My learning journey over the past two months.
A series of blogs about learning design, my learning journey, and building a learning portfolio
Hello there!
It has been two months since my last blog. I hesitated to update the newsletter because I expected that I must write long-format, high-quality blog posts. However, I did not have enough time to do so while studying at Fulbright and working as a teaching assistant and peer mentor at the university. Nonetheless, writing and sharing knowledge remains a priority for me, as it is the foundation of my learning. So, I will keep the habit of writing, and I hope to send blog posts every Monday morning.
In this email, I will summarize what I have learned about "Learning how to learn" in the last two months.
1. What can educators learn from video games?
As a teaching assistant at Fulbright, I became more aware of class design when I wanted to help my teacher organize better class activities.
In some classes at Fulbright, I learned a little because lectures lacked structure and learning objectives, even those the teacher was knowledgeable and friendly. This made me realize that a class’s quality not only depends on the teacher's level of knowledge but also on how class design helps the teacher achieve their teaching goals. This experience sparked my interest in learning experience design, including creating grading systems that can motivate learning. I will share part of my self-learning journey in the following article:
2. Reflect on my learning journey
Before, I always believed that I could not learn because I always had negative thoughts about my ability when receiving low grades in class. And later, when I learned how to learn, I realized that the difference between a good learner and a poor one is just the difference in knowledge and skills. And this gap can be narrowed by learning. In the following article, I share my journey from a poor learner to a knowledgeable one.
3. How to comprehend what you learn?
An essential question for students is: "How do you comprehend what you learn?" One solution to consolidate knowledge is using a "concept note." After each class, you can practice by spending 15 minutes summarizing the key concepts you have learned.
I presented this idea to my peer in the "Introduction to Psychology" course and will soon turn it into a blog post. In the meantime, you can take a look at my lecture slides here, where I summarize important takeaways about concept notes.
4. Learning portfolio to keep track of your learning journey
The learning process for students can often be challenging to quantify since knowledge is abstract and intangible. Thus, it would be helpful to have a method of tracking what you have learned and how much you have improved. One interesting way of evaluating your learning process is through a learning portfolio. This can help you create a single place to present your learning and thinking. Moreover, a learning portfolio can help recruiters to understand more about you, your skills, and the experiences you have gained during your learning process.
I have written two articles on this topic:
Other articles I wrote:
Some exciting things I learned:
Podcast: Inside the Minds of Spiders, Octopuses, and Artificial Intelligence:
In this podcast, Ezra Klein interviews author Adrian Tchaikovsky, who writes Xenofiction - entire science fiction worlds with the perspective and worldview of non-human creatures.
Tchaikovsky has written several books on this theme, including "Children of Time," which describes a civilization of conscious spiders, "Children of Ruin," which features a society of super-intelligent octopuses; and his latest book, "Children of Memory," which centers around a world of hyper-intelligent crows. During the podcast, host Ezra Klein suggests that "Children of Memory" could be used as an analogy to describe the worldview of a ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence system. The crows in Tchaikovsky's novel possess excellent computing abilities but believe they are not sentient beings.
You can listen to the podcast via the Snipd app or the Youtube link.
See you next week
Thank you for taking the time to read my newsletter this week, and I hope you will have a wonderful week.
Hoàng Long
So good! Excited to learn more from you!