual learning style
or the alignment of the style with study techniques, many students are
adopting strategies that simply do not support comprehension and retention of
information." ([https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-
with-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-
learning-styles/)) //

One of the most intelligent guys at my Uni (way back!) always used flash-cards
(spaced repetition); are they saying that's a very poor way for _all_ people
to learn. He must have been even more of a genius (I think he got the top
marks in the Chem exams, at what was then the 3rd top Uni in the UK) than I
imagined.

The fact that students didn't adapt their learning to their perceived style of
learning doesn't mean they weren't learning better from the stuff that matched
"their style".

A very muddled bunch of assumptions in that article.

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RickJWagner
Thanks to the poster.

I took a MooC by the same title a while back. It was a good class.

