Sometimes in all the technological hype it’s easy to forget the truth about learning: it’s natural, and we do it all the time without any technology.
Indeed there’s been something of a flurry of hints and tips on learning from commentators recently on how we learn, and how you can learn better and faster by using your nose, wiggling your eyes, or just chilling out ….
The characteristically light-hearted Happy Computers blog drew attention to a Guardian article on 5 ways to improve your memory - short, but research-based.
Then Donald Clark, in a lengthy entry, drew attention to the habits that improve learning. The blog entry was provoked by a conversation with Jay Cross, who was in London last month.
During that visit I had dinner with Jay (courtesy of Learning Light), and heard Jay’s latest buzz word: amagdyla learning. This caught my attention, not only because it’s new, but also because it emphasises the role that emotions play in learning – both as an enhancer and a blocker. Indeed, the idea put me in mind of Lozanov’s work on effective learning.
But if you want tips on how to learn, there are plenty of hints out there, like the rather splendid 77 ways to learn faster, deeper, better.
Then again, you can apparently improve your memory by:
- wiggling your eyes (according to the British Psychological Society)
- using your nose (according to the University of Lubeck – thanks to Bethany Saunders for this, also Proust)
- relaxing (according to MIT)
Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, had some advice on how to read a text book, too. I’m not sure that I’d agree with all of it, but this point certainly struck a chord:
If possible, find some genial friend, who will read the book along with you, and will talk over the difficulties with you. Talking is a wonderful smoother-over of difficulties. When I come upon anything—in Logic or in any other hard subject—that entirely puzzles me, I find it a capital plan to talk it over, aloud, even when I am all alone.
Which certainly fits with research that Charles Jennings of Reuters recently pointed out to me: that one of the best ways of learning anything is to try to teach it to someone else. Apparently that leads to about 90% retention – it has certainly always worked for me.
What are your top tips for learning?
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May 29, 2007 at 22:36 |
Well, since you’d covered most of the ways that people use like teaching it to someone else, talking about it and discussing it, using your senses while learning, I’d say that you might read, write, draw or play which, in some way, is linked to what you are learning. I believe that playing can help people understand and learn new ideas and implement them into new frames of reference. In this way MMEG’s might help students to not only learn various knowledge but demonstrate understanding through its use in novel and new situations. I’ve also found that doing something while I run/exercise has helped me to remember it. Don’t know if this works for anyone else but it has helped me. Maybe more oxygen or something!