How to learn how to learn

To me it means trying to get as good as possible at two things: 1. Paying attention. Put like that, it sounds so obvious as to be stupid. But recent brain studies have shown that actively focusing, paying attention, causes new information to imprint itself more permanently on the neurons than just sort-of paying attention. It's the difference between, say, following a debate over whether you should be executed vs having a TV blare at you in a bar. You can feel the difference when you switch over to paying-attention mode. 2. Enjoying the caveats, inconsistencies and exceptions to what you just learned. Many areas of knowledge have general rules then, as you go deeper, exceptions. That irritates some people. "You just told me it's A, and now it's B? I'm outta here!" But prize those caveats and yes-buts, expect them, and your resistance to learning new things is lowered. Language study, for example, is like this. I get a little burst of joy when I learn grammatical exceptions or odd ways of saying things appropriate to limited situations.

For me, the 'aha' moment is always about finding connections. An example.. in culinary school we learned the specific temperatures that will set egg yolks and egg whites. This was in theory class. A couple weeks later we were making creme caramel in baking class--and I suddenly had an aha moment about why and how a bain marie (water bath) moderates heat and prevents curdling etc. So my advice would be to look for connections. You learn Fact X, look for how it connects to other things. The more you do this, the more you will see connections (and faster), and the more you will grasp underlying concepts.

You can't teach how to learn to learn, you learn by doing. It's such an individual thing. You have try to do something, using your intuition and gusto and just go for broke. Everything else *is* simply memorization. You already know how teach yourself. Think about how well you are at speaking your native language. There's a lot of that you just picked up, because you tried it and used it. Much the same for everything else. Another example: the way computers work? Running problems? That's the opposite of what you want to do. Sorry it's such a, je ne sais quoi conundrum, but, put your lips together and blow, think of a happy thought, find your spirit animal and let go of what you're afraid of. And fail. A lot. A lot more than you think would be possible. Thus is the secret to most people who seem to be naturals, at everything.

If you have a fact that you are memorising, you could research - Who discovered this fact and what it meant at the time. Was there some other technological breakthrough that allowed them to discover it? - What people have done with the information since and how they have built on it. - What practical experiment you could make to demonstrate it. - What the implications are of the fact: for example, why you don't fry a creme caramel! You could make yourself a small project to help you understand further. For example: Someone tells you that egg yolks set at 70°. So you could decide to work out how to use a temperature controlled water bath to make the perfect boiled egg, or the perfect custard. Then, when someone asks you about egg proteins, you will just think back to your custard project, rather than sitting wondering whether some lecturer said 30° or 70° or 110°.

Before you start grade school, you may be anxious as to whether you can learn a subject, a technique, etc. Example: when I was first in a music class I asked if we'll have to learn to read music. I was told, no. I thought the teacher meant for that year only, so I asked to confirm and was very happy when she said that it won't be required at all. My anxiety was due to the fact that music notation looks like hieroglyphs to me. "This looks like chinese to me." "This is greek to me." Did you ever feel intimidated when looking at advanced math formulas with squiggly lines, integrals, cotangenses, greek letters? That's what I'm talking about. However, if you keep learning different things, eventually you find that it's not a function of ability or cleverness but of time. When enough time and energy are thrown at a thing, it gets learned, almost by magic. (Well, technically, exactly by magic.) Another way to look at this is that when you're learning something new, if, say, you're under pressure of very limited time - an extreme example would be your diving unit breaking down and you having exactly 3 minutes to fix it, etc, - your full attention is understandably on learning how to fix it asap. On the other hand, if you're not under much pressure, you can spend some attention on the process of learning itself - never mind what you're actually learning, but looking back and thinking how you could have learned the same things more efficiently. That'd include time management, memory training, learning to use libraries, google fu, concentration, meditation, setting up study environment.

Reading up about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_Taxonomy might help. Also, http://calnewport.com/blog/.

