The Autodidactic Podcast

This is the last episode for this season, and I want to talk about the role of curiosity in lifelong learning. So, I'll just briefly explain the topic of curiosity. We'll go through the significance of it for lifelong learning and explain the connection between curiosity and the motivation to learn.

Today we'll explore the methods to becoming a Better Writer through Self-Study. When you're a writer, you need to continuously improve your writing skills. To achieve this, we need to emphasize the importance of continuous improvement and establish a measure and baseline to track progress. In this episode, we'll discuss the benefits of self-study for aspiring writers and highlight the strategies and techniques for autodidactic writers.

Today we'll look at mentorship and how it can help you as an autodidactic. It's not just about having someone to show you the ropes; mentorship goes way beyond that. When you have a mentor by your side, you gain access to invaluable guidance, support, and accountability. Think of them as your personal cheerleader and advisor rolled into one!

Expanding our knowledge base through continuous learning is of utmost importance in today's rapidly changing world. It not only promotes personal and professional growth but also enables us to keep up with the ever-evolving landscape in various fields. Lifelong learning has become essential in order to thrive in a dynamic society. By actively seeking opportunities to broaden our knowledge base, we can enhance our critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. When we expose ourselves to diverse perspectives and ideas, we develop a more comprehensive understanding of complex issues. This broader understanding enables us to approach challenges from different angles and find innovative solutions. Moreover, expanding our knowledge base opens up new avenues for career advancement and personal fulfillment. By acquiring expertise in multiple areas, we become more versatile and adaptable, which can lead to increased professional opportunities. Additionally, learning about different subjects outside our comfort zone can bring joy and satisfaction by fueling our intellectual curiosity.

Exploring the use of Critical Thinking in Self-Learning. Critical thinking is a cognitive process characterized by the ability to analyze, evaluate, interpret, and infer information and ideas. It involves actively and objectively examining concepts, arguments, and evidence to form well-reasoned judgments and make informed decisions. For autodidacts, critical thinking is particularly important as it enables independent learning and empowers individuals to navigate a vast amount of information effectively. It's essential to distinguish critical thinking from other types of thinking, such as creative or lateral thinking. While critical thinking involves logical analysis and evaluation, creative thinking focuses on generating innovative ideas and solutions.

We'll look at the different methods of note-taking and how to use and enhance them for self-learning

Today we'll explore the methods to deal with demotivation.

Today we'll investigate how you can create quizzes and tests for yourself as an autodidactic learner.

Today I'll cover all the things I'm doing to get resources for learning at no cost, how I'll use mnemonic techniques and create a retrospective timetable for my study plans.

