The other best way to learn something

Seriously, have a need to solve a problem or achieve a thing, that will get something into your noggin better than anything. But if you can’t do that, if you’re doing something general like studying for an exam, you can also do this:

When you’re studying something new, think of somebody you know and plan to teach it to them. Fellow students, a colleague, your significant other, anyone. As you go over the material, detail specifically how you would convey the knowledge to that person so they could understand it just as thoroughly.

Learn More Efficiently by Planning to Teach What You’re Studying – Patrick Allan, Lifehacker (14 August 2014)

Allan’s full piece is a report about an academic report and drilling down through the piece can only get you to the official abstract without subscribing. You’ve got the idea anyway.

Creativity isn’t a separate deal

Education gets so focused on exams that it becomes siloed into specifically what gets examined and when. There is less learning for the sake of learning and there is an inherent assumption that subjects are different to each other. There is then an assumption the creativity is something that gets labelled as a subject to be handled on its own.

So many of our gut thoughts about creativity are not true. You can be creative in math and science. Creativity can be integrated into the classroom experience. Creativity is not simply another word for “arts and crafts.”

The Dangers of Creativity Advocates – The Creativity Post

The Creativity Post’s full article is about how championing creativity is a good and great thing yet it can damage us too.