Better Learning Tips

It has been months I have started reading books and learning something but even after a book is finished, I remember only few points and other articles are forgotten. After noticing that by reading the whole book and only remembering few points, I got discouraged saying “I can’t read. I am not made to reading books” and I read the other books unread.

But the passion for reading books didn’t leave me alone. I was always thinking about improving my reading skills.

One day I found a book by the name of “General Psychology” in Dari. I started reading the book and came across many interesting topics about “Instruction to Better Learning”. I thought this might help me and of course it did. The books says one is learning for passing in the exams and the other is learning for achieving success.

This book mentions some steps to keep in mind while reading.

I have shortly pointed out to the step I have learned from this book for “better learning”.

Step 1: Avoiding distractions: Something that turns your attentions away from something you want to concentrate on. While reading a book and trying to learn something, we have to forget our negative thoughts, our environment, government and other disturbing issues. We should only focus on learning.

Step 2: Appropriate location: Bed is a wrong location for reading and learning. You mean to concentrate on the topic but if you are on bed, sleep occupies your ability to read.

Step 3: Break between reading/learning: Suppose tomorrow is the exam and you can’t learn everything in one night. Daily learning is a good option.

Step 4: Underlining/Hightlighting: By underlining or highlighting the paragraphs and lines and writing them back into your own words describes how well you have learned the topic. If you couldn’t write them into your own words, think that you haven’t learned them. Mark the areas you have difficulties with and ask them from your teacher the next day.

Step 5: Acting like a teacer: Act like a teacher and teach to a student. The best way of learning is teaching. Your student will ask questions you haven’t thought about before. This way most issues will come to the light.

Step 6: Love the topic: In fact, the best way of learning is also loving the topic. If the topic is interesting, you can learn it sooner and better.
Some more steps might also be there to help you with learning.

Strengths or Weaknesses

Yesterday (September 19, 2011) was a great experience for me. Thanks to my friend who took me to his leadership institute. It was my first day as a guest to visit the class and also get familiar with the students and teaching method. I can say it was as I expected because I had heard about it a lot but hadn’t got the change to go and visit it once. After arriving there and meeting the participants of this one-year course, the class began and I was kind of enjoying it.

This day’s discussion was on Strengths and Weaknesses. The slides were printed out based on this topic. The first question was “Is it better to focus on our strengths or weaknesses?” The answers were different. Some said the focus should be on our weaknesses. Some said the focus should be on both. I also believed that we should focus on both our weaknesses and strengths. But, on the contrary, the logic was to focus on our strengths rather than weaknesses because if we don’t focus on our strengths and work on our weaknesses, our strengths will stay on “Good” and it won’t become “Great”. I agreed. I have also faced the same theory in my life. By focusing on some of my weaknesses, I haven’t been able to do more on my strengths and make them “Great”.

I have decided to start this one-year course of leadership in the coming year. It has many positive aspects and it has also encouraged me write the posts on my own words for my blog. I hope I have been able to convey the message in a good manner and the reads get something out of it.

What is your answer to the question “Is it better to focus on our strengths or weaknesses?”

Looking forward to receiving your comments and suggestions.