I believe that curiosity and passion are the two key driving forces that effectuate learning. Although they cannot be evoked from every necessary field of study for each individual student, connecting whatever it is that the class is studying with a student’s personal interests will help spike interest in them, enabling them to engage in the assignments with more passion. I think that it is not up to the teacher’s job to try to connect each of the topics of the class to each of the student’s passions; students should strive to make these connections on their own. The content taught to the students by the teachers are standardized, although the way in which they are taught may sometimes differ greatly; therefore, it is up to the students to discover for ourselves the ways in which we choose to process the content introduced to us.

 

The ways in which we can do this vary greatly. One way is by following guidelines for our stages of learning, so that we can follow them and eventually make these stages habitual. By following a guideline and forming a routine in our studies, we can begin to notice improvements made over the course of the year. Establishing a consistent method for learning something is essential because it will cut down on the excess time used on trying to learn a whole new system of studying. Also, adhering to a widely used method of studying benefits us because most likely this method has been critically acclaimed and has proved to be effective for many other students. By incorporating subjects of our interest into these standardized methods of learning, students can augment their passion for the content as well as detect progress in their learning stages by adhering to these standards.

 

Pacing is another fundamental strategy desirable for a successful learning experience. From past experience I have learned that the requisites for fully understanding a certain amount of content is a considerable amount of time spent on learning the content. However, by this I do not mean just any lengthy amount of time committed to this task before the day of the test, but the same amount of time evenly paced across a longer span of time. Different students need different amounts of time to process and understand the same information, and various content material also require differing amounts of time spent on them. By pacing ourselves and striving to achieve a goal a little bit at a time, in contrast to trying to cram everything in before the test day or before an assignment is due, we are lessening the weight of the tasks on ourselves, as well as giving ourselves opportunities to reflect on what we have learned and process the information at a relaxed pace. 

 

These are just a few of my ideas I have about how I can make my learning more effective and possibly even enjoyable. I hope that I can learn in accordance with these ideas, so that I can enhance my capability of learning the content through “learning how to learn”. And finally, why do I learn? I learn because by comprehending many ideas and concepts, I can better understand the world in which I live. I cannot let myself be ignorant of all the things happening around me; things that I might potentially be able to change for the better, even in the smallest of ways.

 

 

 

Some nice quotes about learning:

 

❝Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.❞ 

― Benjamin Franklin

 

❝Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. ❞

― Richard P. Feynman