Learning How to Learn
How to Become a Better Learner
Exercise
Renaissance Learning and Unlocking Your Potential
Create a Lively Visual Metaphor or Analogy
In 1886, there is a drawing of Monkeys holding hands or tails to represent a benzene ring! The hands are single bonds, the tails are double bonds.
It’s often helpful to pretend that YOU are the problem you’re trying to understand! Can YOU be the electron!?
Change your Thoughts, Change your Life
*Take a moment now and think about your own learning style. Do you think that you take responsibility for your education? Do you think you spend enough time practicing and studying? Are there any specific instances or areas that you think you can improve upon? Write your thoughts below.
By taking the simple action of thinking about this and “chunking” your answers, you can have a surprisingly positive effect on how your learning unfolds. *
I wish I had learned “How to Learn” back before high school because it would have been so helpful to know that sitting down just for little bits of time (focusing on the PROCESS not the PRODUCT) would be so impactful. Essentially leaving little breadcrumbs for my future self, things that my predictive mind can take advantage of.
My NATURAL learning style is very much like what she described in the video – hop around and around and around the problem, learning from lectures, YouTube, reddit etc. to triangulate the issue and my understanding. Despite the frustrations of having to “rein my brain in,” I am grateful for my innate curiosity – it makes me love learning!
Test Preparation Checklist by Chemical Engineering professor Richard Felder
Homework
** Yes ** No 1. Did you make a serious effort to understand the text? (Just hunting for relevant worked-out examples doesn’t count.) ** Yes ** No 2. Did you work with classmates on homework problems, or at least check your solutions with others? ** Yes ** No 3. Did you attempt to outline every homework problem solution before working with classmates? ** Yes ** No 4. Did you participate actively in homework group discussions (contributing ideas, asking questions)? ** Yes ** No 5. Did you consult with the instructor or teaching assistants when you were having trouble with something? ** Yes ** No 6. Did you understand ALL of your homework problem solutions when they were handed in? ** Yes ** No 7. Did you ask in class for explanations of homework problem solutions that weren’t clear to you?
Test preparation
** Yes ** No 8. If you had a study guide, did you carefully go through it before the test and convince yourself that you could do everything on it? ** Yes ** No 9. Did you attempt to outline lots of problem solutions quickly, without spending time on the algebra and calculations? ** Yes ** No 10. Did you go over the study guide and problems with classmates and quiz one another? ** Yes ** No 11. If there was a review session before the test, did you attend it and ask questions about anything you weren’t sure about? ** Yes ** No 12. Did you get a reasonable night’s sleep before the test? (If your answer is no, your answers to 111 may not matter.)
Hard Start – Jump to Easy
- Look over the test
- Start with the hardest problem – work it until you get stuck (give your mind something to chew on!) then
- Switch to an easy problem – this engages diffuse mode!
Think of it like a chef making a steak dinner – while the steak is cooking, he can chop tomatoes and prep the salad
BIG TAKEAWAY
If you’re stuck on something for more than X minutes, use willpower to pull yourself away
NOTE TO SELF:
- I know we try to do this with our timer – if we are really stuck on something for 25 minutes, it’s time to switch to something else
- When something is really grueling, use 5 minutes.
What might stop us from doing this?
- Deadlines
- Not knowing what to jump to
MAYBE we could jump and do 5 minutes of “Doc Control?” or writing down what we’ve done? Or commenting our code!!
MODULE 4 SUMMARY
If you don’t go back and check your work, you’re acting like someone who is deliberately refusing to use parts of his/her brain
“Fear” and “Nervousness” are simply chemicals – work to change the negative impact of these chemicals by going from:
“This X has made me afraid” to “This X has me determined to do my best!”
BREATHING TECHNIQUES ARE USEFUL!
Whenever you can, shift your focus, blink, breathe and return to the problem asking yourself if it makes sense.
“Brains do not come with an instruction manual, so we have to write one ourselves!”