What is effective learning and how is it achieved? There are so many answers to this, 1001 theories. You'd have to be an effective learner to effectively learn all about effective learning. I haven't got time, and anyway, everyone is different. Well, not everyone, but there are sufficient variations for it to look that way.
Personally I used to learn best by just reading. Some subjects, like maths and languages can't just be read, but wherever possible it seemed to be both the most effective and easiest option. At age 14-15 I had a geography teacher who taught the old fashioned way, dictated notes and diagrams copied from the board. No worksheets, no discussion. Those were great lessons, I can visualise some of those diagrams still. The next year the teacher changed and so did the lesson style. Now it was all practical, applied, worksheets. I was so bored, I felt the lessons would never end.
So I'm all in a dither about whether to switch to more just reading work with the boys. A certain amount of learning how to answer questions and apply information is of course important. But maybe we could do less of that, and more just reading. Is it more important to learn information, or learn how to use information? There is no use knowing something that you can't apply when needed, but there is no use applying stuff without really knowing what it is.
I don't really want to know the educational theories, because these change with the decades as each new batch of academics seeks to make its mark. Isn't research as much about leaving behind your name on "progress" as it is about solving problems?
All these thoughts take up time, and whilst they are a part of the evolution of the HE process, they also distract from it. I need to learn to use my time more effectively. But that is another matter.
The boys have been a bit under the weather recently. We have a strange illness going around, which begins with a sore throat but leads to a headache, rather than the usual cold, alhamdulillah. R had the headache this morning, so things got off to another slow start. I spent a bit of time this morning trying to show the boys where we could head education wise, why it is generally a good idea to learn about a wide spread of subject areas in order to find out what they prefer. Then I read to them, they played some Top Trumps, then slowly, slowly did their science. The afternoon was a bit more productive, and in the end, despite the disorganisation I only missed out English with them. The usual casualty when the day gets crowded.
I was not satisfied with Ia's work achievements today. It was not her fault, she did fine at what I asked her to do, but somehow there wasn't enough to it. I really need to stop thinking and getting doing stuff with her tomorrow, inshAllah.
2 comments:
I was thinking the other day that you have rarely mentioned your children being ill, especially the boys, and thought this may be helped by not being exposed to so many viruses etc you'd get in school. May Allah make it easy fir them amin, and also I think they deserve a bit of 'sick leave' once in a while, although I know it can actually be a bit boring.
Re the 'Effective learning' - well I suddenly realised at the end of my GCSE's that in order to choose my A levels I had to think ahead to what I would do after University in order to choose a course and then choose the right A levels to get on that course. I really wasn't sure at that time still what I really wanted to do with my life. I knew friends who had graduated and had a real hard time getting a job (around the time of the last recession) so I thought play it safe and do speech therapy as there was a high demand. So I ended up doing Biology (which I was mildly interested in) and Chemistry (as I was advised it went well with the former) and topped it off with French as I enjoyed it and being a language would somehow fit with the type of degree I was doing, partly scientific, partly linguistic. So I ended up memorising organic equations and learning a lot of stuff I wasn't atall interested in. But you can never tell at the time what is going to be useful or not. However there are people who are v focused on what they want to do in life and so would probably easily know whatthey want they want to learn.
About how to learn, try the reading way and if opportunites come up I expect they'll be able to apply their knowledge. I find maths is very easy to get them to apply without much direction (calculating how long they have to save up for something, how much change they should get), this is becoming a bit of a long comment, I've been meaning to post a bit on learning and motivation. We need to make time to think, in the end inshaAllsh it might save some!
JazakAllah khair for posting this interesting comment.
From your remarks I assume that studying A level chemistry was a means to an end for you, and even though the organic equations were not interesting, if they were not too agonisingly difficult for you it is probably better that you did it than not. Assuming you ended up happy with your choice of profession.
I don't think anyone should be pushed to study something they really dislike, but sometimes studying the merely tolerable is fine, if it helps you get where you want to be. You have to focus on the desired outcome. This requires HAVING a desired outcome, of course. For now I just wanted the boys to know that within roughly the next 6 years some desired outcomes should be thought about.
As for the reading method, I'll try it. Sometimes the easy way seems too easy for comfort!
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