Michael A. Nielsen has done a transcript on his presentation on talking about effective learning. In many times, when it comes to a difficult topics, learning may not be as easy as read a book and understand them. He took an example on natural science, it is a tough learning and he developed some principles…

It is a great found that the book How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School has a free online version! The book has some great research and concepts of learning, such as memory and its structure, analysis and reasoning, self-regulatory capabilities, community participation and so on. Learning is a basic, adaptive function of humans…

Over at Parenting Ideas, it has an article series on learning styles. Different people have different ways of learning and getting information. There are four main types of learning style – they are Spatial/Visual learning, Tactile/Kinetic learning, Auditory learning, and Logical learning: … The same things are true when we try to learn something that requires…

Ask Metafilter has a good discussion on how to take notes when reading. The readers have suggestion couple of tools such as paper notes, index card, personal wiki, software and so on. It is interesting to see many people who uses similar tools but different note taking method. For instance: … 1. In part, I…

Brightsurf has a good article recently on the relationship between brain, sleeping and learning. The article is pretty technical, but two good pieces of information you can grab from it which are benefit for our readers: Learning appears to rejuvenate the brain; and lack of sleep undoes the rejuvenation benefit from learning. Hence it is…

Here’s a suggestion for the start of the semester: Find a good place to study and make it your own. The more time you spend in that place, the more it will become associated with the work of learning. A good place to study isn’t necessarily one that’s comfortable. In his book Creative Reading, the poet…

Curt Rosengren gives out a good advice on mistake. One obstacle that he identified si that many people fear of making a mistake. He recommends everyone should take a positive emotion to mistake, as it can be a wake-up call and identify what is actually happened. It can also act as a live lesson…

Too many resolutions barely last through January. Here’s how to make plnas for 2006 you’ll be certain to keep.

One of the coolest way to learn stuff by yourself is to jump to an OpenCourseWare and get the lecture materials. But sometimes I found I really hard to natvigate OpenCourseWare like MIT one. David Wiley has developed an online utility called OpenCourseWare Finder, based on del.icio.us direc.tor, which can list and narrow…

How often each day do you tell yourself, or others, you can’t do something? Is it true? How do you know you can’t? What if you’re limiting yourself without knowing it? What if you’re lying to save face or avoid embarrassment?

Everyone knows that Charles Darwin said life was “the survival of the fittest.” Everyone knows it, but it isn’t true.

November is the month we celebrate thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation. Lately, in my neck of the late autumn woods, we’ve been talking story about mistakes, and how we should appreciate them. What? Be thankful for mistakes? Absolutely. Let’s really think about this with an open mind. Mistakes are part of the learning process. If you aren’t…

Conversation is becoming a lost art, replaced by endless talk. To converse is to share ideas and learn from one another in the process. It demands listening and talking in equal degrees. Talk is one-way.

Before you decide the Pareto Principle is true and can be used to guide your actions, I want to ask two important questions. Can you identify which actions make up the useful 20%? And can you do so in advance? And does this useful 20% always contain more or less the same actions?

As a college professor, I’ve long been giving my students (what I hope is) useful advice. Here’s one of the best pieces of advice I know for doing well in college: Rule 7 The only rule is work. If you work, it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the…