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Ask HN: How do you personally learn?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you personally learn?

#11

Post by andai »

My most productive learning has happened while I was deeply invested in creating something new. Being a bit thick, I would run into obstacles almost every step along the way, but being thick has its benefits: the obstacles break down before my skull does.

I've tried going through books and courses, thinking, ahh, it's time to get serious, I must Learn JavaScript or Learn C or what have you, and this never gets me very far. But if instead, I decide to Make Thing, where Thing just happens to require C or JavaScript, now I have a point, a purpose, a destination, and though there may be headaches, I know that they are worth it, and I get where I'm going in the end.

Re: Ask HN: How do you personally learn?

#12

Post by tchaffee »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #8

I've been doing an audio blog on just that topic: https://alchemist.camp/learning-machine I've experimented a lot with MOOCs, OCW, spaced repetition, paid courses, teaching strategies, etc. The specific ideas I've recently been most focused on when learning are: - The depth of processing. I learn much faster and retain the knowledge/skills longer when I take a very active approach that involves deeply processing the…

> when I take a very active approach that involves deeply processing the material I'm learning.

Can you give a concrete example of what that looks like?

Re: Ask HN: How do you personally learn?

#14

Post by spiderfarmer »

I only learn when I have a project in mind that I want to do. No matter if it’s work on or around my house, creating an app or designing something like a logo or interior. Then I just start. Walk into a wall. Stop. Look for learning material or inspiration. Start over.

Reiterate. Learn more. Reiterate.

I’m not easily frustrated by failure, starting over or general lack of progress. If I have an interesting goal I just keep going. It might not be the most efficient way, but it’s how I learn best.

Re: Ask HN: How do you personally learn?

#15

Post by tchaffee »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #14

I only learn when I have a project in mind that I want to do. No matter if it’s work on or around my house, creating an app or designing something like a logo or interior. Then I just start. Walk into a wall. Stop. Look for learning material or inspiration. Start over. Reiterate. Learn more. Reiterate. I’m not easily frustrated by failure, starting over or general lack of progress. If I have an interesting goal I jus…

> I’m not easily frustrated by failure or lack of progress.

That's one of those very obvious but super important things I was looking for. I would have never thought of this myself, but it's one of the most important factors in my own learning too.

Re: Ask HN: How do you personally learn?

#16

Post by AlchemistCamp »

tchaffee wrote: post #12
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #8

I've been doing an audio blog on just that topic: https://alchemist.camp/learning-machine I've experimented a lot with MOOCs, OCW, spaced repetition, paid courses, teaching strategies, etc. The specific ideas I've recently been most focused on when learning are: - The depth of processing. I learn much faster and retain the knowledge/skills longer when I take a very active approach that involves deeply processing the…

> when I take a very active approach that involves deeply processing the material I'm learning. Can you give a concrete example of what that looks like?

Sure. If I'm reading, I ask myself what I expect the author to suggest or I ask myself specific questions I think the chapter could answer. Then, as I read, I update my priors.

If I'm taking notes, I'll do it by hand (which leads to better retention of information than typing), and I do it in cursive (which involves deeper processing than printing). In the past I tried taking notes in another language, but that was too slow.

If I'm learning a language, I'll try to spend more time listening to audio instead of watching video. When working on pronunciation, instead of just trying to say a phrase "correctly", I'll try to say it like a specific actor in the way they would with the same pacing and the same facial expressions.

If I'm learning a web framework, I'll take breaks from reading guides or docs to rewrite something I've previously written in an older framework. Then I'll go back to the guide.

Re: Ask HN: How do you personally learn?

#18

Post by equalunique »

codingdave wrote: post #3

Deconstruction. The ability to break something down into its smallest parts, and understand how the relationship of those parts makes something tick, will teach you how it works. It also them gives you the ability to innovate, as when you put the parts back together, you can do so in new ways.

Sometimes the parts are so many that we still need abstraction to make practical sense of things. https://xkcd.com/1988/

Re: Ask HN: How do you personally learn?

#19

Post by ralusek »

Start from examples almost immediately. If you start with the foundation or background, you'll lose me almost immediately, because I lack the context to tack the new knowledge onto.

Show me what we're doing/how we're using this knowledge, and very frequently I'll start thinking "hmm I wonder how they do that, I bet that's why we have to do XYZ first." Then you learn about it, you've had a moment to think through it in your own, and now you have plenty of context scaffolding to stick to.

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