I recently came across an e-book that coined a useful term:
holistic learning. It's an excellent method of learning, and as I read quickly through the 27-page PDF I realized that a lot of the academic success I have enjoyed has come from a system of learning very similar to this. You can download the file
here.
Quote:
● Holistic learning is the opposite of rote memorization. Instead of learning through force,
your goal is to create webs of information that link together.
● Your goal when learning anything is to create a construct or an underlying understanding.
● Constructs are formed from models, chunks of understanding that aren't completely
accurate but can be used to solve problems.
● You create webs of information, constructs and models by visceralizing, metaphor and
exploring
● Holistic learning works with highly conceptual information where there is an underlying
system. It doesn't work well with arbitrary information or skills.
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My favorite section is the one on metaphors, since I have always been hopelessly dependent on metaphors in forming my understanding of the world. The author uses a good one to describe how helpful it is to view things as part of a network of information:
Quote:
If I showed you a pile of bricks and removed one of them, would you be able to tell me where
it goes. Possibly if the pile was ten or twenty bricks. But what about a hundred? A thousand? A million
bricks? Would you still know where the missing brick should go?
Now if I showed you a brick building and removed one of the bricks, could you tell me where it is
supposed to go? Probably immediately. Even if the building consisted of over a million bricks, a quick scan
would show where the hole in the building lay and where the missing brick could be found.
You don’t need every brick to maintain the structural integrity of a house. You don’t need every piece
of information to maintain the integrity of your understanding. When you have a construct, you can solve
difficult problems even when there is a lot of missing information. You simply look at your construct, see
where the holes point to and fill them in.
Most people incorrectly assume you can’t answer questions you haven’t been taught how to answer.
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This guy has the right idea. I was almost surprised to learn at the end that the author is very young, but that shouldn't surprise anyone anymore! Wisdom comes with experience and there are some who live more in their early years than many people live in their whole lives. (Randy Pausch seemed to have lived 3-4 average lifetimes worth.)