Learning Strategy Is More Important Than Practice, Claims New Study

Practice itself will not help you achieve perfection in what you do; the point is to choose the right approach, claim a group of psychologists after having analyzed data from about 850 000 people who were playing the same game online.

The main conclusion of the study, which was recently published in the journal Psychological Science, states that if you want to quickly learn something, you should find the optimal strategy for the task before you start practicing.

Tom Stafford of the University of Sheffield, UK, and Michael Dewar of the R&D lab of The New York Times analyzed the results of 854 064 people in the online game “Axon“.

Players had to grow “neurons” by clicking on potential targets. Simultaneously the participants’ ability to learn, decision making, and reaction speed were tested.

The researchers’ goal was to find out to what extent the practice contributes to increasing the performance of players. Particular attention was paid to the “champions” who had reached the highest results for the same period of time as the rest of the game participants.

It turned out that the most successful players had chosen one of two strategies: they either completely immersed in the game, relying entirely on intuition, or spent some time on testing the game in the beginning in order to find out all the possibilities thoroughly, thus obtaining complete information.

“Our research shows that we can significantly speed up the learning process, choosing the right strategy: while someone may need to immerse himself in the process from the beginning, someone else should first master the theory”, explains Stafford. “The life of modern man is inextricably linked with learning new technologies and complex skills. Optimization of the learning process is one of the highest priorities of science.”

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A Futuristic Gaze Into the Next Generation’s Influence on Teaching and Learning

Generation Z kids are presently in class right now, and they’ll be altering the method in which folks envision learning. These youngsters have hypertext psyches with identical intellectual designs that shift every which way, not the step by step mindsets that humans have become used to.

Studies demonstrate that nine out of ten young people, aged eleven-to-fourteen years old, already possess smart phones, and ninety percent of them  enjoy computer games on the web. Over half of these youths produce media online, and ninety percent of boys and girls, today, can control two gadgets simultaneously.

That being said, only fifteen percent of all teachers find merit in educating their students through web-based learning and social networks. As a result, a substantial void exists among modern-day educators and their pupils, who nine-out-of ten already take part in social networking.

Generation Z is certainly accustomed to being constantly linked to the Internet and to their peers, and they will count on being connected at school too. Because these kids get a lot of “display screen” exposure for much of their existences, youngsters, these days, are exceptionally visual.

That is why, most futurist forecast that the institutions of tomorrow will more than likely work with android or cyber instructors rather than human educators, going back to the “one-room school” with pupils learning in a virtual surrounding, which will certainly abolish teaching as we know it.

These exact same futurists presume that designer babies are going to be appearing everywhere shortly after digital classrooms become a trend, or rather; people and modern technology will merge. Bioengineering will soon give folks the option of increasing their intellectual and physical competencies through prenatal, embedded solutions and other state-of-the-art adjustments.

Smart computer systems are also imminent. Gadgets that work with conversation, visuals, and video presentations from the World Wide Web will do away with the necessity for a computer mouse and keyboard, enabling non-literate learners to acquire an education by just looking, speaking, and appearing online.

The next day’s learners will almost certainly receive instruction through their smart phones and laptops, and they will predominately educate themselves, working with instructors only when they require additional support. Web-based universities are already turning up everywhere and so are the Internet search engines like Degree Jungle, which effortlessly locates online courses for thirsty learners.

Computers do have unlimited patience and time, and they can adjust to the skill-sets and understanding levels of every youngster without making them feel uncomfortable. Students can ask computers questions without any dismay, inquiries that they often wouldn’t risk asking in a normal classroom.

Pre-adult ingenuity will certainly grow as well. A young child might just dream up a ballad long before he or she discovers how to write music or play an instrument. Ultimately, little ones may need only to whisper a melody, and computers will assist them in building a song by reorganizing it and playing back a variety of proposed variations, resulting in a complete arrangement.

Last but not least, as artificial intelligence technology progresses in the forthcoming years, many academic institutions will embrace simulation systems that will reach the standards of those depicted in motion pictures, which present hologram training sessions. Interactive software with advanced, 3D-technology could enable young people from several nations to convene as though they were sitting in the same classroom, forging partnerships among cultures in a virtual-interactive educational setting.

