Go back and forth between theory and practice. If it's something practical like programing or music that means applying the techniques to make something. If it's something you can't really practice like history, that means explaining what I've learned to people. Also use a variety of material about the same subject (book + online articles + videos). Taking notes after having completed a piece of material is a form of practice. Taking notes while consuming material should be avoided, focus on the material and try to really understand it. Of course all of this is iterative.
Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
11–20 of 91 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#12Can you do it `forwards', `backwards', `inside out'? What these mean depends on what you are trying to learn.
In programming, examples would be:
• writing code and reading and understanding other people's code.
• `executing' some code with pen and paper
• translating a formal statement of an algorithm into code
• translating some code into a formal statement of the algorithm
• translating code between two languages
• implementing the same functionality in as many different ways as you can think of
In learning scales on a musical instrument:
• ascend, then descend
• descend, then ascend
• start/end on notes other than the root
• all of the above but whilst playing the scale in intervals or arpeggios
In learning the times tables, examples:
• what are the factors of 24?
• recite the multiples of 7 backwards from 70
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#13Giving an improvised lecture to an imagined audience in my head on a topic I am studying I find a very useful way of consolidating and systematising my understanding, and of finding gaps to be filled.
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#14Giving an improvised lecture to an imagined audience in my head on a topic I am studying I find a very useful way of consolidating and systematising my understanding, and of finding gaps to be filled.
This sounds comparable to the Feynman technique. From the Farnam Street blog [0]:
"There are four key steps to the Feynman Technique:
"-Choose a concept you want to learn about
-Explain it to a 12 year old
-Reflect, Refine, and Simplify
-Organize and Review"
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#15Go back and forth between theory and practice. If it's something practical like programing or music that means applying the techniques to make something. If it's something you can't really practice like history, that means explaining what I've learned to people. Also use a variety of material about the same subject (book + online articles + videos). Taking notes after having completed a piece of material is a form of…
> If it's something practical like programing or music that means applying the techniques to make something.
When a child learns a new word, they may go around gratuitously using it for a while.
When you learn a new concept or technique, gratuitously apply it in every way you can think of. Having done that, you will be able to use it appropriately when the need arises.
For example, in music, if I learn or discover a new kind of chord substitution, I will gratuitously apply it to a bunch of chord progressions. Then I'm left (hopefully) able to apply it when that sound is what I want, or when it solves a voice leading problem.
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#16Go back and forth between theory and practice. If it's something practical like programing or music that means applying the techniques to make something. If it's something you can't really practice like history, that means explaining what I've learned to people. Also use a variety of material about the same subject (book + online articles + videos). Taking notes after having completed a piece of material is a form of…
>"Taking notes while consuming material should be avoided, focus on the material and try to really understand it."
This is a good habit. A technique I have been using in previous weeks is to initially do a superficial read (inspired by Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book"), not worrying if I understand every piece of information, highlighting along the way. The goal is to understand the overall structure and broad arguments of the text.
Since highlighting is ineffective for learning [0], these act as markers to focus on for creating flashcards as learning material upon a second, more in-depth read.
[0] Research paper [PDF]: https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovi...
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#17Use what you are trying to learn.
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#18Learning is an exercise in creating space in your mind to represent a new map of interrelated symbols.
When you start something new, all the symbols are "too close together" and it takes time and repetition to increase the "resolution" on that map so that you can put the symbols into position with more precision and not have them confused with one another. You don't yet have a good intuition for the significance of each symbol and it won't come from being told, because sources have biases - frequency over time and space is a much stronger signal. It's the same with connections between symbols.
Doing, rather than just reading, is important; you need to try and find that Goldilocks zone of growth, where if things are easier you're not learning but if they're harder you lose hope. Try something just beyond what you know how to do, page in new information on demand when you get stuck (from docs, people, source code, whatever it is).
Writing notes helps me personally creating the space for symbols and reminding myself of what I already heard about but I don't know that it's necessary for everyone, and I especially think I've found it more useful as I've gotten older (and know more stuff already). Sometimes when I learn something "new", I pin it close to a concept I already know, which dulls its novelty and I'm probably more inclined to forget it, until I'm reminded of it again. And this is down to that "creating mental space" idea again.
Repetition increases symbol salience, particularly when you're surprised by the divergence between what you thought something meant and what it actually means. The risk of simply reading, and not doing, is that you're not surprised often enough. Doing stuff keeps you honest.
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#19A research paper called "Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology," which is backed up by experimental studies, can serve as a great introduction to develop a learning strategy [0].
The summary is that doing practice tests (e.g. creating flashcards in a question-and-answer format, or regularly doing practice problems) is highly effective, along with studying over a longer period of time instead of cramming. Switching between learning subjects ("interleaved practice") is also effective, along with creating explanations in your own words about a text, together with asking yourself questions about the text. In contrast, highlighting the text and rereading as a way to learn is relatively ineffective.
[0] Full text [PDF]: https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovi...
Re: Ask HN: What's your learning strategy?
#20I have been really obsessed with this one.
Somehow I failed to learn things when I was taught in "official ways", yet I managed to learn the language by being brutally forced into practice and environment that pushed me to make it happen. I moved countries when I was 12, they put me in school straight away without knowing how to speak (although I have been studying for a few weeks, at least the basic grammar).
The language group has been similar to my native tongue, however the alphabet was different (as I was used to cyrilic). Nonetheless, as a kid - I already saw some patterns and similar rules.
I managed not to fail my class as well as spoke and wrote really well after 2.5 years. After 5 years I was better than most of the native tongue speakers in terms of grammar and on par with their vocabulary. Obviously using the language every day and being pressed to do so contributed.
Years later I started learning German in high-school... was so bad it and never managed to even get to the basic level after 4 years. I moved to Berlin again years later but because English was already quite prevalent, it never pressed me to learn German and I never did.
Somehow the most effective learning curve was just doing the thing, making a lot of mistakes and I never took textbooks into account even when doing so.
The methodology was just deliberate practice and tacit knowledge in the end.