10/16/2009

Holistic Approach of Learning 宏觀的學習方法

You have been encouraged to do some concentration exercises. I'd like to stress that these exercises are not meant to be used as tools for excessive learning. They will do more harm than good to you if you push yourself too harsh. What I think will most likely benefit you is by adopting a holistic approach of learning 宏觀的學習方法in line with exercising your concentration power.

Read the following article and learn how the holistic learning can help you better. I have the translated version at the end of the text. Read and answer the questions!

Best Wishes

Terri
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Holistic Learning

Smart people don’t just learn better. They learn differently. While many students get caught up in memorizing facts, intelligent learners know to seek the bigger picture and connect the facts together. This form of learning I call holistic learning.

Holistic learning is basically the opposite of rote memorization. Instead of reciting lists of facts, rules or formulas, you seek to connect ideas together. Instead of having separate boxes in your head for geometry, algebra or ancient India, you deliberately link facts together, so they form a bigger picture.

Excessive studying shows you aren’t learning holistically. It shows that you didn’t learn the material the first time. If you properly link ideas together to see the bigger picture, studying should only be a brief refresher.

How to Boost Your Study Habits

Holistic learning isn’t like a brainstorming technique or mind-mapping. It is fundamentally changing how you look at the process of learning and how you absorb information. As such, there isn’t an easy ten step program to master it.

There are some tools that can help you shift your learning habits so they become more holistic:

Visceralize 感官和動作集中學習- You’ve probably heard of visualizing, right? Visceralizing means taking all of your senses and connecting it to information. Studies have shown that people remember more vividly information that comes to us in an emotionally aroused state. Linking feelings, senses and imagery to bland ideas makes them more real. You probably counted on your fingers when learning numbers, why can’t you do the same when you are learning now?


Metaphor隱喻 - The heart of holistic learning is relating things together. Metaphors are literary devices that link two things that normally don’t go together. Come up with metaphors to describe more complicated ideas in simpler terms.


Ten-Year-Old Rule十歲法則 - Explain ideas to yourself as you would to a ten year old. Sure, this isn’t always possible in your last years of a medical degree or learning how to apply neural networks to computer AI. But the idea is that you should be able to “dumb down” an idea enough so it seems obvious to yourself.


Trace Back 引用 - Put away your books and start with a random fact or concept. Then relate that idea to another concept in your subject. Keep doing this tracing pattern until you’ve linked many ideas together. The Gupta Dynasty reminds you of ancient Greece which reminds you of Socrates, reminding you of Confucius…


Refresher Scan 快速復習 - Scan through information in your text book. Notice whenever you encounter information that you either don’t remember or weren’t 100% sure about. Quickly link that information back to existing ideas through viscerlization and metaphor. If your refresher scan is turning up more than a few points per chapter, you haven’t learned it thoroughly enough.


Compress Information壓縮信息 - Not all information works well for holistic learning. A common point cited to me is learning anatomy for first year medical students. Anatomy involves learning arbitrary Latin names for hundreds of different elements of your body. There often aren’t clear patterns and constructs, just a dry list of facts. When encountering information such as this, your goal should be to compress it. Find ways to group information into smaller chunks of memory through pictures or mnemonics.


Write寫下有關聯想 - Take a piece of paper and write out the connections in the information. Reorganize the information into different patterns. The key here is the writing, not the final product. So don’t waste your time making a pretty picture. Scribble and use abbreviations to link the ideas together.


Scott Young is a blogger on learning, productivity and habits. You can check out his website here. If you want to learn more about Holistic Learning, download his free e-book: Holistic Learning: How to StudyBetter, Learn More and Actually “Get” What You Want to Learn



  1. What is holistic learning? ( Sample answer: Holistic learning is the kind learning where where learners make a thorough learning the first time they learn. They tried understand what he learn by using and forming pictures to connect the facts and information together.)List four of the learning habits and explain how they help learners to learn better. (Sample Answer: One of the learning habit is called virceralisation. Learners can benefit when they use feelings, senses, and imaginary to bland ideas and information when they learn something. This helps them remember better and more vividly because information that comes to them in an emotionally aroused state.)



