Learning Nerd’s Diary #31
Welcome back Learning Nerds!
A special shoutout to the 60 new folks who have joined us in the past week…
👀 Sneak peak
Here is what I have in store for you this week -
💭 Learning About Learning: À la carte vs buffet learning
🥜 Learning Nugget: Learning via Osmosis
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt This Week: Questioning the status quo
🔦 Spotlight: My first Youtube video
Let's jump right in!
💭 À la carte vs buffet learning
There are 2 kinds of learning - À la carte learning & Buffet learning.
À la carte learning
In the world of learning, à la carte means:
A fixed curriculum (With pre-decided topics)
A pre-decided order of learning something (Chapter 1 → Chapter 2 → Chapter 3)
A fixed set of chapters and content (Too bad if you want to learn more)
À la carte learning is great for you to get introduced to something new. When you’re starting out, too many options can be confusing.
Traditional systems of learning like schools and colleges are examples of à la carte learning.
But there is another kind of learning…
Buffet learning
In the world of learning, buffet means:
A variety of mediums (Books, courses, podcasts, people - take your pick!)
Craft your own journey
Learn as much or as little as you want (Learning driven by curiosity)
Buffet learning is great when you want to build mastery in something. When you want to dig deeper into something, finding your own jam is comforting.
Teaching yourself using the internet/ books/ people is an example of buffet learning.
There is place in the world for à la carte and buffet learning. Find what works for your context and start eating, oops I mean learning!
🥜 Learning via Osmosis
Bet on osmosis to learn something new.
Surround yourself with experts in the domain, boost your learning!
💥 Coolest Thing I Learnt this Week
The Myth of the Average
Someone at work shared this video with me last week -
The video really made me think about how we look at learning. One quote that specifically stood out for me -
We have designed a system around the fact that fast equals to smart and slow equals to dumb.
While building learning experiences, we think of the 'average student' but there is no average. As designers and researchers - we look at archetypes - behaviours that make people similar to each other than others - I'm curious to explore how that pans out in the context of learning.
Learning Self Efficacy
I came across this idea of creative self efficacy -
Creative self-efficacy is the internal belief that you have the ability to complete creative tasks effectively.
It's not that some people are more creative than others. It's just that they've exercised their creative muscles a lot more. Learning is no different.
A lot of people believe that they are not 'good learners'. For humans learning is like breathing - an unconscious mechanism. What if our education systems and learning experiences focussed on building learning efficacy instead of building knowledge?
🔦 Spotlight
Anupa reached out to me a couple of months back to do an interview for her channel, Breaktime Conversations. More than her interviewing me, it was her giving me ideas!
Love & Learning
Until we meet next week!
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