Explore—understand content
The next step in the learning process is to explore your topic and the
material you’ve collected. Your goal is to understand the topic, rather than
just rote learn it. A fundamental learning principle underlies exploration.
If you learn something in more depth up front, you remember it for longer.
Learning material by rote sometimes appears easier. You could learn some
topics faster by rote compared to trying to understand the details behind
the topic. However, this typically results in slower overall learning for
two reasons.
Firstly, if you forget part of the topic learned by rote, you have little
to help you recall it. If you understand the underlying ideas, it’s more
likely you can rebuild parts of the topic in your mind. Consider a
mathematical formula. If you only rote learn it, you may forget whether to
add or subtract some item in the formula. If you understand the theory
behind the formula, it’s more likely you can work out whether to add or
subtract.
Secondly, it’s less likely you can apply a topic in a slightly different
way if you only rote learn it. If you learn the details behind a topic, you
have more opportunity to work out what you need to change to apply the topic
differently. For example, understanding some details behind aircraft
navigation makes it easier to apply the same knowledge to maritime
navigation.
You can explore at many levels. When you first start your training, you
explore the overall course content and understand how each lower level
module contributes to the overall objectives. As you progress, you then
explore each part in more detail. Both the high and low-level details form
part of your understanding of a topic.
Many techniques and tools can help you explore your content. In this
section, we first look at some general techniques you can apply to any
exploration activity. Then I present more techniques grouped (roughly) into
the most relevant Memletic Style. We are yet to cover these styles in
detail, so you may want to review the basics of each style in the Overview
chapter. In summary, the styles are Visual, Aural, Verbal, Physical,
Logical, Social and Solitary learning styles.
Here is a summary of possible exploration techniques:
General exploration
- High altitude view
- Deeper level
- Branch wider
- Abstractions
- Bottom up
- Questions3
Visual exploration
- Diagrams, graphs, and sketches
- Mind maps
- Systems diagrams
- Visualization
Aural exploration
- Sound focus
- Record sounds
Verbal exploration
- Lectures and discussions
- Dramatic reading
- Express and summarize aloud
- Write and rewrite
- Write articles
- Write summaries
- Record
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Physical exploration
- Walk about
- Get hands-on
- Role-playing
- Index cards & Post-It notes
- Tick it off
Logical exploration
- Logic analysis—OSAID
- Logic trees
- Play with numbers
Social exploration
- Group learning
- Study buddy
- Opposite view
- Role-play
- Involve others
Solitary exploration
- Reaction notes
- Learning journal or log
- People exploration
- Make up your own mind
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How far should you go when exploring your material? It depends on your
objectives. If you want to know a particular topic well, you may want to
explore it in more detail than a course mandates. Don’t go too far though.
If you find yourself analyzing the behavior of electrons in water molecules,
and how that contributes to a landscape photograph, you have probably gone
too far!
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
Full descriptions of all these techniques.
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