Hello and welcome to the autodidactic podcast Season 2, Episode 13. This is the last episode in this season. I decided I would spend a little time telling you what I will be doing over the next few months with regards to my own self-study plans and what my plans are for this podcast. Hopefully you'll be able to take something from my plans in order to use for yourself and you're own autodidactic study. I'm currently focusing on five main areas for self-study. Learning new programming languages Learning natural languages Learning maths Learning electronics Lock picking The two programming languages I'm focusing on are assembly language for the ARM processor, and Rust. A lot of listeners will not be familiar with these but they are low level programming languages which are very helpful when programming computers. The reason for learning these is that they are closely related to one of my other learning projects which is electronics. Learning all three of these topics at the same time tends to reinforce each other. Understanding the electronics and logic chips used to build a computer, helps to understand the syntax and usage of both assembly programming and Rust programming. Learning the assembler shows how the binary operating codes used by the electronics is used in software. I'm also writing a program assembler in rust, so creation of software used to write software ties everything together. Perhaps you have two or more topics of interest which you are learning that you'll be able to create linkages between. I'm creating an 8-bit CPU from wires and logic chips, and writing all my own software from scratch. This type of synergistic project forces me to use the learnings from each of the three topics in a real world project. I've said before that having an actual use for what you are learning, and using what you are learning for a project outside the realm of the textbook exercises will do wonders for your understanding. I also wanted to focus on the calculus and understanding and using it. Originally I thought I would go through all of the maths books I have on a shelf from basic maths through algebra, then trigonometry and into calculus. But I have decided that since calculus is want I actually want to know, why not just jump in and learn that? Two weeks ago I shelved the algebra book I was working on and pulled down two of the calculus books I have. It didn't take long to identify the things I had been doing in the algebra book were not of much use for calculus, but it also identified a weakness in some other areas of maths. So yesterday I put the calculus books back on the shelf and pulled down the trigonometry book. Boning up on sine, cosine, tangents is helpful for the chapter of the calculus book I'm on right now. So here I'm not making a linear progression through one book to the next in order. For me, at this time, it is better from my study and motivation to go through the textbook in the topic where I want to be, and discover knowledge gaps. That way I can go back, plug the gap then return to the higher level book. For some people skipping around like this is suboptimal, but for me it works much better since I'm time constrained. Some people will say this method will cause me problems in the future because I don't have a grounding in the basics before moving on the more advanced things. Normally I would agree, but I did a lot of maths back when I was in school, and most of the books I'm falling back to are refreshers for me anyway. The problem with not using knowledge is that in the 30 odd years since I first learned all this stuff it has mostly wasted away through non-use. But unlike the first time I learned it, a review is normally enough to remember what I need. So is this method appropriate for what you need to know? Have a think about what you are studying and if it is unknown or if you are just slogging through a refresher course just because it is the next textbook in the sequence? Again for many things I would advocate learning things in sequence from most simple to the most complex. But I find frequently I learn best when I hit a problem and I'm forced to then go back and redo or relearn. In the electronics self-study I have been doing the need to have an assembler program forced me to learn very complex software syntax. But in that project I had progressed through the entire rust programming book from cover to cover before using it. What I'm saying is depending on the knowledge you need and the knowledge you already have, you may need to learn sequentially or it might be more advantageous to skip about. Only you will know, and only you can determine the best way. Just don't be stuck with the assumption that all learning has to be sequential. I'm also learning natural languages and by this I mean; French, Italian, Chinese and Korean. Studying these is by far the largest time-sink of all the study I'm doing. The software and electronics study are related to each other, and while you would thing languages would be as well, they are all actually very distinct things which have to be studied on their own separately. There isn't a lot of overlap and you spend a lot of time learning vocabulary. For these I split my time between conversation exchanges, reading, and TV programs in French and Italian, the two languages I'm most advanced in. The other two are coursebooks and some audio work with additional work in learning the Chinese and Korean writing systems. Because natural languages are degrade over time, you need to use them or touch them daily. So assuming I were to spend only 30 minutes per day on each, that is still 2 hours of study time. So how do I break up this time? Normally, I read or watch a show in French or Italian each day, and speak with a native at least once per week. I also review flashcards each day. For Mandarin and Korean I try to read a course book and watch a TV show each day. However, because life often interferes it frequently isn't possible to do each language every day, so I try to do at least 3 out of 4 languages each day. When I have to drop one I try to drop one of the stronger languages since it would take me a lot longer to forget what I've learned in those. You might want to think about having a plan B for days when things don't go well. Do you know what you could drop if you needed to? Do you have a prioritised list of things so you can quickly decide what to focus on when life blind-sides you again? It is worth spending a little time which your schedule knowing that although you've allocated time for various activities your future self may not be able to handle those commitments. So try to give your future self some room to manoeuvrer. The final thing which I'm studying is lock-picking. Why? Well, not good reason actually. I just find it interesting that people can circumvent locks with two pieces of metal and I'd like to know how to do it. Lock-picking is a physical activity that you need to practice in order to get good at it. While the basic knowledge is readily available and the theory isn't complex, many people still cannot do it. This is because it is a skill which needs to be honed via practice like juggling, or skateboarding. Sometimes it is nice to learn something with your body rather than your brain. Have you considered learning a physical skill like juggling or lock-picking or skateboarding? If not think about including something like this into your plans. Finally, I want to talk a little bit about the future plans for this podcast. Frankly there aren't any. I do want to continue the podcast, but I have covered just about all the techniques you'd need for self-study and I've tried to give some inspiration through looking at the lives of famous autodidactics of the past. As this is episode 13 the season has come to a natural end and I will be taking a break for a month regardless. I'll use the time to think about either expanding the scope of the show in order to cover more information, or if I think I've covered enough for the podcast to come to a conclusion. I do need time between seasons, since I do many other things than study, such as YouTube videos, another podcast, write books and I work and have a family. So it would be awesome if I could get suggestions from listeners. You're input would be very welcome. Suggestions for future seasons or episodes or any suggestion you'd like to make really. As always you can reach me with suggestions via the website or my email address: rick@autodidactic.info. Thanks for listening. Please visit: My YouTube channel The lollygagging podcast Check out of my books: African Extraction Italian Détente Wild Justice

