Learning How to Learn for youths

23rd November 2018

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

A great review of our kids’ book Learning How to Learn

Here are part 1, part 2, and part 3 of a review of Barb and Terry’s kids’ (and parents’ and teachers’) book Learning How to Learn in the blog the Examining Life, by  Erin Valdez. Erin has a wonderful way of connecting the book, and the ideas to many other great books on education. (If you’re looking for holiday gifts for kids or educators in your family, this will give you ideas!)

The Arcanum Magical Academy of Artistic Mastery

We’ve heard some great things about the Arcanum’s ability to teach and inspire in relation to photography and art. We have to admit—the website alone is enough to draw us in! It seems the perfect alchemical mixture of magic and learning, where you learn with a small cohort under the guidance of a master. It is virtual, but also deeply personalized, so the structure is adapted to you. [Hat tip: Arnim Rodeck.]

Barb in Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina

Barb will be speaking about learning in Port Huron, Michigan at the SC4 Fine Arts building on Erie at 6:00 pm, November 26th. The next day (Nov 27), she’ll be at Georgia Tech, speaking about making great online videos at 11:30 am – 1:00 pm. And the following day (Nov 28) she’ll be at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, keynoting and doing workshops on learning. Lots to learn—lots to share!

Helpful Insights about Using Analogies to Help with Learning

Here’s are some interesting thoughts from LHTLer Olaniyi Olawoye from Abuja, Nigeria about using analogies to help with making better presentations.

“I am currently taking the Learning how to learn course on Coursera and I thought to give you a feedback on how I used one of the lessons therein this week.

Today I had the opportunity of making a presentation about my department (and what we do) to the entire staff of my office. As I thought about it and prepared for the presentation, one thing came to mind – analogy! I remembered that you said that analogies are some of the best ways to learn. So I looked for some of the best analogies I could use to describe my department’s work and did my presentation.

Now guess what? A number of my colleagues have provided some fantastic feedback on the presentation. Some said it helped them understand better, others simply made jokes out of it and other presenters after me made reference to the analogies. It is simply amazing how much difference it made.

I have learned a lot more concepts than you can think but this is the one I have successfully applied and I look forward to applying others too.”

Professor Richard Hamming, Intro to The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

LHTLer Piyush Deshmukh notes: “Recently I came across a series of lectures from Prof Richard Hamming which seemed to be relevant in today’s world where there is a tremendous amount of growth in knowledge and hence a difficulty in developing our own paths and styles of working.” Watching Hamming’s prescient lecture from 1995 does indeed provide great insight into our own desires and the world of today. (It’s interesting to see those problems in AI Hamming alluded to have been overcome.)

A review of Barb’s “Khanversation” with Sal Khan at Khan Academy

Here’s Pat Bowden’s insightful review of Barb’s fireside chat with Sal Khan for the blog Online Learning Success. And while we’re on the topic of the chat, we might ask, have you ever had a “brain fart” while public speaking?  Barb had a pretty spectacular one during her conversation with Sal. The conversation then devolved to a competition to see who has the worse working memory…  What all this means is, if your working memory isn’t so good, there’s hope for you!

That’s all for this week. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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