Granted, it is tough to envision such an advanced society, but with technological innovations progressing exponentially, this “enchanting lifestyle” could end up being reality in the course of our lifetime.

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Best Ways to Use Technology for Learning

Recently, technology changed our everyday life. Almost each human habitant of the word can’t leave without modern gadgets. By using gadgets – people communicate and keep in touch with their friends and relatives, they run business and learn.

With Internet and IT technologies learning process becomes easier and more fascinating. Among different kinds of learning process it is worth mentioning how the IT technologies affected the process of writing assignments.

Of course, one of the most visible pro of the IT technologies is online libraries. From now on, students don’t have to spend their time in libraries. Instead, sitting in a cozy chair at home, one can go to an online library and choose the literature that fits the assignment.

Besides online books, most newspapers and journals have online versions so it is easy to find something interesting that will be relevant to the topic. In this case Google is your best friend. Multiple archives of newspaper’s and journal’s articles can become of great help and one does not have to spend time travelling half across the city to get to such records.

Online dictionaries are of great help not only for high school and college students, but for any person who needs to write an assignment for any learning institution, any sort of application or even a resume. Besides dictionaries, online/built in grammar checker is one of the best tools that is worth mentioning.  Grammar checkers are being improved year after year and that makes it very useful. It can check spelling errors, grammar mistakes and even punctuation and plagiarism.

With the growth of IT technologies it is almost impossible to hand in a plagiarized paper. In the world wide web there is a great number of software that helps you detect plagiarism and even tell you how to property cite it.

Without a doubt for any essay basics, the development of IT technologies enriched the opportunities of anyone who starts writing a paper. With the era of Internet and modern gadgets anyone can cut the time spent on research and writing itself, spending the spare time for something or someone more important in their life.

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Expanding Your Mind – Learning For Success

When learning, it’s important to broaden your horizons as much as possible; this means reading widely, and learning more about subjects that you might not normally be interested in. It also means making use of the many free and inexpensive resources available to you on and offline, as well as changing how you learn; doing so can help you towards a higher degree of employability, and can also set you up for lifelong learning.

Reading More 

Just taking the time to read more every day can make a big difference to your education; try to read the newspaper online, and cover multiple papers to get a different point of view. It’s also possible to broaden your horizons by reading a wide range of different genres, which can be particularly useful if you’re into the habit of reading the same authors. While it’s not a good idea to force yourself to read things you don’t want to, it’s worth sampling as much as you can. 

Challenging Yourself 

One of the best ways to challenge yourself academically is to focus on one area that you think you’d like to know more about – if, say, you want to improve your knowledge of the Second World War, you can focus on watching documentaries online, and reading more widely than you have before. Similarly, if you have difficulties with some subjects, you may want to try a different approach.

Make Use of Resources 

There are plenty of different resources available to learners; online courses are provided by the Open University for free, while you can download and watch or listen to lectures from iTunes University. Schemes like the Open University’s OpenLearn project also makes it possible to complete free courses online, which can lead to future qualifications.

Change How You Learn 

It’s also important to try to change how you learn by experimenting with different methods; while remembering basic study approaches, you can improve your knowledge and skills by trying to write a diary about what you’re studying, or by joining an online discussion forum. Reading around a subject, for example, different authors before an English A-level exam, is particularly important for showing initiative, and can give you a significant advantage in the future job market.

You can also start to change how you learn by trying memorisation techniques, and by researching writing skills. Getting better at being self aware about what you’re doing is a useful first step to trying to figure out where you may be having problems with some subjects; this means looking more widely at techniques that may not have been provided to you in school.

Outcomes 

Broadening your horizons ultimately means being able to develop improved critical thinking skills, while also making you more confident in tackling subjects that you may not be familiar with. In the same way, learning about a wider range of topics should hopefully feed back into your main studies, and can enable you to stand out for employers – even if you can just bring up your wider interests in an interview, this can make you appear more distinctive.

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