This link has been bookmarked by 82 people . It was first bookmarked on 01 Apr 2007, by 0nm8.
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14 Mar 12
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Compartmentalized learners make distinct file drawers for science, math, history and language arts. Placing all the things they know into little boxes.
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Holistic learners instead organize their minds like spider webs. Every piece of information is a single point.
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I’ve been learning very close to the extreme of complete holistic learning for so long that my web is pretty well interconnected. But if you haven’t been really interweaving your web, then the best way to improve your ability to learn is to start now.
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How does this information relate to what we’ve been studying? How does this information relate to other things I’ve already learned? How does it relate to other subjects, stories or observations?
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Be creative and try to find several different points of reference for every idea you learn.
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Figure out not only what things are similar too, but why they are what they are. As this becomes a habit, you’ll find that you automatically remember information because it fits into your web of understanding. Ask yourself after you hear something whether you “get it”. If you don’t go back and ask yourself more questions for how it fits it.
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Better than taking notes during a lecture is drawing a picture for how what you are learning relates to anything else you have already learned.
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Anything you are learning should be immediately translated into a metaphor you already understand.
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When reading Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, I understood his writings by relating all the examples of statecraft and war he offered to areas of business and social relationships which I already understood.
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You might not realize how that blog article on fitness you read two weeks ago relates to math, but through making metaphors you have a huge reserve of information available to you when you need it.
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Another technique I’ve experimented with to improve my holistic learning is feeling through ideas
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I was able to associate this information into my web through a feeling by imagining what it would be like to move my hands through each diagonal on the matrix.
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27 Sep 11
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22 May 11
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21 Mar 11
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Here’s a nice metaphor. Rote memorization is Encyclopedia Britannica in book version. Each entry is isolated. Every entry only has one link to it. You find it alphabetically. Holistic learning is Wikipedia. Each entry has a hundred links to other entries. Two topics that seem to be completely unrelated can be connected by a few clicks.
Maybe that’s why we like Wikipedia so much… it works like our brain.
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28 Dec 10
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One of the best ways to begin practicing holistic learning is to start drawing a diagram that associates the information you have learned. Better than taking notes during a lecture is drawing a picture for how what you are learning relates to anything else you have already learned.
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Anything you are learning should be immediately translated into a metaphor you already understand. When reading Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, I understood his writings by relating all the examples of statecraft and war he offered to areas of business and social relationships which I already understood.
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09 Mar 10
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22 Feb 10
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Most people study by cramming in as much information before walking into the test room, whereas I consider studying to be no more than a light stretch before running.
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The system I use for learning I’m going to call holistic learning.
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it’s opposite – compartmentalized learning.
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People who learn through compartments, try to organize their mind like a filing cabinet.
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Compartmentalized learners make distinct file drawers for science, math, history and language arts. Placing all the things they know into little boxes.
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Holistic learners instead organize their minds like spider webs.
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Every piece of information is a single point.
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Compartmentalized learning is an exercise in insanity.
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A comparable strategy would be if the users of the web didn’t hyperlink anything.
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Understanding holistic learning is one thing, putting it into practice is another.
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1) Ask Questions
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When you are learning something, you can make associations simply by asking yourself questions.
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2) Visualize and Diagram
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One of the best ways to begin practicing holistic learning is to start drawing a diagram that associates the information you have learned.
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3) Use Metaphors
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Anything you are learning should be immediately translated into a metaphor you already understand.
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4) Feel It
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5) When in Doubt, Link or Peg It
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Questions, visualization, metaphors and feeling should cover about 99% of the information you need to learn.
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An effective web should heavily interlink between ideas of a similar subject, but it should also have links that extend between completely different ideas.
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Studying should be like stretching before a big race. It isn’t a time to get in shape.
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Zach ValentinerDesign
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01 Apr 07
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3) Use Metaphors
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4) Feel It
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5) When in Doubt, Link or Peg It
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2) Visualize and Diagram
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Maximizing Your Holistic Learning
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1) Ask Questions
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One of the best ways to begin practicing holistic learning is to start drawing a diagram that associates the information you have learned. Better than taking notes during a lecture is drawing a picture for how what you are learning relates to anything else you have already learned. Once you get good at this you will be able to visualize the diagram before it is drawn, but start drawing to get practice.
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Holistic learning takes an opposite approach. Learning holistically is not done by trying to remember information by using repetition and force. Holistic learners instead organize their minds like spider webs. Every piece of information is a single point. That point is then consciously related to tons of other points on the web. There are no boxes with this form of learning. Science becomes literature which becomes economics. Subject distinctions may help when going to class, but a holistic learner never sees things in a box.
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When it comes time for exams (or any practical application for your knowledge) compartmentalized learners have to hope that they pounded the information hard enough into their head so it might come up during the exam. Holistic learners do the opposite. Holistic learners only need to start at one point on their web, but they can use that web to feel around and find all the associated information they need.
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Very few people are purely compartmental learners. For most people they manage webs of information holistically to a certain degree. But unfortunately, their webs simply aren’t interlinked enough. Each subject usually has a fairly distinct web and each unit of information has only one or two associations. Like trying to surf the net when each page only has one or two outgoing links. Possible, but far from effective.
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When you are learning something, you can make associations simply by asking yourself questions. How does this information relate to what we’ve been studying? How does this information relate to other things I’ve already learned? How does it relate to other subjects, stories or observations?
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Be creative and try to find several different points of reference for every idea you learn. Figure out not only what things are similar too, but why they are what they are. As this becomes a habit, you’ll find that you automatically remember information because it fits into your web of understanding. Ask yourself after you hear something whether you “get it”. If you don’t go back and ask yourself more questions for how it fits it.
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Anything you are learning should be immediately translated into a metaphor you already understand. When reading Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, I understood his writings by relating all the examples of statecraft and war he offered to areas of business and social relationships which I already understood.
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Another technique I’ve experimented with to improve my holistic learning is feeling through ideas. This one is a little more difficult to explain, but the basic idea is that instead of associating an idea to a picture or another metaphor, you associate it with a feeling. I’m a visual learner, so I’ve found it to be ineffective for large pieces of data, but it is really helpful for data that is otherwise hard to relate.
I used this process to easily remember the process of getting the determinant of a matrix. For you math buffs, you probably already know that the determinant of a 2×2 matrix is basically the left diagonal minus the right diagonal. I was able to associate this information into my web through a feeling by imagining what it would be like to move my hands through each diagonal on the matrix. This is an incredibly simplified example, but feeling ideas can be very useful.
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Questions, visualization, metaphors and feeling should cover about 99% of the information you need to learn. They are the most effective ways to interlink ideas. But if you still need to memorize some information that you can’t understand or relate, your fall-back can be the link and peg system.
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When I was learning history I would make dirt roads connecting the aspects of one particular time period and culture to itself. Linking the artistic achievements of the Song Dynasty with their political situation. But I would also make highways and superhighways. I would compare Song China to India and to the politics in the United States.
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27 Mar 07
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