Hello and welcome to the Autodidactic podcast, season 2 episode 11. Before we begin I would like to do a little self-promotion and tell you about my other activities online. I have a YouTube Channel and I'll put the link in the show notes, as well as a number of books both fiction and non-fiction. I'll also put the links to some of these in the show notes. So if you want to see the links, or the transcript of these podcasts you can find them all at https://autodidactic.info/ Let's get on with the show. This week I'm going to be talking about a not so famous mathematician. A person very few people will have heard of, and who even during his lifetime was considered an oddball and an eccentric. A self-trained English mathematician and a pioneer of electromagnetic theory. You may not have heard his name, but you may have heard some of the words he invented such as "impedance" or "inductance" especially if you work with or have knowledge of electrics or electronics. Oliver Heaviside is the person I'm talking about. He was born on the 18th of May 1850 to Rachel Elizabeth West and Thomas Heaviside in Camden Town, a notoriously crime-ridden, lower class area of London. Thomas Heaviside was a wood engraver and water colour artist. Oliver was the youngest of four sons. Oliver Heaviside had a challenging and troubled youth. The family lived for years on the ragged edge of poverty their home was just around the corner from where Charles Dickens had lived during the most miserable part of his childhood. Life in the slums was difficult enough, but a childhood bout with scarlet fever, which left him nearly deaf, added to his troubles. Heaviside's mother ran a school for girls, which he attended rather than attending the neighbourhood school. This offered some protection from the influence of the local ruffians. Heaviside's hearing impairment made making friends difficult, however his school results were rather good and in 1865 he was placed fifth from 500 pupils. Despite being bright and a good student, by age 16 the socially awkward Heaviside had had enough of formal education and left school. Perhaps he was more disillusioned with school than with learning since he continued to study after leaving school, in particular he learnt Morse code, studied electricity and studied further languages in particular Danish and German. He was aiming at a career as a telegrapher and in this he was advised and helped by his uncle Charles Wheatstone. In 1868 Heaviside went to Denmark and became a telegrapher. While working there, Heaviside noticed that signals from England to Denmark could be sent faster than those sent from Denmark to England. Those in the telegraph industry thought this was due to some strange and unknown property of the 347-nautical mile undersea cable carrying the messages. Heaviside wasn't so sure and was able to show mathematically that if everything is identical on both ends of the cable, the maximum rate must be the same in both directions. He then showed, again mathematically, that any difference must be due to different resistance at each end. Simply put, the equipment in England had lower electrical resistance and could push more current faster into the capacitance of the cable, and thus could send at a higher rate. He progressed quickly in his profession and returned to England in 1871 to take up a post in Newcastle upon Tyne in the office of Great Northern Telegraph Company which dealt with overseas traffic. Heaviside quit the cable company in May 1874, at age 24, and returned to London to live with his parents. He never again held a regular job, but instead worked full-time on electrical problems. His brother Arthur provided financial support and collaborated on projects related to his engineering work, but for the next decade or more Heaviside worked in almost complete isolation in his parents' spare room, pushing back the frontiers of electrical knowledge on his own. Heaviside became increasingly deaf as he worked on his own researches into electricity. While still working as chief operator in Newcastle he had published papers on electricity, the first in 1872 and then the second in 1873 was of sufficient interest to the author James Maxwell a noted Scottish mathematician that he mentioned the results in the second edition of his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. From 1874 he continued working on Maxwells equations. Heaviside was able to greatly simplify Maxwell's 20 equations in 20 variables, replacing them by four equations in two variables. Today we call these 'Maxwell's equations' forgetting that they are in fact 'Heaviside's equations'. Heaviside