Ways To Learn Things

I had a conversation with my dad the other day about the ways to learn things, he beleives the best way to learn things is through reading and int he classroom. although it had more to do with life if anything, it strikes a cord with me as I know that there are many ways to learn things. What is the best way to learn? Through experience or some othe method?

I don't think there is a best way, but some people do only learn that fire is hot by getting burned.

Reading is a very useful tool, but only for certain values of "reading". You need to fight books, to try to prove them wrong or incorrect or incomplete, and then try to work out - by discussing with other people, or by rereading, or by consulting literature - whether your objections are correct or not. Then try again, and again.

This is especially important for math books, by the way: if you just go through a math book and memorize the theorems and their proofs, you will have wasted your time.

There are all kinds of ways to learn, which vary in success depending on the person.

You can:

• see things done
• do things (with assistance)
• read or hear instructions
• be given steps to understand it yourself

And there are probably more which I missed.

edited 27th Apr '11 10:36:36 AM by TheMightyAnonym

How savants work is something I never understood, really. Also, would hypnotic suggestion help learning anything?

No, I think you got it all. Everything else is a subtype of the ones you outlined.

I think the «teaching something improves your knowledge of it» thing is pretty accurate.

Different people are different kinds of learners. Some people learn best from a book in an organized classroom environment, some best from hearing it lectured, and some by applying and doing. Most people learn by a combination of the different learning styles.

Also, different things must be learned in different ways. You'll never learn how to play basketball just from reading a book, you have to actually play the game and feel yourself dribble and shoot the ball. Likewise, you can't learn to draw without drawing, you can't learn to write without writing, and you can't learn calculus without doing calculus.

More passive knowledge such as history, various kinds of theory and some aspects of science, however, can't really be learned by doing, but they don't necessarily have to be learned from a book. Personally, I learn history best when it is brought to life, whether I am the one who does it or some other creator. I want to see either the real Julius Caesar or a complete reconstruction of him, not just his name and some things he did.

I agree. That's the reason why I perpetuate the whole "annebeeche is obsessed with scandinavians" thing.

edited 27th Apr '11 12:01:26 PM by annebeeche

That's largely because teaching someone else generally means that you have to understand all the concepts involved well enough to be able to explain them. To get to that point, you have to think about what you're doing, every step of the way through the process, whether it's shooting a basket or doing long division.

I teach human resources trainers, and I use a variation of the "KSA" idea: the most appropriate method of instruction depends on what you are teaching. Knowledge (K) is best taught using oral instruction and reading materials, Behavioral Skills (S) are best taught using the "observe-question-do" approach, and Attitudes (A) are best taught using indirect methods including role plays and facilitated discussion. (Evaluation methods are also broken down the same way).

Everyone learns best in a different way.

How you learn best depends on you and what it is you're learning.

Like let's use interviews. Learning how to act at these is an important thing. There are whole classes devoted to the damned things complete with lectures on tips and such. Apparently for some these tips and long preparation periods are very helpful. For me it just stresses me the fuck out and leads me to stumbling and stuttering when I actually move to the dreaded MOCK INTERVIEW or INTERVIEW stage.

No. Just throw me into the fray. No lectures. No list of mock questions answered. Maybe just give me a one page thing with some hideously vague tips, let me look at it for like five minutes, and throw me right in. I'll be able to pick things up then. Keep doing that and I'll get it. This is how it is with most social situations. Being told about all the meaning behind shit and being given complex lectures just worries and confuses me. Apparently this works wonders with some other people. They have a hard time learning how to give presentations without learning about all that stuff through a lecture or reading. I just sort of pick up on it naturally while doing it without thinking and worry my ass off if I am told to think about it... Things like presentations, customer service, interviewing, reading outloud, and acting come to me very naturally.

I can do this with cooking too. Throwing me into it with little time to prepare works wonders for me. Probably because I am naturally prone to panic if I am allowed to think. Unlike the interview though I tend to need very detailed and exact step by step instructions. Measurements and times must be explained very exactly. I can't just be told "Yeah well...see...this and this...Ok let's go" and do it without flopping and floundering about. My mother does not need that though. She can be given the vaguest idea of how to do something and prepare a meal how you want it more or less. Magically. She's been like this her whole life with cooking too...

