Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
I recently found a pretty interesting discussion in one of the chats:
What is your behavior in learning?
Do you learn the things that you don’t know?
Or will you join a new course on the topic you know well but want to improve?
Let me share a few points and advices from my experience.
๐ Bits of theory
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๐๏ธ Researchers say that people tend to practice skills they already know. Why? Because it is easy, and it feels like you are progressing and accomplishing a new badge after passing another course.
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๐๏ธ But to avoid such a situation, you need to remember that we learn only when we struggle with it. When we struggle while learning, we strengthen our connections in the brain. Yes, you will have a temptation to stop the practice because it’s hard. But that’s the natural learning process. So, to progress, you need to choose the weakest topics for you.
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๐๏ธ If you want to know whether you understand the topic, try explaining it to others. This can be a knowledge-sharing session or a talk at the conference.
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๐๏ธ You can also ask more non-obvious questions at the higher level of Bloom’s taxonomy: compare things one to another or evaluate a term under different conditions.
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๐๏ธ Not all knowledge is valuable - so you need to filter out it. You can try splitting it into procedures and concepts. Procedures - it is anything that we can describe as a sequence of clearly defined steps. It can be the configuration of a user before testing or implementing certain algorithms. These kinds of skills can be learned only by practicing them repeatedly. (If you need to master it).
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๐๏ธ Concepts are ideas or terms that require a higher-level understanding. So, instead of memorizing concepts, you need to understand them, find relationships with your current knowledge, and find ways to apply them in practice.
๐ค My practices for learning
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๐ก Reflect. Reflect on which work tasks are more challenging for you than others. Where are my gaps in knowledge? Gaps can be in programming, testing, technology, product, or domain knowledge.
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๐ก Visualize. Visualize gaps in a diagram or mind map to have a bigger picture of the learning landscape.
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๐ก Prioritize. Choose the most high-priority topics and learn them separately. Focus on at most 1-2 topics at once for a certain amount of time (week, month).
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๐ก Note-taking. I am making notes on almost everything: procedures, concepts, and meetings.
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๐ก Track. Track your progress to fight impostor syndrome and to check your status. Write down things you learned: “Now, I can configure a user with a complex set of actions” or “Now, I know how to investigate logs in this particular sub-system.”
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๐ก Evaluate. Evaluate yourself by implementing a practical project or continuously self-testing the learning topics.
As a conclusion
Looking at those steps, I would say that you need to treat learning as a project and behave like a project manager to plan, do, check, and act in the cycle.
Learning with struggle, building relationships between concepts, reflecting and evaluating - can make new knowledge valuable. Otherwise - it is just copy-pasting concepts from book to your notes (without understanding it).