results on electromagnetism, impressive as they were, were overshadowed by the important methods in vector analysis which he developed in his investigations. His operational calculus, developed between 1880 and 1887, caused much controversy however. He introduced his operational calculus to enable him to solve the ordinary differential equations which came out of the theory of electrical circuits. Heaviside gave, for the first time, the conditions necessary to transmit a signal without distortion but Heaviside dropped the idea and it was patented in 1904 in the United States. Michael Pupin of Columbia University and George Campbell of ATT both read Heaviside's papers about using induction coils at intervals along the telephone line. Both Campbell and Pupin applied for a patent which was awarded to Pupin in 1904. Edmund Whittaker rated Heaviside's operational calculus as one of the three most important discoveries of the late 19th Century. In 1902 Heaviside predicted that there was a conducting layer in the atmosphere which allowed radio waves to follow the Earth's curvature. This layer in the atmosphere, the Heaviside layer, is named after him. Its existence was proved in 1923 when radio pulses were transmitted vertically upward and the returning pulses from the reflecting layer were received. At the climax of the musical Cats, chorus members sing about how Grizabella is about to rise "Up, up, up past the Russell Hotel/ Up, up, up, up to the Heaviside Layer," they are alluding to Heaviside's idea that there must be a conducting layer in the upper atmosphere—though I'm sure very few in the audience probably catch the reference. He seemed to become more and more bitter as the years went by. In 1909 Heaviside moved to Torquay where he showed increasing evidence of a persecution complex. His neighbours related stories of Heaviside as a strange and embittered hermit who replaced his furniture with granite blocks which stood about in the bare rooms. Through those rooms he wandered, growing dirtier and dirtier, and more and more unkempt; with one exception. His nails were always exquisitely manicured, and painted a glistening cherry pink. As on old man, Heaviside spent his final years comfortably, although his mental powers diminished. "I have become as stupid as an owl," he once bluntly stated. Heaviside died at the age of 74 on the 3rd of February 1925 and was buried with his parents in a small grave in Tourquay. What can we learn from Oliver Heaviside? Overcoming adversity including poverty and a hearing disability to create a complex system of calculus seems to be something we can take away. Regardless of our own problems it is clear that it is possible to overcome adversity and to learn. Not many people listening to this podcast will be living in Dickensian conditions of poverty, but even if you are you can take heart in the fact that it is possible to overcome. But Heaviside never actually overcame poverty, he returned to it after leaving the telegraph company in order to focus on mathematics. He lived in poverty most of his life and in his later years on a small pension. For him money wasn't his driving force. Knowledge and working in a topic he loved were more important. While many people study in order to get ahead, or to increase their monetary value in the workforce, it doesn't mean it is required. Some people feel ashamed to tell others that they ae studying a new language or advanced maths or whatever just for fun. They think they will be looked down upon for not having a monetary reason for learning. Learning for no other reason than you want to, is a good enough reason. In addition, Oliver Heaviside had help from family and friends. So getting external assistance from friends and family can be helpful when you're feeling alone or struggling with your study. Oliver Heaviside worked as a telegraph operator, but his job didn't define him or his life's work. Many people confuse what they do for a living with their life. It doesn't have to be the same thing. If you are a computer programmer, but study beekeeping as a hobby, or vicversa so be it. You should allow yourself to explore the roads you want. Well that is all for this week. I hope you've found it helpful or at least informative. If you enjoy the show, please give a rating on the platform you're using to listen, and please share the podcast with friends and family who might be interested. Also, please feel free to email me at rick@autodidactic.info, or leave feedback on the website autodidactic.info. My YouTube Channel African Extrication (Les Retraités Book 1) Italian Détente: a Les Retraités Novel