宏觀的學習方法

聰明人不僅是學的更好。他們也是學的不同。大部分學生還在熟記內容的時候,聰明的學習者已經知道將內容事實聯繫在一起,拼接成更大的藍圖.我稱這種學習模式為"宏觀的學習方法" 。

宏觀的學習方法的相反的方法是背誦的記憶。 背誦的記憶就是把事實、定義、規則,記在腦子裡,與之不同的是,聰明的學生會將這些內容與事實聯繫起來,然後自己去探索。你的大腦不是硬盤,將所有知識放進單獨的分區。你的大腦應該是互聯網絡,所有的事實之間有相互的鏈接,它們共同描繪了很大的圖片。

過度學習表明你沒有宏觀地考慮。它表明你在之前的學習中沒有很好的了解對象的實體。如果你想將你的想法連接起來供你俯視,你應該好好複習一下。

怎樣養成你的宏觀學習習慣
宏觀學習不像頭腦風暴(brain storming) 或者頭腦地圖(mind mapping)那樣。它是完全改變對學習的過程和信息的獲取的看法。正因為如此,沒有一個簡單的十步就能掌握它的步驟。

但是這裡還是有一些工具能幫你更好的養成你的學習習慣,使你思考問題時更加全面:

1. Visceralize-你可能已經聽說了visualizing。Visceralizing的意思是將你所有的感官和動作都集中在信息上。研究表明,當我們處在一個很激情的狀態時,往往能夠更生動的記憶這些知識。你的動作、感官、還有想像,都能讓你的頭腦更加靈活。你在學習數數字的時候一定動用過你的手指,那麼在你現在的學習中,你也可以這樣做。

2. 隱喻-宏觀的學習方法的中心思想就是將事物聯繫起來。隱喻的意思就是將兩件普通的事情關聯起來。兩件簡單的事物,通過隱喻,往往能夠找出更多的相似之處。

3. 十歲法則-把你想像成一個十歲的小孩來考慮問題,當然,如果你正在攻讀化學碩士學位,或者正在研究電腦AI,這個規則不一定總是適用的。但是這個習慣就是讓你學會當你的想法還不是足夠好的時候,放下自己的知識,對自己來說,也更加容易理解。

4. 引用-放下你的書本,思路轉到另一個隨便是什麼的事實,然後在這一事實中涉及你書本中的想法或者概念。也就是強制自己聯想,持續這樣做,直到你已經將很多想法聯繫到一起了。要讓古普塔王朝讓你想起古希臘,然後想起蘇格拉底,然後想起孔子...

5. 快速復習-掃描那些筆記本上的內容。請注意那些你既不記得又不是很確定的信息。快速地從那條信息通過viscerlization和隱喻的方法來連接到已掌握的知識,你不需要將這些知識從頭學一遍。
6. 壓縮信息-宏觀學習法不是對所有的知識都有效。一個例子就是我一年級的時候學習解剖。解剖涉及到了數百個關於你身體的名詞。它們經常有著不是很明確的派生關係或者其他聯繫,僅僅就是一些事實的條目。當我們面對這樣的信息的時候,你的目標應該就是壓縮。將信息通過各種方式打成小包,然後放進記憶裡,通過圖片或者其他聯想的方式。

7. 寫下-拿出紙片然後寫下信息之間的聯繫。你一定要意識到問題的關鍵不是寫出來的產物,而是寫作這個過程。你需要把知識和信息聯繫到一塊。

Scott Young是一位在學習關於生產效率和愛好的blogger.你可以點擊這裡查看他的網站.如果你想要學習更多有關"宏觀學習"的知識,可以下載這本電子書:Holistic Learning: How to Study Better, Learn More and Actually “Get” What You Want to Learn.

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