Learn-to-Learn: Master your Mind Inside and Out

#2: Learn-to-Learn (Part 2 of an Ongoing Series – Sequential and Global Learning Techniques)

Now that you know a few techniques that work for both Active and Reflective Learners, it’s time to learn the different techniques that best work for you if you’re a Sequential Learner and a Global Learner.

*Note – Techniques used by each style can work and be useful to the other styles. Just because one may statistically be better for one does not mean it won’t work for you. Try them all and experiment a little.

Sequential Learner Techniques

Most learning is structured around Sequential Learners. Because it is seen as the most logical way to learn by building upon a subject step by step, and mastering it little by little. This style of learning is very popular if you have every looked into How-To-Lists and other types of manuals.

1. Find and Dissect the Fundamentals

Everything can be boiled down into simple building blocks.

Recipes can be broken down from amazing feasts to the basic ingredients of flour, eggs, salt, etc. Cars can be broken down from complex machinery to simple metal pieces all put together to build a something greater than the sum of its parts.

The key is to be able to hone your ability to dissect subjects and topics so that you can find the basics even from the most complex. As everything in life is simple, the only reason you can’t understand it is because someone doesn’t want you to as they would stop being the expert!

Here is how to break things down into their basic parts.

First: Observe it.

· Everything is connected in one way or another.

Finding how something is connected is the most important part of dissecting it. You have to see how the parts work in conjunction to figure out how it works. Therefore, observe it to see how each part is connected to the others.

Second: Describe it.

· Everything happens in a particular order.

Once you know how each piece is connected, it’s time to see the sequential order of how they work together. Although many things can work at the same time, the idea is to map out to see what causes what in a cause and effect manner.

Third: Discover The Why.

· Everything has a purpose

Knowing why each part does in the grand scheme of things is important to understanding something as a whole, instead of just its individual segments. Figuring out what and why each piece operates and affects the others will allow you to see the pattern of something’s function.

2. Write it out into your very own Sequential List/Outline.

Once you know how something works from top to bottom, it’s time to map it out in your own words as a Sequential List/Outline. You can do this my following writing out what you learned in “Dissecting the Fundamentals” in a easy to understand format such as a flow chart, an outline, How-To- List, Step-by-Step Manual with pictures, and more.

3. Learn to Fill-in-the-Blanks

People who learn this way love having every step available but absolutely hate when steps are left out or if information is taught out of order. Which is why it is so important for someone who learns this way to know how to fill in the blanks if information is incomplete.

· Ask a subject matter expert to fill in the blanks from a community forum, a mentor, a professor, a tutor, or any other place where people know the process of what you’re trying to learn. This is much easier than the next one.

· Figure it out yourself through self-study. This will take longer as you have to find references that you need to cross check for validity. The easiest way to do this is to find YouTube videos of it being done or other media.

Global Learner Techniques

Global Learners like to see where they are going and figure out the details on their way there. Meaning the details come second to the Big Picture. Therefore, if you’re a Global Learner, always know where you’re going and remember the details will come in time.

1. See the Big Picture Before You Research the Details

Global Learner’s love to be able to see the big picture clearly before they delve into any details. Because they like to see how everything they learn in the future will fit into it.

Which is why the first technique is to skim the material you’re trying to learn to get the general gist of how everything works together before trying to figure out the individual steps from one to another.

Once you have mastered the whole, you can finally learn how the individual details that make it up. This will help you learn by associating the small steps to the story of the big picture.

2. Associate New Information to Old

Use what you already know to understand what you need to know now.

This technique is taking the idea of what you have learned in the past to describe new information and associate it to the old. This allows you to take the new information and input into a frame of mind that you already understand and eliminates a lot of the redundancy of learning.

For example, you know how to budget yourself. You know that the money that comes in has to exceed the money that goes out. This basic concept can be applied to many different situations such as trying to lose weight (more calories out, than calories in), economics (Supply outstripped by Demand, Prices go up), and many, many more.

This also means taking what you have learned about the subject and connecting it with new information. So you’re filling in the blanks of the whole picture with the details.

3. Take What You Learn to Other Subjects

This is the basis of becoming a General Systems Theorist. Find patterns in what you learn and take all new information and apply it to your learning frameworks. As all things when broken down resemble each other either chronologically, process wise, or methodically. A great place to start mastering your own framework is here.