Hello and welcome to the Autodidactic Podcast, Episode nine Season two. If your first time listener, I wanna welcome you to the show and I'm glad you're visiting. If you haven't already, please visit the website autodidactic.info, where you'll find links to all the shows that the show notes and the transcriptions and these contain. You need links to anything I talk about in the show. This season. I've been covering autodidtactics and their methods for learning, but on this show I don't want to talk about a specific autodidactic but rather talk about somethings all of the people I've profiled had in common, and these things are reading and a passion for learning, and then at the end, I briefly like to discuss creation of what I and others call the Forever project. So if you have listened to all of this season, you will have noted a common thread among all of the other two tactics that I've profiled. And that is all of them have been. Readers, all of them, from childhood onward have continued to read a great number of books on a daily basis. This is in their topic of interest and outside generally. But you can find others who do this today as well, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and Stephen King, who read constantly and assess what they're reading. Reading is a great way to broaden your horizons and to expand the topic of interests. If you're studying something solely to complete a particular project, then it's a finite amount of time that you need to study and to complete. But generally, if you're working toward a more general usage of this system. So, for example, let's say you were learning mathematics, and but you don't generally have a direct need for it. But the knowledge of mathematics would help you in your job or your daily life in some way, shape or form. Setting up a strict regime for learning. This might not be appropriate, but as covered previously, you do still need a goal where you're going to go and how you're going to accomplish what it is you need on. The first step is always to determine what it is you need. You have the issue of you don't know what you don't know and starting out there are things that you need to learn. But you don't actually know that you need to learn them yet because you've not passed along on your journey far enough to realise that you need to know these things. So reading broadly in a topic prior to commencing can help you when you're trying to define what it is you need to learn. And assuming that you are doing this as a forever project which will cover later rather than a specific, I need to know by X date, then reading more broadly in the topic. Generalised reading or related topics as you come across them will help you to develop a study plan. Now, it might be that your topic is fairly specific and you don't really need to read broadly in it that you have a really good idea of where you're going and what you need to do to start, in which case, brilliant. But when you get into the topic, you are still going to need to read, and you're gonna need to read a lot in order to learn the topic. I would advise you to listen to my previous podcast and I'll put a link to some of the ones that are be of most interest about reading and studying reading for comprehension, reading for retention. As well as highlighting and note-taking for the things that you're studying. If you're studying, for example, to become a better writer, it might be that you're reading not to underlying a specific section of, a textbook, but more likely you are reading and highlighting passages that help you to understand character development or how to convey a sense of seeing or scenery this type of reading activity where you're reading and you're actually studying the material that you're reading, as opposed to learning from the material that you're reading. I haven't done a topic or a show on that, but I will in the future because I have done this myself where you're analysing on author style or you're you're analysing a piece of work in order to help yourself learn how to construct that same type of thing later. Now the other thing that they all had in common was a passion for learning. All of them had the desire and the passion to learn on the motivation to learn a lot of people when they start their studies are looking at the end, go far more than the journey itself. So, for example, if you're a college student and you just enrolled, you're actually looking at the goal of graduation, and you were thinking about what you will do when you graduate, but you really should try and enjoy the process of learning while you're doing it. Try to make yourself enjoy the process of learning, because that will help you, too. Continue to be a lifelong learner and to enjoy learning, enjoy reading and have a passion for knowing new things. Which sort of brings me on to the topic. I want to discuss the primary topic for today, which is what is called a forever topic, and I'll give you a couple links in the show notes for some plug posts people have made about this but forever. Project is a project you're going to focus your time and energy on, but you are not using this as a source of income typically so, for example, this might be what most people would label as a hobby. But the first element of forever project is to focus on a new topic that you aren't investing time and energy. And so, for example, if you are a computer programmer on your forever project is carpentry. Um, you read about carpentry. You learn about different techniques. You might go to shows or conferences. You might speak to professional carpenters or furniture builders. So this is ah, forever project. Now, the point of a Forever project is that you, as the name applying implies, you can work on it forever. It's an open into topic that you can explore for a long time without ever running out of challenges. Now, normally, when we pick something to learn or to do, we have an economic goal because you're learning this in order to get a job doing it, for example. But if you're not doing it for an economic reason and you're not time constraint, they economic reasoning behind doing the project breaks down a bit. So for someone who had an infinite lifetime, you'd have an infinite amount of money because you you know it doesn't matter. You constantly be able to get more money. If you didn't have money, you just carry on until you did get the money and then you start again because you have infinity to do it in. You don't have to choose between doing one thing or another, because in an infinite lifetime you can do both. So any any thinking along the lines of I'm wasting my time makes absolutely no sense at all. If you were going to live forever because you have an infinite amount of time and there's no way that you could leave, lose it. And even if you spent half an affinity infinity on one topic, you still have an infinite amount of time left. Now, obviously, we don't have forever to work on the project, but you can reason like you, too. And so ah, the economic drive to learn or to not go off on tensions or not, distract yourself or think about you're wasting time, etcetera goes away. So a good forever project encourages you to wander through a variety of topics, and many of them will be new to you. And you can find something easy to learn about them or difficult to learn about them, that you're constantly walking along the pathways and byways of knowledge that you're gaining from this particular project. In our example forever. Project of Woodworking you might go off on a tangent and study different types of wood and how it grows and what climates different trees globe grow in, and the relative strengths that gives to the wood before you come back to actually learning a technique for joinery. And it doesn't matter to you because your reasoning is not Oh, I've wasted six months doing investigation of climate changes and how they affect would because you have forever to do it. So the reasoning process of wasting time has gone away. A great deal of this show is talking about how to study and methods of studying. But why you study is really quite a personal thing Your reasoning behind studying a particular topic or not is completely up to you. But for the most part, most people have economic reasons for whatever project they're choosing, and I would advise you to pick a project that actually has no economic benefit. But you find interesting because it will allow you to read, expand your horizons and to learn about something new and different, and keeps you engaged with the world without having the constant drive to improve yourself in an economic work related sort of way. Now, for many people, this is not or may not seem valid. You know, we all have bills to pay and things to do and not a lot of time and not a lot of time to invest. But many people will have a small amount of time that they can use for a forever project, and you don't need to pick a large. You need a large topic, something that will let you move through different areas. But when you're doing a project within your forever project, it might only take you a day or a week or a month. Well, it's been a quite a short show this week. I hope you enjoyed it. I know it's going off on a bit of diversions, but hopefully you've enjoyed it. If you're interested in the show and you want to give me feedback or suggestions, please email me at rick@autodidactic.info and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to listen to these podcasts, and I hope you believe that this is time well spent. So once again, thank you for listening

