How to be an awesome quick study in no time

Learning Strategies help us perform at higher levels. Learning strategies or strategies are efficient procedures that people use to complete a task. We need strategies because we have a limited amount of thinking resources. Strategies allow us to do more with our limited mental resources. It is convenient to distinguish between three types of strategies: generic, domain specific and higher order.

Did you know there are three types of learning strategies?

  1. Goal setting is a generic strategy because one can use goal setting in a variety of domains. A domain is a specified sphere of activity or knowledge. Another generic strategy is rehearsal that is the recycling of information in short term memory. We perform rehearsal when we are trying to retain a phone number just long enough to dial the number.
  2. The second type of strategy is domain specific. Using a cooking recipe for beef stew is a domain specific strategy because a cooking recipe has little use outside a kitchen. Applying a depreciation formula to a rental property is also a domain specific strategy because it has limited value outside of accounting practices. Likewise, computer-programming procedures have little use outside computer languages.
  3. Metacognitive strategies are the third type of strategy. People engage in these strategies to adapt to and manage strategies while thinking. Metacognition refers to thinking about one’s thinking. It concerns two types of knowledge: facts and steps to perform a task, in other words procedural knowledge. Metacognition helps us monitor and control our strategies. One example of metacognition occurs when a person uses multiple comprehension strategies while reading because they know they will comprehend more efficiently.

 Do you want to become a good learning strategy user?

Good strategy users have a broad repertoire of strategies. They use such strategies in an automatic manner with little conscious effort. Moreover, they perform all types of strategies in this manner. Being an automated strategy user is best because it allows you to allocate your limited thinking resources to constructing meaning and overseeing your learning processes. Which type of strategy user are you? For more information on strategies, download your free primer on learning strategies.

What is the best way to get advanced software skills?

Kamren Zorgdrager is Director of Product Development at DevelopIntelligence and believes that software developers should develop their coding skills through deliberate practice. In a recent Forbes article he emphasized simply reading, watching and listening can only teach you so much about coding software. To become a proficient software developer you must actually practice and put your skills to the test. In the case of developing software, you must practice writing code.

To attain advanced levels of a skill you must deliberately practice tasks designed to enhance your performance.  You must practice regularly and extensively. Computer labs or assignments in a software development class are an excellent way to practice software development skills.

The more one practices the better one gets regardless of their initial talent and ability.  Performance differences attributed to talent and ability decrease over time as a function of practice. This means that highly talented individuals lose their competitive edge over time if they do not practice when compared with less talented individuals. Use it or lose holds true regarding skill development.

High quality practice boosts your skillset

The quality in addition to the quantity of practice is extremely important. Researchers indicate the highest quality practice takes place early in the morning.  Practice is generally more efficient when two hours in length with informational feedback. Informational feedback provides knowledge about errors and suggestions on how to improve performance. Both are particularly helpful in fostering high quality practice.  The best practice occurs under the watchful guidance of a skilled mentor who helps the developing person set goals and monitor improvement.

It is important to note practice counts much more than native ability. There is no easy path to advanced skill. Those who work the hardest for the longest time and have access to skilled mentors can reach the highest level of skill attainment. This means that you can become an expert software developer even if you were not born with all the necessary skills.

You learn more in a high demand job

Researchers commonly assume job design influences employee learning. In their recent work, Holman et al. (2011) have indicated job design characteristics learning-on-the-jobsignificantly influence employee learning and innovation. Specifically they found that job control and job demand had a positive relationship with learning strategies and idea generation. In this context job control pertains to one’s ability to plan their own work and job demand concerns the difficulty or challenge of one’s work.

This means that jobs that offer employees high levels of autonomy to perform challenging work foster learning strategy use and idea creation that is necessary for innovation.  Learning strategies that were found to promote idea creation included, but were not limited to:

  1. Thinking about new information and its implications for the job rather than merely concentrating on the facts presented.
  2. Reflecting upon how one’s work fits into the broader scope of the organization.
  3. Considering how your work affects your team or department.
  4. Filling in the gaps of your knowledge by securing the appropriate material.
  5. Trying out new things by putting them into practice.
  6. Getting someone to help you when you need assistance.

It is important to note that not all jobs readily afford employees with job control and demand characteristics that promote learning and idea creation. Nevertheless you have can create opportunities to acquire and use knowledge through reflection, interaction and collaboration with your team members. Active participation in such behaviors will result in higher learning and performance.

Want to lose more weight? This is for you!

Many people both want to lose weight and the aim of this post is to enhance your motivation to lose weight with self-set goals and self-questions. People successfully use clear, focused, realistic goals in weight loss programs. You can use both personal and professional goals to help you lose weight. Goals help specific-weigh-lossmotivate and build confidence. In conjunction with charting one’s progress and other goal management techniques goal-setting behaviors lead to higher weight loss. As people learn to set their own individual health and fitness-related goals they improve their decision-making for instance regarding meal choices, and this leads to person’s health-enhancing behaviors.

Using your motivation for making personal health decisions is a key to regulating your weight. A person’s personal goals need to be consistent with their values in order to guide their health promoting efforts over a long period. Research has demonstrated social support relates to the successful obtainment of weight loss goals. This means that your family and friends should support your goal attainment.

Do you need to accomplish more?

Setting and completing goals is something you need to consider. Goal setting is an integral component of high performance. Setting goals is a broad strategy that one can use at school, work, in sports and in other domains. Examples of goals include achieving 90% on a college quiz, obtaining a job promotion, and completing a 40-yard dash in less than 5 seconds.

 Effective goal setting requires that individuals set a precise long-term goal and break it into short-term realistic sub-goals. People should set a new goal after completing one. Therefore effective goal setting is a cyclical process. Performance with self-set goals is very effective because people accept the legitimacy of these goals and commit themselves to attaining them. In other words setting your own goals leads to your best performance. The benefits of assigned goals, for instance those set by a parent, supervisor, or coach can be strong as long as people perceive such goals as legitimate and reasonable.

It is important to note that goal achievement is not without peril because multiple goals can conflict an individual’s actions. In addition people may not have the skills required to complete their goals.

What are the steps in creating effective goals?

Engaging in strategic planning for gathering resources, sequencing, timing, and completing activities related to goals. These activities can help one accomplish complex or conflicting goals. More specifically, you should:

  1. Subdivide long-term goals into short-term sub-goals that increases one’s motivation to complete a task. Sub-goals allow frequent self-evaluations of progress that lead to strategy changes.
  2. Self-monitor and assess one’s progress during goal obtainment that allows one to reveal gaps in their performance. This leads to positive performance changes.
  3. Use adaptive measures, such as obtaining additional resources or seek help, when obstacles arise; both of which improve goal obtainment.

So it should be clear that goal setting strategies involves many types of active behaviors that enhance performance and learning and performance across various domains.  Goalsetting can also be a collaborative activity that involves one’s peers, even those who are in remote locations who communicate with you through electronic means. This post was synthesized from (Eric Digests, 2001).