Ask HN: Hacking Learning Resources?

Isn't it somewhat paradoxically, that a teacher should ask for hack-how-to-learn recommendations?!

No offense meant. Just struck me. Being a teacher myself I know no one really knows the ultimate learning hacks.

Actually I'm in a similar process of brushing up my knowledge. For now I'm doing some meta reading:

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0671212095/

No offense taken. I have just spent most of my time hacking how to teach, hence the way I have designed my own self-study course. But I realized that I need to look more on the student side in how I deal with the materials and organize it more. I think I know how to be a good student, but then I thought, what ways can I maybe hack this? So as always, I like to see what is out there, and see what people have already done or tried, before I start to re-invent the wheel.

That book looks interesting, how do you find it so far?

I find How to Read a Book really promising. It seems like it will provide a solid framework for reading for really deep learning.

I found so far, that I'm not a bad reader. Apparently I already master several of the techniques described. But anyway I find it very valuable to become much more consciously aware of my own reading abilities. And I definitely expect to improve my abilities from the study of the book.

Also I find the arguments and supporting explanations in the book so far of distinct value.

Cal Newport's Study Hacks is excellent place to start: http://www.calnewport.com/blog/

In general, the best way to learn and retain memory of it is to collect, organize and repeat in small chunks, which you know already. To optimize the cycle is the tricky part. For collecting, keep a simple blog or a private posterous, so emailing it to yourself for future reference. And, use tags, my friend. Lots of tagging of your bookmarks. Amazing how much learning to know where things are when you need them is a handy thing to do.

As about organizing, have a buffer time on Sunday (as Cal would say) to organize the week ahead. And remember heavy ≠ optimal.

Interesting link, that is the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

Yes, organizing is crucial. I am basically trying to do the collecting and repeating recursively. All of the various projects I have set up use a fair amount of similar "chunks", but in slightly different contexts, so I hope to have built in the repetition, but in an interesting way. The overall organizing I am still working on, as I am putting the finishing touches on the 'syllabus' I am going through. It looks as though I will have to write some custom software to do it, which is kind of good news in a way, because by doing that I will also work on areas which I am studying, i.e. data visualization. Thanks for the link

There is a series of books, which for the life of me I cannot remember, about learning various programming languages and such. The front of the books has tips like "Read just before bedtime" and talks about why the book is organized the way it is (for maximum memorability). They have illustrations and witty, engaging and generally interesting.

A quick google turns up the title "Head First" and I think that is the name of these books. Even if they don't teach any subjects of interest to you, walk into a book store and read the intro that talks about why these books are organized the way are and the tips and suggestions they offer for learning more efficiently.

Ok, thanks. I think I have one of the head first books (UML I believe) so I'll check that out

I'd suggest the book Why Don't Students Like School? (http://www.amazon.com/Why-Dont-Students-Like-School/dp/04702...) to those interested in applying the findings of cognitive science to their own learning. I'm finding it very useful in that regard.

As far as I'm concerned, Piotr Wozniak is the expert when it comes to hacking memory. Recalling important tidbits is inextricably linked to learning, and his methods seem to work best for remembering things.