###Note! Barb’s talk at the UC San Diego moved to a larger auditorium.###  

26th July 2018

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

###Note! Barb’s talk at the UC San Diego moved to a larger auditorium.###  

Barb’s lecture on on Learning How to Learn at 9:00 am on August 4th at UC San Diego has been moved to a larger auditorium nearby.  It will now be at the main auditorium on the entrance level floor of the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, room #1W-210, 9452 Medical Center Dr, La Jolla, CA 92037. As we previously mentioned, her lecture will include many new animations and insights related to her and Terry’s upcoming book, Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens, which is shipping early (August 6th). Even if you’re an adult, you’ll gain new insights, going beyond even what you’ve learned in the MOOC!

Are You a Slow Learner?  Join Our Discussion Forum and Discuss!

Praveen is a 24-year-old student from Sri Lanka who is currently learning software engineering at university. He writes with an interesting challenge.   

“I followed your Learning how to learn MOOC and also read Mind for Numbers. I have found it very helpful in becoming at learning.

“The thing is, I am a slow learner. I have to repeat/rehearse something many more times than my peers to understand it. In high school teachers complained that I was inattentive in class and don’t work. However, in final exams I ended up getting good marks. The reason I struggled to learn in school is not because of being inattentive but I couldn’t learn at the same pace they were teaching. Imagine concept A was taught and then concept B is taught. To understand concept B you need the knowledge of concept A. But I have forgotten half of concept A after learning it. This is the reason I fell behind in class. At home, I would study concept A multiple times an do questions until I was confident in it. Then only I would move to concept B.

“I have noticed this while learning anything, including sports or learning to drive. I have to repeat it more than everyone present in class. For example, when I tried learning martial arts the teacher would repeat a technique. Then students had to join up in pairs and practice it. I had to practice it more times than other students. The teacher would get frustrated and accuse me of not paying attention and even demonstrate it again to me. But it’s not because I don’t pay attention. I am paying maximum amount of attention. But I just have to repeat it that many times to be able to remember it. But most teachers don’t understand. Apart from this, I am unable to remember driving directions. I remember being this way from my childhood. Psychologists I went to suggested I might be having some learning disability but they couldn’t diagnose any specific named condition.

“These experiences lead to low self-esteem and depression. Over time I found ways to learn better. For example, now I rarely try to memorize things. I make very organized notes with diagrams and sketches in Microsoft Onenote. So, I can easily search for topics whenever I have forgotten. If I need to memorize things for exams in school I use Anki spaced repetition. And in programming, I can learn everything I want at my own pace online. Actually, I’m starting my first internship at a software development company next week. I also work with a therapist to manage depression. I have found mindfulness practice to be especially helpful. I deal with inability to remember directions by storing addresses of places I want to visit as Google contacts and using Google maps to navigate.

“Thanks to help from [Learning How to Learn and other learning materials] I am slowly developing habits and techniques to be better. One thing I would absolutely love to do is contact and hear stories from learners who share similar problems to mine. It would help me develop confidence seeing them facing challenges and succeeding. Unfortunately, I was unable to find such people. Do you know of any communities? Support groups? Or even research being conducted about how people with similar learning difficulties learn? Most people with conditions such as ADHD I met have difficulty being attentive. But this is not something I share. My problem is that of poor memory consolidation.”

If you would like to join Praveen in discussing this condition, and perhaps developing a support group, please go to the discussion forum here.

Looking for a Platform for an Online Course You’re Constructing?

We’ve been introduced to Thinkific, “a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their own online courses.” We often meet people who are looking for a good platform to build their courses on. If you’re in this situation, Thinkific may be worth checking out. (There’s also a Facebook group that has webinars like that Anthony Metivier’s recent one bout authentically generating an audience for one’s courses with YouTubing and Podcasting )

Arthur Worsley on Memorizing a Monologue (or Anything Else Word-Perfect) and on Books

Our friend Arthur Worsley has just finished a 4,500 word guide on how to memorize a monologue (or anything else word-perfect) that runs through everything from rote repetition, to flashcards and spaced repetition to mnemonics and memory palaces.

Arthur is a master of compendiums.  He has also pulled together a list of all 452 book recommendations from Tim Ferriss’s Tools of Titans, including 5 religious texts, 98 fiction titles and 349 non-fiction titles. He is also on version 3.0 of his ultimate learning how to learn reading list, and memory improvement reading list. As he notes, “there’s some amazing reads to be found!”

 

 

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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