1. ASSIGNMENT FOR COURSE 30 AUGUST 30/8/2016 LEARNING HOW TO LEARN
•THE ASSIGNMENT WAS TO :-
Create a presentation for your parents, friends, and teachers about what you’ve found to be the best tips for learning.
The following tips and methods are all linked to multiple themes covered in the course
Some of the best tips I have learnt during this course and tips I would recommend to my family, friends, teachers and students
I HOPE MY PEERS FIND THIESE MEMORABLE TIPS HELPFUL

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We usually learn the hard way repetition overlearning and often by accident we come across something that works for us, usually involving an enormous amount of discipline – no wonder students and pupils avoid study, some, are fortunate to have learnt life and study skills at school and this has proven a wonderful tool for further education for those students, others like myself learnt through sheer determination and “accident”
Once I heard about this course I set about it immediately to unravel the great mystery of learning and how to learn, and it has been a fantastic approach which, I know, has changed my attitude forever

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No longer young and now in my mid-sixties, I have always wanted to learn more and, in particular maths especially as my husband says don’t bother you are the creative one – now that is something I never believed in sure, our own personalities may be inclined to use the “diffuse mode” as in daydreaming and writing but we can learn to focus more and more often using the focussed mode and with training, so once this course is over I am on the maths train 

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Now a good trick to focussed learning especially with abstract maths and science is to firstly glance through the chapter (or chunk) and go over the headings of each paragraph, looking at the pictures and statements which explain the pictures or diagrams (refer Barbara Oakley in her book - A mind for numbers) At the same time making use of a highlighter for headings is good (not too much though very little) as just over-highlighting for the sake of it gives one a “feeling” of doing something” but is not actually learning so be careful of falling into this trap
Now, when you go through the study in a focussed mode you have something you can “hang” the new knowledge onto i.e. the heading or diagram you looked at.

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As we are all often guilty of some form of procrastination the Pomodoro example was undoubtedly a great tool; to learn for a set period thereby giving one time to study and a time to have a break so the brain can do its work, by resting or going for a walk or other activity that one enjoys it give the brain time to link other information about the subject and to solve difficulties in understanding as well as a reward for doing the job and getting it done
Do some exercise, not only is this this is good for you, it’s good the brain, it’s an organ and also needs life giving oxygenation, try walking running or whatever form of exercise suits each individual

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We learnt what “chunking” is and how important it is to understand a concept (understanding is the glue that “holds” everything together). Once you understand, the links in the brain (“diffused mode”) can tie up or link the right “pieces” or “chunks” and put them together so that when looking
downwards from above one can view the “whole picture” or the birds eye view and understand the concept (right brain ability)
Chunking in the diagrams moves upward towards the “concept”

7. 7 INTERLEAVING, OR MIXING UP OF YOUR STUDY
This has proven successful for maths and science
As in the past student teaching methods were blocked and they learnt one thing first then the next stage
It has been found that leaving and changing the focus to another part of the subject can have very good results

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Learning over a week or weeks with spare days in between gives the brain time to link up other similar knowledge this is called spacing, thereby making the learning foundation stronger
We have often experienced the moment when we wake up with the answer after a good night’s sleep (the brain has had time to detox and find and unite its answers) giving you a solution to the previous night’s question

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Another one I am guilty of is to try to understand every step in calculations or similar work especially with the abstract “I have to know now” instead of understanding the concept and letting the brain work on the chunks of knowledge it has or like a road map once I can see the route the brain can be creative in using other creative ways of solving the problem
Overlearning by repetition or going over knowledge already learnt does not help the learning process the learning cannot move forward it just stays stuck so don’t keep going over learnt material – just wasting time

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Hanging something on a hook will help the brain connect the pieces together either by pictures or a memory palace such as your home or a place you loved – you can keep the pieces there in your favourite room giving you a place in your mind to “save” these things and to jog your memory

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Keeping active physically helps keep your brain active too oxygenating it; and learning a new different skill like bridge, or remembering the grocery list or starting anew sport like bowls or golf being active socially keeps those neurons active
The more you learn the more the dendrites become active and increase so the brain can store more information, we don’t learn enough properly in our lifetime and a course like this has helped me by identifying the brain as an organ that can keep on increasing its knowledge; it can help us learn new things like maths or science or names or languages as long as the understanding is there and we help that along by using just some of the concepts we have learnt on this course

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And lastly another tip of the many learnt, is to read your work and test yourself; look at the work read it, study it and look away to see how much you actually remember, it when you activate your brain that the memory starts to work and that why endlessly highlighting does nothing for your memory it’s just what it is a movement on the page and a pretence at learning or fooling yourself, like einstelling
REFERENCES
THANKS TO BARBARA OAKLEY FOR HER VIDEOS AND THE BOOK A MIND FOR NUMBERES
AND A FANTASTIC COURSE