LEARNING HOW TO LEARN

Rita Smilkstein, by working with over a thousand people from low-achieving students to high-powered folk at national conferences, believes she has figured out how people learn naturally and optimally. The process has six stages. The first, MOTIVATION, involves, responding to a stimulus, usually involving a desire to do something (though sometimes we feel we need to know something, or someone else might decide we need to know it).

The second stage is BEGINNING PRACTICE, which involves much trial and error. People learn from correcting their own mistakes (with perhaps a bit of supportive feedback from others), since these are merely the discovery that there's something missing. As we'll see with creativity, the fear of making mistakes is the biggest hurdle (in terms of writing, see the much beloved Mina Shaunessy's classic Errors and Expectations in which she argues that even "serious" grammatical errors such as comma splices and fragments are actually evidence of progress).

ADVANCED PRACTICE still involves making mistakes, but skill and thus comfort and confidence increases. Only after passing through these first three foundation stages can a person take off into creativity and abstract thinking about the skill. Before this "critical mass" of info and skill are achieved, lectures are not helpful.

SKILLFULNESS, the fourth stage still involves practice, but there's more risks, creativity and individuality. Reading about the skill and taking lessons are useful, everyone agrees. In the fifth stage,

REFINEMENT, the skill becomes second nature, which creates satisfaction, creativity, and relatively easy acquisition of new methods. In the highest level, MASTERY, creativity increases even more. Masters see connections to other skills, apply their skill to new domains, teach the skill or drop it.

LEARNING STYLES:

There was much talk some years back about left vs right brained thinking, much of which was too simpleminded, but I think there is something to be said for learning the way you learn best: visually, auditorily or kinesthetically, this last referring to hands-on physical learning. Visual learners like color, charts and mindmaps. Auditory people may have trouble reading and writing, but learn well from interviews (lectures?) and discussion groups. A course may not give you info on your "channel," but with some resourcefulness you can get it (e.g. form a study group if you're auditory, or get the group to make charts if you're visual etc). See Scheiber & Talpers, Unlocking Potential (and perhaps Becoming a Master Student by Ellis).