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How To Learn

No matter which position you are going into here at Wonder Dog Training, you are in for a lot of learning. New positions, new jobs and new career paths require learning a lot up front and to help you with this learning you are about to do, we wanted to teach you HOW to learn.

We go to school for typically the first 17-25 years of our life and during that time we are made to remember all sorts of stuff, memorize stuff, etc. but they never taught us HOW to learn. So we want to give you a few pointers on how to go through these next weeks and months as you are learning.

F.A.S.T.E.R. Learning

I am citing the book “Limitless” by Jim Kwik here and using his learning model.

F.Orget

Forget what you know. Isn’t it strange that the first step to learning is forgetting? Lots of times we are limited to learning new info by being caught up with what we know. So start by forgetting what you know or think you know and go into this with a clean slate.

A.ctive

Learning is not a spectator sport. Which means in order to learn faster, we must be active in the way we learn.

Our whole life we have been taught to learn passively. But when do we learn best as humans? When we are active and participating.

So as you are going through your training, pay close attention. If you are reading something or watching a training video, sit up straight, don’t be laying down. Breath deep and don’t be hunched over in a chair breathing shallow. Take notes vigorously.

When it comes to notes, go quantity over quality. If you have comments and questions, be sure to write them down.

S.tate

When we sit down to learn, it’s important to take a snapshot of our mood — both in our body and our mind. It’s important to be present, and a huge part of that is understanding our emotional state when we begin the learning process.

Think back to when we were in school. What was our emotional state for most of our learning life? Boredom? Confusion? Disinterest? Now, think back to something we were genuinely excited to learn about. We were interested, excited, engaged, curious, happy. We tend to remember the positive experiences because information combined with emotion leads to long-term memory.

We can change our state by paying attention to our bodies. When we’re excited we tend to sit straighter and lean forward. Our muscles are more engaged because our bodies are alert. Compare that to when we’re bored. We slouch, melting into the chair. Our heart rate lowers, our breathing is slower, and overall, we aren’t ready to engage in anything more than a nap. All learning is state-dependent, and we are the only ones in charge of our state.

T.EACH

There’s an old adage: those who can’t do, teach. It’s a very negative belief and when we accept it as truth, we accept the limitation that we can’t do, we can’t learn. Instead, we can take that belief, and turn it around. Because if we can teach it, we can do it.

Everything we learn should be learned with the intent to teach someone else. When we know we have to present information to someone else, we pay attention differently than when we learn just for ourselves. So if we can take that mentality and apply it to everything we want to learn, we can increase our retention and understanding.

The thing about learning to teach is we actually get to learn twice. The first time when we learn it ourselves, and the second when we teach it to someone else. The information gets cemented through their questions and observations, making learning an interactive process instead of a passive activity.

E.NTRY

In every pocket, on every computer, and hanging on many walls is a powerful tool. The calendar. Studies have shown that using a calendar increases our productivity. When we schedule an event or an activity, we are signaling to our brain that this is important. We tend to focus more on that activity because we know the duration of time we have planned, and we also have a visual reminder of the things we need to do later.

We can keep this importance by scheduling our learning time. Schedule when we’re sitting down to watch a webinar or read a book. Allow uninterrupted time so we can give our full attention to the learning process without feeling guilty, or letting ourselves be open to distraction.

R.EVIEW

We can solidify everything we learn, transferring the information from short-term memory to long-term by reviewing what we learn. The key here is spaced repetition. Take time after a lesson to absorb what we learned, and then review our notes later. Review it again before the next lesson, reminding our brain where the lesson left off and priming our learning for what’s coming next.

Cramming before a test or reading a chapter from a textbook over and over isn’t conducive to learning. In fact, those techniques aren’t how we absorb information and do nothing to improve recall or recollection, two tenets necessary in learning. When it comes to forming new synapses and neural connections that are necessary to take new information into long-term memory, our brain needs time. And that’s exactly what spaced repetition gives us.

Studies indicate that we lose up to 90% of new information within three days. However, if we review the information within twenty-four hours, individuals have been shown to retain up to 80% of what they just learned. That’s a huge increase! But that’s just one review. If we review again within forty-eight hours, we retain 85% and if we review one more time within seventy-two hours, odds are we will retain most if not all of the information learned. That’s spaced repetition at work.

By reviewing the new information multiple times over a spread out period of time, we give our brain the necessary time to absorb the data and build the proper neural connections solidifying it.