• Goals
  • Describe this method.
  • Skillfully employ this method.

Learning by Doing (What)

Learning by doing is a method for learning that involves striving to learn topic X by applying X in the real world.

Learning by doing always starts with research where researching means getting good (high quality) information about X. The next step is to apply this information in the real world.

Examples of Learning by Doing

Topic: Swimming

• Research: Getting instructions from a swim coach (say 3 minutes) or watching an online video.

• Learning by Doing: Striving to apply this information while swimming in the water.

Notes: This same process is used when you are beginning to swim and when you are more advanced.

Context: University Class on Statistics

• Research: Getting good information about a specific statistics topic from lecture, online video, textbook, friend, TA, or wherever. Learning-by-Doing always starts with high quality information.

• Learning-by-Doing: Apply this information to tasks that are relevant to you and that are part of your real world. These tasks are basically never textbook problems. When I ’m taking or teaching a class, these task are often imaginary in the sense that I invent a task for myself.

Topic: Active Listening

• What: Active listening is a method of listening that ensures you accurately understand the sender’s message while also making them feel heard, valued, and cared for. It is super useful for parents, managers, teachers, people in relationships, and so on.

• Research: Getting good information about this worthy skill.

• Learning by Doing: Striving to learn this method by practicing the techniques in your everyday environment.

Rationale for Learning by Doing

1. Apply what you are learning today.

   1. Not in some vague and distant future.
   2. Start getting rewards today.

2. Gives you direct evidence of how well your learning is progressing.

3. Reveals the real challenges. Many topics sound rather easy when explained by a great teacher. However, most are far harder.

4. Allows learning in the context of professional jobs.

5. More enjoyable to do things as opposed to listening to lectures or trying to dig information out of books and websites.

Learning by Doing (How)

• Repetitions: Take the following action while you are learning

  1. Research.
     1. Always start with this.
     2. Never spend very much time on this.
        1. Typically spend 15 minutes before applying the info in the real world.
        2. Rarely spend more than 60 minutes.
     3. Typically apply what you are learning the same day you are learning it.
  2. Learning-by-Doing
     1. Don’t worry about success on early reps.
     2. Focus on having fun and adventure.
     3. Be systematic.
     4. Spend most of your learning time here.
        1. Spend more time on research when you are learning something brand new.
        2. Spend far more time learning by doing after you are farther along in your learning.
        3. Net result is that about 80% of your learning time should be spent in doing things.
  3. Reflective Thinking
     1. Always do this.
     2. Do this regularly; typically daily or several times per week.
     3. Spend very little time on this.
        1. Less than 3% of your learning time.

Academic Exercises

Key Principle: Never learn by doing academic exercises in the traditional way.

An academic exercise is any type of assignment that is given to students by their professors or teachers in universities and K12 organizations.

The traditional way of doing academic exercises involves assignments, students doing the assignment and then being graded on these assignments.

Regarding academic exercises, sometimes known as textbook problems, here is what I recommend.

6. For subjects that have textbook problems, do many of these problems with a goal of figuring out how to do them.

7. Use textbook problems to measure how well you are learning. When you can easily do most, say 80%, of book problems, then your level of learning is advancing.

8. Always apply Critical Thinking (CT) when you answer a textbook problem. Here is how to do this:

   1. Issue: Summarize the problem in your own words.
   2. Conclusion: State your answer.
   3. Reasoning: Justify why you or anyone else should agree with your answer.

9. When you are doing book problems, imagine yourself in professional practice and demonstrate the skills that competent professionals use.

   1. For example, carry and cancel units.
   2. For example, use the nomenclature.

10. Most of the time, use your creative thinking to transform the textbook problem into a problem in the real world. Hold yourself accountable for getting great results.

11. Always check your solution, if you can, with a well-crafted solution and see how you can improve your methods.

12. Focus on the methods that give you the right answer, not on getting the right answer.

    1. There are no right answers in the real world.
    2. However, strong methods lead to the best answers.