Meta Learning

How to Learn

Deconstruction:

• Reduce content to its minimal moving parts (deconstruct, simplify, zoom out, distill).
• Start with the outcome; start at the end and work your way backwards
• Viewing the subject from a variety of perspectives
• Walk from the end goal backwards, recursively asking “Why?”
• Looking at what successful outliers are doing
• Probing the minds of experts through interviews
• Finding simple commonalities in a domain that can serve as a key to accelerate learning

Selection: analyse and find the common features (80/20)

• Choose the 20% that covers the 80%
• The Minimal Effective Dose (MED): “The lowest volume, the lowest frequency, the fewest changes that get us our desired result.”
• The what(material) is more important than the how(method)

Sequencing:

• Choose the right order to study / learn the material
• Make it stick first, start with fun and simple

Stakes:

• Loose something if miss it

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Compression: one-pager’s cheat sheet

• The Prescriptive One-Pager lists rules or principles that help you generate real-world examples.
• The Practice One-Pager lists real-world examples to practice, which helps you learn the principles indirectly.

Frequency: breaks / intensity(immersion) / expected progression

• Plan a study/practice schedule that provides the frequency needed to gain competency.

Encoding: zip / memorization tricks

• Find ways to associate the knowledge and skills with what you already know.

Also called space-repetition program. A practical way to do this is to create space-repetition decks and put them into a spaced repetition software, and just practice with the a few minutes every day.

reference:

• Memorizing a programming language using spaced repetition software: http://sivers.org/srs
• Space-repetition for win8 phone: http://www.kleio.info/

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Do a Plan

Take into account the above rules of thumb to define a plan on how to tackle:

• What to study
  • Look at the end goals and deconstruct - to define what to study
  • Select: apply 80/20 rule for selection and MED
  • Find ideal the material, interview Pro’s
• When to study it & Expected Outcomes
  • Look into the sequencing principles - organize an ideal “growth” sequence.
  • Define clear dates & outcomes for the sequence - applies the stakes principle.
• During the study (and afterwards when practicing)
  • Summarize learnings in cheat-sheets, can be part of the expected outcomes - keep refining them
  • Potencially use memorization / encoding tricks if/when required

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Notes

• Explaining to others, forces to find clear explanations and interiorize the learnings
• Writting often helps thinking and developing subject further
• When learning be pro-activity, especially by asking many questions

References

• The 4-Hour Chef Book
• http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/12/11/how-to-play-the-guitar/
• http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning_design/isd/metalearning/
• http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning_design/chunking-information/
• http://marc-edwards.com/2013/01/6-steps-to-learn-master-anything/
• http://domenicodefelice.blogspot.it/2013/06/best-ways-to-learn-foreign-language.html
• http://ankisrs.net/ - Remembering things: Space repetition software