Successful learning is much more than merely reading and understanding the learning materials. In addition, maintaining the knowledge that you have learned will help you in your career, parenting skills, company, relationships, hobbies, and throughout in your life. Through this blog, I would like to discuss some learning tips to improve your way of learning productively and successfully.

Prepare yourself for learning

A person’s desire and motivation to learn is the most important aspect of learning. Before you start learning, explore the reasons and needs behind your interest in learning, and understand the motivations behind your choice to learn and seek knowledge in the specific area. In addition, prepare yourself to avoid and reduce the possible distractions surrounding your daily life. In order to avoid distraction in learning, ensure yourself that you have all the materials needed for your study, switch off your mobile, television, or music, and stay away from your social media. In addition, give yourself the commitment to keep your learning goals.

Believe in your ability to learn

Another important factor is to think positive and believe in your ability to achieve your learning goals. Once you set the goal and faith in your ability to learn, it is easier to learn the skills as every skill in life is learned with varying amounts of effort. Additionally, set a goal about the skills that you need to achieve through learning and constrain yourself by giving deadlines, and focusing on the necessary tools required for learning [1][2]. 

Develop strategies to achieve your own learning goals

In order to succeed in the learning process, it is advised to formulate your own learning goals first. Then track the progress of learning by identifying the knowledge deficits and contradictions. In addition, prepare good questions and search for answers with the help of relevant information sources, and try to formulate conclusions for each prepared topic. While learning difficult and complex learning topics, try to slow down your learning and develop new strategies to understand the concepts in your learning material [3][4][5]. 

Improve your critical thinking skills

Another important factor is to improve your critical thinking skills, which are necessary to improve your learning ability. In order to improve your critical thinking skills, it is recommended to develop questions, gather information, apply and connect the gathered information, make interferences and assumptions based on existing evidence, and studies on the topics. Critical thinking promotes our analytical skills, which makes learning interesting. This skill also helps us to solve complex problems in our life beyond school and learning. In addition, critical thinking increases one’s curiosity, creativity, problem-solving skills, and independence. Moreover, critical thinking promotes the development of skills such as observational skills, language skills, logical and reasoning skills, and decision-making skills [6][7][8][9].

Improve your cognitive skills

The most important cognitive skills, such as concentration, perception, memory, and logical thinking, are essential in the process of acquiring knowledge and quick learning. Weak cognitive skills will result in poor learning ability due to poor concentration, memory loss, and inability to focus on learning. However, irrespective of age, weak cognitive skills can be improved and strengthened by adapting the right training to increase performance in learning. Concentration is one of the most important abilities one should possess to focus the attention on our performance, execution, and strategy to overcome the obstacles and to fulfill one’s goals. In addition, by improving the accuracy and speed of perception will help one to absorb and process information and concepts accurately and quickly. The processed information will be stored and retrieved more effectively by improving one’s long term memory. In addition, by improving visual and auditory memory will have a tremendous effect on one’s learning ability. Cognitive skills like logical thinking, will help one to memorize important ideas and facts involved in a problem by arranging them in a chain-like progression [10][11][12][13].

Use the best-preferred learning technique

Understand your learning style and adapt the best possible learning methods for you to get the best results. There are four main learning styles that you can try to implement in your learning [14][15][16].

Visual learning: Visual learners can learn fast by visualizing the contents that can spark your visual interest. They respond well to structured diagrams, flow charts, concept maps, colors in notes, videos, and information designs and patterns. These visual signals can create mind maps and hence help to remember the concepts of the learning material.

Audio learning: This learning style is best suitable for good listeners and auditory learners. An auditory learner can respond well to audio cues such as a speech by listening to the podcasts about the topics and create rhymes or music to remember the concepts and facts. 

Reading and/or Writing learning: In this method, the learners perform well by reading the relevant textbooks and writing study notes to remember the concepts.

Learning by doing: In this learning style, the Kinesthetic learner uses the subject into practice by role-playing, building models, drawing diagrams, and making flashcards.

Find the best place to improve your learning productivity

Many of us like to learn in a quiet and distraction-free environment, whereas others find a crowded place as an ideal place for learning. Depending on your learning style, especially the auditory learners may get distracted from surrounding interruptions. Depending on the style of learning, finding a peaceful and uninterrupted place to study is also a factor in meeting your needs in learning. However, some people would like to learn by switching their learning places between environments such as quite lonely, open-air, noisy, and crowded places. Depending on the learning materials and the style of learning, a variety of places can build up different associations with the learning material to build up memory. So try to choose your preferred learning place that is extremely comfortable for your mind and help yourself to remove the distractions as possible [17][18].

Recommendations

Your belief in your ability to learn is the key to improve your learning ability. Your preparation and confidence will prepare your mind and body to understand your intention to achieve new skills through learning. In order to complete your learning goals, it is recommended to make rationalized efforts on your learning style. My recommendations include the following;

• Learn on a regular basis, rather than waiting until the deadline.
• Take a full-hearted effort to concentrate on learning.
• Organize the time for learning and avoid procrastination and time-wasting distractions.
• Set your own strategies and deadline to achieve the necessary skills and knowledge.
• Understand your learning style and tailor your learning according to your style of learning.

References

[1] Omidullah Akbari et al., American International Journal of Social Science Research, 5, 2020, 1-15.

[2] Spenser R et al., Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 52, 2020, 197-215.

[3] Ames C et al., Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 1988, 260-267.

[4] Peggy A Ertmer et al., Instructional Science, 24, 1996, 1-24.

[5] Barry J Zimmerman, Educational Psychologist, 25, 1990, 3-17.

[6] Aidil Akbar et al., Advances in Social Science, Education, and Humanities Research, 399, 2020, 15-17.

[7] Pralhad Gavali et al., Journal of Engineering Education Transformations, 33, 2020, 567-570.

[8] Alias Masek et al., International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2, 2011, 215- 221.

[9] Ian J Quitadamo et al., Life Science Education, 6, 2007, 140-154.

[10] Tracy Packiam Alloway et al., Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 87, 2004, 85-106.

[11] Peng Peng et al., Child Development Perspectives, 14, 2020, 15-20.

[12] Maria C Passolunghi et al., Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 135, 2015, 25-42.

[13] Susan E Gathercole et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 105, 2019, 19-42.

[14] Tien Chi Huang, Computers in Human Behavior, 100, 2019, 252-257.

[15] Heidi L Lujan et al., Advances in Physiology Education, 30, 2006, 13-16.

[16] Norasmah Othman et al., Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 7, 2010, 652-660.

[17] Mariana Regalado et al., College and Research Libraries, 76, 2015, 900-913.

[18] Leonard L LaPointe et al., Journal of Attention Disorders, 10, 2007, 398-409.