During college (psychology), as a high-school teacher and while getting my master's in education degree, learning to learn is a "big deal" sort of concept that I've come across dozens of times. Basically it means that learning isn't all about knowledge, but about how you get that knowledge and what you do with it. From a teacher's point of view, learning to learn, or teaching to learn, means that we don't just lecture while kids sit there and memorize stuff. Nowadays, it's more about giving guidance towards learning. A good student isn't one who knows a lot of stuff but that knows how to teach himself what he needs to know. Learning to learn goes hand in hand with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking, with being curious and creative, by asking a lot of questions and doing research, and also by having a lot of do-it-yourself attitude. Why do many people say "[they] learned how to learn until graduate school"? I think it is because for a lot of people, that's when they either mature enough or care enough about what they're doing to take the learning part of school into their own hands. Have you heard about the concept of http://www.dop.wa.gov/strategichr/workforceplanning/competencies/pages/default.aspx? Most of what I can find in English has to do with HR, but in a lot of Hispanic countries, it's becoming the next big thing in teaching-learning. Competencies are sets of knowledge/attitudes/skills required or useful for something or other. For example, one of the competencies that we try to encourage in my high-school is about the development of methodological skills (sorry, doesn't translate well), and the document I have here goes on to explain that this means "works collaboratively and innovatively applying scientific methodologies toward the solution of problems and the development of projects". Can you see how knowledge, skills and attitude would fit into that? And how knowing how to learn? Ok, for the second part of your question. In order to teach yourself how to learn, (and I disagree with alex_skazat who says you can't teach how to learn), first you have to know that all the memorizing has to stop. It's hurting your learning skills. We teachers know that of the 100% of concepts we teach, only a smaller percentage will be retained. We don't care. What we care about is what you do with your knowledge. Like dirtynumbangelboy said, a big part is making connections. When you're in a certification class, instead of memorizing, start trying to connect all the new stuff with what you already know, or with what you know that you don't know, if that makes sense. Try to find some application for what you just learned. Another way to teach yourself how to learn is to develop the "attitude" part of learning. Teach yourself to be more curious. Write down new words or concepts that come up during a course or during work. Do some research. Yet another big part in learning how to learn is about motivation. I just did my whole thesis on motivation and what it has to do with learning, and well, I learned a lot. You may have to do some meta-thinking about your own learning process, and figure out just how important learning is to you, and how much of a role you have in the learning process. The more learning is about you and less about your instructors, boss or whoever, the more you'll learn how to teach yourself. Hope this helps, I'll come back later if I can think of any more particular techniques I could share with you.

Will permanently blow your mind if you like this sort of thing. It has practical applications: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0810114275/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ Far more straightforward and practical, this is the ultimate learn how to learn. I was using these techniques intuitively all through school: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0517880857/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/

I was told during my entrance interview the virtue of my undergraduate education would be that it will "teach you how to learn". The example the interviewer used was that one wouldn't take a class in a programming language, one would learn it when needed it for a particular project. At the time I just nodded my head. Now that I am a number of years away from my undergraduate education and have completed a graduate degree at a different institution, I can see how that is beneficial. Essentially, I now have the tools to know when I need to learn something new, know where to start looking to find it and, once I find the right sources, zero in on the particular area of material that I need. This makes me really good at solving problems---I'll figure out the tools I need as I work and teach myself or ask questions as I go---but not that great at knowing everything about a CAD system or a programming language in super detail (unless it is something I need to use every day). This is okay with me and I end up gravitating to positions that have me solving many types of problems, rather than the same type over and over. So, the key steps in knowing how to learn, from this engineer's point of veiw:Figure out what types of things you need to solve the problemAssess your knowledge of those areas---is it enough to solve this problem?Research the areas where you need to know moreZero in on the information you needApply the new information for your solutionFile this new information and/or the method to get it in your brain for later retrieval on a future projectAll of this takes practice, so you feel confident in your ability to learn a new area quickly and retrieve that information in the future so it can be applied to similar situations. And all this is much easier, if you are like me and love to learn about new things and think in systematic terms so all of this new material has a place to be hung in the laundry line of your brain.