I fail at learning things like go though. Strategy games confuse me. I review games, I read up on it, I play, I talk to people and yet it's damn near impossible for me to learn it well. The play and then review method seems to work best for me I've noticed. Practice problems just get me thinking in too rigid a fashion and reading or just talking about it confuses me. I also can't create mental images of these things so if I were to talk about it I would have to be able to have things drawn out for me.

I have issues without visual aids in general really...I can't think in pictures very well.

Same with music. I lack musical rhythm and have issues coming up with them on my own. Or it may be more that I have trouble expressing them. I can hear melodies and such just fine in my head if I have heard them, but when it comes time to share them I just sort of break down. I can hear the thing. I take forever to learn how to share it though. I do great with sheet music though. It's not too hard to memorize or read. I couldn't tell you how it sounds just by looking at it though...

edited 27th Apr '11 2:47:06 PM by Aondeug

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius

Ah, found what I was looking for.

Boom and boom.

Personally, I had to take this for one of my classes and found it pretty damn accurate, except on points where I myself waffle.

I learn best through watching and actually doing it but can pain be a good teacher?

G.G.: You mean like negative reinforcement? I dunno, but I heard positive reinforcement (that is, rewarding someone for a good job) is better.

For certain things and certain people yes. Like say you touched a stove that was on. Most people would learn that touching hot things like stoves generally isn't advised because it hurts like a bitch.

Now with punishment dealt out by people in authority positions whether or not this works depends on a variety of factors. The people involved, their relationship, the problem that preceded the punishment, the punishment in particular, how it was explained...

I for example learned not to be a fucking bitch to Christians even if they were douchy homophobic ones when my mother slapped me in the face for it. The pain brought me back to earth. It pissed me off some, but it got me out of my ranting mode and after some thought I realized that I was being a huge bitch. A stupid bitch. This alone didn't change my views entirely, but it stopped that one particular incident and helped change my views. Contemplation was the other big thing. This was done with my younger brother in the same fashion for the same thing and it failed. It's continued to fail. We've tried other methods involving positive reinforcement as well that have failed.

That's physical pain. Emotional pain can be a good teacher too. Again...many factors. It can say emotional pain caused by a fight you got into with your lover. You may learn how to avoid such fights on that subject in the past by learning your limits. Or you may not. It can also be administered specifically for the purpose of correcting behavior. Separating a child who likes the internet from said internet can cause a deal of emotional pain which may or may not fix the problem.

edited 27th Apr '11 6:43:44 PM by Aondeug

"You mean like negative reinforcement? I dunno, but I heard positive reinforcement (that is, rewarding someone for a good job) is better."

Actually, negative reinforcement is removing something, either to punish or reward, while positive reinforcement is adding something. So, both giving a kid a candy and spanking them are positive reinforcement, and taking away a candy or excusing the kid from chores are both negative reinforcement.

Behaviorists are really into having weird definitions for things, it seems.

Pain can be a good teacher, but only insofar as how to avoid it.

Take rats/mice for example. Put a small electrical collar around them, set them in a fairly simple maze, with some kind of goal to reach, with the condition that the further they move away from the goal, the more of an electrical shock they'll receive from the collar. After a while, the mice may start to move towards the goal with more efficiency, but it's fallacious to say that the mice are learning how to navigate the maze. They're not learning how to navigate, they're learning that if they move in a certain direction or towards a certain "goal", they receive pain, and that they should avoid moving in such directions to avoid the pain.

Take a more complex example like the Saw series. Jigsaw claims that he's helping people by placing them in these traps and forcing the decisions of life or death into their own hands. Simply putting people in these traps won't do much, but put them in these traps, clue them into the reasoning why they're there in the first place, and tell them that they deserve whatever happens to them afterward, and these victims will "learn" their lesson.

In either case, the subjects being tested are being conditioned to avoid pain; in the case of mice they learn to avoid a certain direction or pattern of movement, and in the case of people they learn to avoid a pattern of behavior. Conditioning is a form of learning, but some view it to be less ethical than other forms of teaching and learning, since conditioning takes advantage of primal biological responses; the standard ethical idea of learning is that one has to choose to learn for themselves, and that it can't be forced upon anyone.

Of course, we'll force kids through educational systems hoping that they'll learn whatever's being taught, but if the student learns anything at all is up to their choice to be receptive to the teaching (assuming that the teaching doesn't revolve around conditional learning).