Hello and welcome to the Autodidactic podcast, season 2 episode 7. This week I'm taking a little break from exploring autodidactics of the past to focus on a different topic, how to create a rigorous standard for self-learning. My friend and I had an argument. He said only people who learned at university had a rigorous education. I countered with the fact I knew more about computing and programming as a self-taught programmer than my daughter with a degree in computer science. But he did made some very valid points about the lack rigour most self-taught people have. What is rigour in learning? A combined definition includes the following, most relevant, terms: Accurate, Exact, Exhaustive, Meticulous, Precise. The definition my friend was referring to mostly was exhaustive. He felt that people who are self-taught aren't forced to learn the difficult things, and they tend to gloss over things without confirming they understand. Also he felt that people who self-study "wander all over the place" without actually having a meticulous or exact goal to achieve. Some mistakenly assume that rigour in education means making things more difficult. Others believe it means piling on the work. Rigour is not quantified by how much gets crammed in, it is measured in depth of understanding. Most people don't have rigour in their self-education simply because there isn't anyone "looking over their shoulder". But if you want to learn a subject then you need to add rigour to your methods so that you're learning and working to your full potential. But how do you do that? Well, it's different for everyone. If you can't consistently negotiate rigorous tasks, either your understanding or thinking habits should be more closely examined. In this podcast I want to explore so ways you can add rigour to your learning. In season one, I stressed quite often that you should be testing yourself daily with quizzes you build up from the previous sessions study. Each day when studying you need to generate a small quiz for the next session, and then group these quizzes periodically into an examination. There are a number of other things you can do to add rigour. Use someone else's curriculum The first and most easy way to add rigour is if what you are studying a subject which is also taught at a university you can use their curriculum, many universities publish their curriculum. In university the rule-of-thumb is you are supposed to devote twice as many hours outside of class as in class. To add this type of rigour to your own studies you should have a self-study rule-of-thumb that 2/3 of study time should be problem solving or exercises, aka "homework". Transfer your understanding. This means to teach someone else what you've learned. This requires you to apply knowledge in new and unfamiliar situations, an inherently rigorous process. But what if you don't have anyone to teach? Then teach yourself. Put together a slide presentation showing what you've learned as if you're going to be giving a course on it. You might even consider creating a YouTube video teaching what you have learned. This would be on public display and would encourage you to ensure what you're showing is correct and you really understand it. Mix multiple sources of information into a single source. You typically have multiple sources of information available to you. Many textbooks, YouTube lectures, podcasts, etc. Take these multiple sources of inputs and perspectives and synthesize them together. This is similar to the exercise above, but here the output would be an essay showing the information and citing it. When you have to analyse, internalize, and reconcile multiple perspectives to into a new position, perspective or format, rigour is a requirement. Create your study periods with Bloom's Taxonomy in mind. Bloom's Taxonomy is a hierarchical classification of the different levels of thinking, and should be applied when creating course objectives. Course objectives are brief statements that describe what students will be expected to learn by the end of the course. The full power of learning objectives is realized when the learning objectives are explicitly stated. The framework elaborated by Bloom consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Modern cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists revised this into more action orientated wording. Remember: Recall basic facts and concepts Understand: Explain, describe, classify concepts Apply: use the information in new situations Analyse: draw connections between ideas, differentiate, contrast Evaluate: Justify, argue and defend a stance or decision biased on the information Create: Produce an original work Think about exercises you can do which will force you to use the information and skills you are learning to complete Blooms Taxonomy. Find divergent perspectives and media Find and use authors, philosophers, experts, or other thinkers who make authentic cases of their own that offer contrasting perspectives. Try to reconcile these various points of view. Don't just stick to one type of input, use video, audio, textbooks, tweets, or interviews to gain different perspectives. Require design thinking and