Self-Study Course

Lesson 2: Skills for Learning

In the last lesson we determined what your learning talents are, and you planned out your personal study course. In this lesson you will develop the skills necessary to actually learn independently. Let us begin right away.

Keeping a Notebook

  1. What does it mean to learn? Look up the word in a dictionary. Write down the definition. According to the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 10th Edition the definition that seems most appropriate is, "Knowledge or skill acquired by instruction or study." Since this is a self-study course we will amend this to, "knowledge or skill acquired by study." This then will be what we understand when the word learn is used. Whenever a new word is encountered you must attempt to define it as much as possible. When the meaning of a word is based on the concept you have of it, that definition is called conceptual. If the meaning describes how we want something to behave or how it will be used it is called a behavioral definition. Whenever we decide upon a meaning for a word that tells us what needs to be done to perform a measurement we are creating an operational definition. A definition need not be perfect or complete, it is simply what we are using for now. It is likely that most definitions will change over time.
  2. We have arrived at the point of the first necessary expense for this course: Go out and buy some loose-leaf paper or one or more pads, a new notebook for your learning project, and a pen or a few pencils. This notebook need be nothing more than a cheap legal pad, a spiral notebook, or the like. I prefer to purchase bound sketchbooks. The reason for this is if I am going to invest considerable time and effort on a project I want the results to last for a while. My work, and yours too, deserve to be preserved in such a notebook. These can be purchased for around $10 at most bookstores.
  3. Write your name and the working title of your learning project on page 1. If the pages are not prenumbered, write the page number too. As you enter more things into your notebook keep adding page numbers as necessary. As you add new things to your notebook, keep a separate list of the subjects and their pages, so that you can find things when you need them later. This is a sort of index/table of contents for your notebook. If you keep your index on a computer, then you will want to keep a printout of it near the actual notebook.
  4. On a piece of loose-leaf paper write the word "knowledge." Now attempt to develop, using whatever means available to you, a definition of the word knowledge.
  5. Develop a definition for the word "skill."
  6. Develop a definition for the word "study."
  7. Now think about the goal of your learning project. Can you develop a definition of it? If so, write that as the first entry in your notebook. The format of such a definition should be to write out the idea first and the name second. For example, using the definition of learning you would write something like, "The acquisition of knowledge or skills by study is the act of learning." Get used to this format, ideas are more important than the words used to convey them. Words are, after all, only symbols for the ideas they contain, and the words can change.
    Begin your study. Collect the sources of information that you want to use for your project.

Critical Thinking Skills

A word about morale and getting good at this stuff. Do not expect to do this all correctly the first time. Be patient with yourself. The learning process is long and hard

Logical Fallacies

We must avoid logical traps in our reasoning too. Below is a list of common fallacies that plague reasoning. When you develop an argument to support an idea of yours check through these to see if you are basing your argument on any of them. Care must be used with this list, as some of these can be used properly if extreme care is taken.

Now that you have completed each of these tasks it is time to move on to lesson 3, where we learn to actually use all of this stuff.

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