THE TAO OF LEARNING

Robert Love, Venkat Jayaraman

June 19, 2008SSTP Seminar – Lecture 1

Class Overview

• Organizational– Discussion Leaders, Homework for Next Time

• Presentation 1• Discussion• Presentation 2• Activity

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Why learning?

• Needs of a human– Personality needs – Certainity, Uncertainity, Significance,

Connection/Love– Fulfillment needs – Personal growth, Contribute beyond

oneself– Learning critical in fulfilling these needs

• Survival of the ‘Wisest’– Increases employablility and career development prospects– Broader range of interests and wider social life– Ability to create your own future

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• Learning is a journey not a destination– It's never too soon or too late for learning

• That implies learning is a set of attitudes– The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new

lands, but in seeing with new eyes-Abraham Lincoln

• So the challenge is to get ‘new eyes’ – Step into the ‘unknown’

Lifelong learning

• Brain works on models– Models are patterns or software of the brain– Input from the world is processed in the form of models

• So, “If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got”

Brain and Learning

• Observe with non judgmental awareness– What are the patterns working for you?– What are the patterns not working for you?

• Reprogram the brain to get the output you desire– Realization that old patterns are not helping you in learning– Visualization exercises

• What type of learner are you?– Visual– Auditory– Kinesthetic

Know Thyself

• We tend to remember emotionally charged events more than boring ones

• It’s the emotional arousal, not the importance of information that helps memory

• mood congruence: whereby we remember events that match our current mood (thus, when we're depressed, we tend to remember negative events)

• mood dependence: which refers to the fact that remembering is easier when your mood at retrieval matches your mood at encoding (thus, your chances of remembering an event or fact are greater if you evoke the emotional state you were in at the time of experiencing the event or learning the fact)

Emotional state and learning

• Take responsibility for yourself• Don’t let circumstances dictate what you consider

important• Discover your key productivity periods and places • Ten year old rule – Explain ideas to yourself as you

would do to a ten year old• Trace back – Put away your books and relate a

random fact to a concept of your subject• Continually challenge yourself

Effective study habits

• Pros– Students learn in depth about fields that may not even have been

discussed in class – Researchers often develop team skills that help them in classes – Others acquire skills that make their job applications more

competitive – You will participate in discovering new things, and generating new

knowledge

• Cons– Research can be very time consuming – Although some students with less competitive grades think that

research experience will help them get into graduate school, grades are the most important factor in graduate school admission

Undergraduate Research

• Inner meaning – Developing significance that provides intrinsic motivation for learning and remembering

• Self Regulation – Controlling your approach to learning to determine the factors like readiness and speed

• Feeling of competence – Lack of this tool results in laziness and avoidance behavious; presence results in motivation to learn

• Goal directed behavior – Taking initiative in setting, seeking and reaching objectives in a regular basis

• Self Development – Being aware of your uniqueness and being all you can be

• Feeling the challenge – Being aware of the power of emotions on complex tasks

• Awareness of self change – Knowing that you change throughout life and learning to expect, nurture and benefit from it.

8 Tools for independent learning

Discussion Advice

• What characterizes/how can you lead a good discussion?– Everyone is involved! Don’t monopolize, call on people– Ask good questions (chief method of preparation)– Ask follow up questions, suggest alternatives– Feel free to disagree with an the idea, but state why you disagree– Wait for your turn to talk; don’t interrupt– Use the time to learn from others!

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Learning in Engineering

• What there is about each of these points that might influence student learning positively or negatively?

Engineering content

1. The concepts

2. The thinking processes

Engineering students

3. Prior knowledge

4. Motivation/values

5. Self-regulation skills

6. Developmental level

7. Life circumstances

Discussion Questions

• How do you think research works?• What are important aspects of research?• What kind of information do you use in daily life?– Where do you get that information?– Why do you think you find information that way? Why not do

__?

• Imagine that you are given 5 hours to learn a technical subject for a presentation, what would you do?

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