In other words what the smart folks already do. Heh.
How to Learn New Things as an Adult
81–90 of 117 posts
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#82It's more about drive than anything else. If one is able to maintain one's sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness, then one can always continue learning as effectively (albeit a bit more slowly) throughout one's life.
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I took that course. I didn't gain much from it. There is some interesting theory about how we learn. The best (er.. only) trick I remember: rather than re-reading material, reflect on it for a few minutes after you've read it, trying to recall and organize it in your mind.
You are probably already a great learner then. I took the course and can definitely say it was an eye opener. Few additional tricks I picked up: * Recall(as you mentioned) is critical to understanding. Effective recall also connects a topic just learned with other known topics. * A problem looks solvable but its important to actually apply yourself and arrive at the solution. The process of learning does not offer re…
All these are basic Common Sense, aren't they though? In fact, structuring them like this appears to take all the fun out of the process of learning, reducing it to a mere mechanical algorithm.
My take is this - you learn best when you are curious or can get curious about something. That kind of learning sticks. Or maybe I'm just different.
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#84A much harder thing for adults is to re-learn something they already know in a different way. For example, I thought I knew how to swim until I took private lessons with an instructor. I spent most of the time 'unlearning' the wrong techniques. The muscle memory was just engraved. I know guys don't ask for directions, but if you want results, pro help can really pay off.
Why did you take private lessons if you already knew how to swim? I also swim in a non-proper way and I recently found a "new way" of swimming after seeing some video about it, and it is fairly easy. But due to muscle memory I find myself going back to my own way. My own way being: Imagine doing a front split[1], then pushing your body up into a standing position, while angling your upper body 90 degrees (plane with…
I wanted to learn how to swim butterfly. This is difficult to master on your own.
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm mid 40's now. It is significantly different than when I was 20 or younger. It was like I had more horsepower back then. I could sit down and do 200 vocabulary words 90% retention after a single pass. I'm nowhere close now. On the other hand, I can organize my attack on learning something so much better than I could before.
I'm the exact opposite. Back in my 20s I was surrounded by countless distractions: bar-hopping, parties, girls, video games, you name it. Sitting down and applying myself to learning something took tremendous effort. Now that I'm in my 30s though, I have way more focus. I can easily sit down and work on a project for hours at a time. On top of that, I have way more motivation, because I have a very good idea of what…
Same, in fact I dropped out of college after the first two years (started immediately after high school). I took a few years off and then went back only to find that I was able to learn things much easier, and with less distraction that I had at a younger age.
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. Do you have anything to back this claim? I don't believe this at all. The plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not.
I agree - surely adults can learn these tennis strokes, even if they are harder to pick up. There is an absolutely fascinating video about plasticity of learning between adults and children that I'd highly recommend watching [1]. A man built a "backwards bicycle", where the handlebars steer the bike in the opposite direction to what you would expect. It was almost impossible for him to ride the bike more than a few f…
I'm with you. But also from that video is the correlation where the son has only been riding for 3 years whereas the guy has been riding for e.g. 30 years.
I'm interested in what would the difference be for them to alter a learned skill if they'd been practicing for the same amount of time (so that it's less set in stone)? I'm certain his son would have still been an order of magnitude or 2 faster, but probably quite a bit less than the original number.
I remember a few years ago I learned that I had been tying my shoes wrong my whole life (tying a granny knot instead), so my shoelaces would come loose at least once per day. It took me a few weeks of practice to manually think through the hand movements to make the new know before my brain got used to just doing it without thinking about it.
I'd imagine that as a child it should have been at least 10x easier to re-learn.
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
How far along are you with the guitar? I bought mine in 1996 and have been trying to learn it on and off since then. I still don't know a single song, other than the little toy songs in the Hal Leonard books (and only if I have the books in front of me). It's incredibly frustrating. I bought a second guitar a few years ago to keep at work and I use it during times when I need a break. Even though all I do are scales…
Scales and nursery rhymes? If you want to play songs learn chords. Learn A, D and E, play wild thing. Takes like 20 minutes play badly, a couple of days to play ok. Scales are for soloing rather than rhythm guitar.
I know some chords: A, Am, C, C7, D, D7, E, Em, G, G7
I can switch between those fairly fluidly.
Even Wild Thing has a solo part in the middle. A, D, and E really aren't enough, are they?
Can you name a few other real songs that you think are early beginner level?
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#88I just re-learned skateboarding. I spent a lot of time skating in my late teens (37 now), and was decent at it. I noticed three things throughout the learning process this time around. First, there is so much more information available today than when I was a kid. YouTube videos alone could keep me busy for years. Then you add in the GoPro and my phone, and you have an entirely new world available. The one downside h…
As someone who tried snowboarding for the first time this weekend and fell over around 200 times, this gives me some heart.
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a teenager. It's just that we have less time. I am a 40-year-old full time student with a kid, but no job. I disagree completely. I've got the time. When I was 20, I remembered everything I saw or heard even once. I could recall it with ease. Concepts came easily when they were explained in text or in lecture. Now? I'm still plenty smart a…
I am a 40-year-old full time student with a kid One big difference may be: how much quality, uninterrupted sleep can you budget now vs. then?
I think another big one is stress. When I'm stressed out I cannot focus as well. This stops me learning. As a kid you just live in the moment and even what I thought of as stress back then really wasn't.
Re: How to Learn New Things as an Adult
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. Do you have anything to back this claim? I don't believe this at all. The plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not.
I agree - surely adults can learn these tennis strokes, even if they are harder to pick up. There is an absolutely fascinating video about plasticity of learning between adults and children that I'd highly recommend watching [1]. A man built a "backwards bicycle", where the handlebars steer the bike in the opposite direction to what you would expect. It was almost impossible for him to ride the bike more than a few f…
He does say in the video that wasn't trying to actively learn to ride it. Where as the guy in this video [1] claims it only took him 1 h 29 min. You could probably argue that his age might have helped, but it could also be equally true that he used better methods of practice to achieve that goal.
Destin also admits
"It took me 8 months to learn how to do this, but I was only picking up the bike and running to the end of the driveway and back every day. I wasn't "ACTIVELY" trying to learn. Meaning... I wasn't struggling and trying to make my brain learn. I simply got on the bike every day, tried to operate it to the end of the driveway, turned around and tried to operate it back. The goal was to understand how my brain figured things out on its own, without trying to force it to. Many people have built bikes like this and figured it out in much less than 1 day by staying on the bike until they were able to master it. I had no timelines, and was using this as an exploratory activity to learn how I learn."