My metalearning process

#thought #seedling

I perform metalearning to create a personalized plan for a learning project. My metalearning process is inspired by that outlined in Ultralearning by Scott Young.

I begin by asking three questions:

  1. Why am I learning what I am learning?
  2. What knowledge and abilities do I need to acquire?
  3. How am I going to acquire the knowledge and abilities I need?

I write my answers to these questions on a project note kept inside a project folder in Obsidian.

Articulate your motivation to focus your learning

Answering the first question provides me with a convergence tool that helps me focus on the things that truly matter in my project. Articulating my motivation for learning helps me decide what paths to ignore and what to follow. Alignment of my learning plan and motivation is important so that I don't waste time.

Asking the first question is often enough to tell me whether my learning project is something I'm pursuing for its own sake or simply instrumental for a larger goal. If my learning project is instrumental, it's best to use expert interviews just to make sure my learning method is the best.

Understand the knowledge structure of a subject

To answer the second step, I create a new Word document and perform the following steps:

  1. I create a table with three columns.
  2. I write headings for each column: concepts, facts, and procedures.
  3. I begin populating each column with lists.
  4. I underline items in my list that I'm most unfamiliar with as these could be major bottlenecks along the way.

As I perform these steps, I remind myself that my lists don't have to be complete or accurate at the beginning and that I could revise them as I start learning. The goal of this exercise is simply to help me get a grasp of the knowledge structure of the subject I'm trying to learn.

The last step of this phase is important because I would use the underlined items to identify and prioritize resources that would help me overcome potential bottlenecks.

Use benchmarking and emphasizing-excluding to know how to learn effectively

Benchmarking

When looking for learning materials, I spend some time checking existing learning plans. For academic subjects, retrieving existing curricula or syllabi could be useful. For nonacademic subjects or skills, expert interviews and research are more appropriate. These interviews and research help me see how others learned a subject or skill I want to learn.

Emphasizing-excluding

After retrieving existing plans and choosing one or creating my own by combining different plans, I look at my current plan closer and remove or postpone elements that don't support my learning objectives. However, I only do this when I have learned enough about the scope of my subject, so that I make better decisions on what to exclude.

References

Young, S. (2019). Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career (Illustrated edition). Harper Business.