project-based learning Build design thinking into your study, be sure that elements of design thinking, creativity, and the "tinker culture" are used to help you to find success. For example, if you're learning programming, think of a large project you can do along with all the exercises you're doing in the text books. Give yourself exercises in such things as identifying patterns, cause-effect analysis, and problem-solution thinking. A simple way to incentivize yourself is to work on a project on the side while you are going through the tutorials/courses. Building something cool and interesting is a great way to trick yourself into learning. Complete an essay periodically Essay questions are extremely effective for measuring complex learning. Opportunities for guessing are removed, so you can truly measure what you understand. So schedule in numerous essays into the learning plans and activities for practice. Always pick good resources with exercises and do them As a self-learner, it's critical to pick books with exercises and solutions. Pick resources with better exposition, motivation, and examples. You don't have the luxury of a lecturer who can "fill in the blanks", and these expositions can be critical. Do all the exercises in the book. Even if you think they are trivial and a waste of time. It forces you to apply what you have learned, and if it is easy for you, great. If it isn't easy then it is giving you feedback about where you're lacking. Resources with worked problems make a text much more valuable and useful; even students in a class may spend a lot of time doing self-study. For self-study, without worked problems a book is only useful as a reference while working problems from elsewhere. Try to find a book with lots of examples, problems and projects for you to work through. Challenge yourself As you look to develop rigour in your study, make sure you're providing relevant challenges you want to rise and meet. It is not just about "getting it done," but about seeing how far you can go and how much you can improve. Have a lesson plan In EP11: Study Plan Creation for Self-learners, I covered a lot of information about how to create a study plan for yourself. It included 3 phases: Initial assessment of level Resource gathering Study scheduling. In EP12: How to evaluate resources for study, I covered how to evaluate resources you can use. But in hindsight I can see that one of the things lacking is a method for developing a lesson plan. I assumed you'd be able to take the lesson plan from the book or resource you're using, but my friend convinced me otherwise. So lets quickly look at how to develop a lesson plan for your study periods. The basic self-study lesson plan includes for basic phases. Challenging objectives for the lesson Instruction and presentation of information. Practice and production Verification of objectives Writing out the objectives for each lesson can be formal, or it can just be a single sentence on a post-it-note, but you need to know the goal if you're going to know if you've done it or not. Don't just write a simple objective; "Explain merge sort algorithm." instead do something like; "Explain merge sort algorithm in contrast to other algorithms such as bubble sort or insertion sort." Complete the instruction and presentation of data. This might be simply reading the textbook chapter, or watching the video. Relate this to your learning objective. Practice and production is where you should be spending most of the time. Remember the self-study rule-of-thumb that 2/3 of your study time should be doing exercises and practising the skill. Make sure to think about and use Bloom's Taxonomy when you're thinking about exercises and practice. Finally verification is taking a quiz or test. In many of the podcasts in season one I recommended creation of a quiz from the material you're learning today. Here you need to create this simple quiz and take it before the next study session to make sure you understand the lesson. Otherwise you should repeat the relevant portions which you missed on the quiz. Exercises and practice also help to verify and confirm that you know and understand what you've studied. Spending a little time creating a simple lesson plan before you start with a challenging objective will add rigour to your study times. The need to look forward in the book at the section headings, etc., in order to define your objectives will help you focus on the study material. I mentioned this in EP7: Textbook Study Methods, when I discussed various methods of reviewing textbook material. These methods were the P2R to reading and studying system, the SQ3R studying system and the S-RUN-R reading and studying system. Please re-listen or reread those podcasts if you need more information. I put transcriptions of the podcasts on my website so they are available to read as well as listen. Well that is all for this week. If you enjoy the show, please give a rating on the platform you're using to listen, and please share the podcast with friends and family who might be interested. Also, please feel free to email me at rick@autodidactic.info, or leave feedback on the website autodidactic.info.