Your Learning Guide

A crowdsourced guide to learning - made by you, curated by FutureLearn, and now available as an ebook! Read and share useful tips on how to study from a global community of learners.  

[guidetolearning]

We have some exciting news...

Your Learning Guide is now available as a free ebook: The Crowdsourced Guide to Learning! Congratulations to everyone whose tips were included - we hope you agree they look great in (electronic) print.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the learning guide so far. This edition of the ebook is not the end, so please continue submitting your tips.

[guidetolearning]

Our top this week comes from Peter.

“When I read something, even if I think I have fully understood it, I find that I don’t really assimilate it until I turn it into my own words.”

"The end result of this”, says Peter, “is a feeling that the ideas I have read are now ‘my’ ideas.”

[guidetolearning]

A special place to study

Choose a place to always study where you can really concentrate. It will make you have more focus because if you are there you know that have to study!

[academicae]

Had a request for a close up of my last cheat sheet (or test notes if you wanna seem classy) Sorry it is so blurry-but finals are coming I shouldn’t even be taking pictures. Or eating. Or sleeping.

[guidetolearning]

How do you write notes and how do they help you learn?

[guidetolearning]

Repeat the words

The least amount of noise around, the better for you to concentrate. Sometimes, while on my way to work, I repeat some words and somehow, I eventually remember them. I now tend to spend more time speaking and my 4 year old son helps me to pronounce new words.

[guidetolearning]

Keep Google open

I always have a notebook at pen beside me when I study as writing stuff down helps me to remember and I can easily look back on anything I might need. I also keep Google open so if there is anything I’m not sure about I can look into it further.

[guidetolearning]

Sharpen your mind

I am a retired lecturer. With limited mobility due to old age my contact with culture depends on my computer where I regularly sit for two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon. Then I do some housework. In the afternoon I take a siesta, it sharpens the mind. I enjoy discovering new things for myself and for other people and urge others similar to me to do the same!

[guidetolearning]

There is no beginning, middle or end to learning

I like to learn something because it looks/sounds interesting or stimulating, and the information may come in handy at any point in my life. (This concept motivates me to try and learn new things, acquire skills and think of myself as a lifelong learner.) There is no best place for learning, but a clean and peaceful (as far as is possible) environments help. Try to avoid the ‘bed’ or a comfy couch as a place to 'work on learning’. I am an auditory and visual learner, primarily.

I am still learning from my own grandchildren as I’m curious about the skills they have, and keep asking them to teach me some of those. 

'There is no beginning or end to learning.“ 

[guidetolearning]

Study what excites you!

I think it is the most important key to successful learning is if something excites you, everything you read, you watch or you write, will be a learning experience that you love.

[teastudystationery-blog]

[guidetolearning]

Some learning spaces keep you learning and calm. Where do you learn best?

[guidetolearning]

Watch wisely but always listen

Listening is an important element in communication due to the fact that if someone doesn’t understand what the native or foreign language student is saying it becomes difficult to answer and share information properly. I introduce some tips designed to help intermediate students:

Watch television wisely. Some students spend several hours watching, movies , series and soap operas in English with the audio and subtitle in English but this kind of immersion is not highly recommended. News and documentaries are a better challenge because they mix spoken English with an academic variety of the language.

Begin watching movies and cartoons of stories you are familiar with in English and with the subtitles on in English. If it’s hard at first, you can watch in your language and after that in English. Write down in a notebook the vocabulary, words and expressions, that appear more frequently also write sentences to put the vocabulary acquired in context. 

Buy dictionaries, bilingual and monolingual, especially the ones from OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE AND PEARSON EDUCATION. A good dictionary about idioms and phrasal verbs will help tremendously to increase your understanding of English. Remember if you don’t invest money and time your progress will be unsatisfactory.

[guidetolearning]

Have a soundtrack to your module

I used to hate the thought of coming home from work to sit and study. So I looked at the things I like doing and found one that I could combine with study; listening to music (I even bought better headphones to help with this...any excuse). 

I found that for each module I studied, I would have a go-to album that almost became the soundtrack to that module. I also then found I could link certain topics with certain songs, very useful for the long drive to the exam! By doing this I almost overlooked that I had to study…I looked forward to the music instead!

[guidetolearning]

Where there’s a will there’s a way

I watch the tutorials and take notes to break down presentations in key chunks/concepts, also to avoid dreaming away/thinking of other things while watching/listening. The quizzes are great way to consolidate knowledge as are the Q and A among students/with tutors because they highlight critical points in their thinking, sometimes different from mine.   

I mostly study in my study (lucky me) unless I am travelling. Then I study anywhere, often reading the texts rather than viewing the online tutorials. The only hiccup could be lack of Internet access. 

Why do I study? Curiosity about many things/issues. Refreshing my knowledge of subjects studied previously. Learning new things. Staying abreast of new academic developments.   

[guidetolearning]

Feeling bad can push you further

Experiment revising in a few different places to decide what you prefer, usually a quiet area in your home is best but some people prefer to head to the library to avoid distractions at home. I prefer to be alone but others prefer working next to others revising to make you feel bad if you stop, its all about your choice! 

Then even if its in house, set an alarm for a reasonable time (I’d say 9/9.30) and make sure you get up and dressed, revising in pjs sounds a lovely idea but I find getting up, dressed and washing my face makes me feel awake and prepared and therefore the day is much more productive.   

Set yourself targets and be organised but don’t spend too much time doing this! If you have 5 exams in 3 weeks write a schedule of what you’ll do each day taking into account the hardness of each subject and which order the exams are in. 

I always find rewriting notes onto other pages and/or highlighting much better than simply reading which often doesn’t go in, especially if there’s any diagrams involved. Writing the most important bits on flashcards also helps and googleing things  or reading a different book to see another way of it is written which can help information sink in and understand it better. 

[guidetolearning]

Short study spells

My tips are to find short spells to study; 30 minutes to 1 hour is quite enough for me, usually after I have checked my emails first thing in the morning when my mind has not been cluttered by other things.

Secondly, not to take on too much. I have found myself trying to do four FutureLearn courses overlapping, and this just isn’t possible for me so then none of them get studied effectively. Pick and choose cleverly and make sure you have the time. 

[recursivecodex-deactivated20151]

#london #underground #commute #commuting #trains #travel

[guidetolearning]

FutureLearn allows you to learn on the go, in a train, waiting for the bus or while having your hair done. 

Where is the most interesting place you have learnt something new?

[guidetolearning]

Think!

Making notes, writing things in a notebook, is not in itself knowledge; it’s stuff in a book - just like the stuff in the course-book where you read it all in the first place. The fact that you put it all down in your own handwriting does not make it your knowledge. You have to think actively, work, make connections and remember in order to put it in your head. Only then is it something closer to knowledge.