Mindset

When you chose to believe that your inteligence can grow with practice, dedication and effort, you will start seeng obstacles as opportunities for learning. Embracing this "growth mindset" often leads to higher learning and achievement.

Failure

Trial and error is one of the most effective ways of learning. It is even more effective when you are able to understand what went wrong and how can you improve it next time.

Time

Learning takes time and you learn better when you dont do it under pressure. When approaching a new topic, set aside more time than usual to be able to experiment, have fun and reflect on your learning.

Framework

Transforming complex abstract learnings into a visual framework is a great way to explore how concepts relate, connect and influence each other. The simpler the framework, the easier it is to remember.

Peer

Learning can also take place without a teacher. Peer-learning provides a safe space to talk about doubts, learnings and different perspectives without judgement and under the same conditions.

Testing

Testing increases the chance of remembering what you learnt, but it works way better when you do it constantly and spaced by some days. Apparently, the more effort your brain makes to remember, the more it "sticks" permanently in your long term memory.

Reflection

When you think about thinking, you reflect on your own learning and it helps you understand and connect with other topics. Asking why you do something the way you do might lead you to discover a new way of doing it.

Agency

Agency leads to empowerment when information is available to make decisions. Having too much agency can be frightening because you are accountable for your decisions. Having too little limits your freedom, creativity and motivation.

Atention

Your attention is limited and acts like a bottleneck for the information trying to reach your brain. The more you try to process at the same time, the less effectively you learn. Avoiding multitasking and sensory distractions help you focus your attention on what matters and deepens your learning.

Bias

Challenge

If the challenge is too complicated, you will get frustrated, but if it is too easy, you will get bored. To increase your learning, find a challenge that needs skills you already have but also requires you to learn new ones.

Chunking

Our brain has a hard time remembering more than 5-7 elements at the same time. When you encounter too many elements, chunking them in small groups will make them more efective to learn and communicate.

Connection

Creating connections between topics that might seem unrelated increase the chances of you remembering them. Connections with emotional or personal experiences have even a stronger effect.

Creativity

Emotion

Equity

Everyone deserves the same opportunities, but not everyone has them. Sometimes your efforts will feel limited until the conditions around you improve. Dont be afraid to ask for extra help.

Feedback

Giving and recieving feedback is a great way to understand different points of view you might have missed. Always ask permission to give feedback when unsolicited, since recieving it is an act of vulnerability. Feedback is not about opinions, its about suggestions.

Making

Making ideas tangible is a great way to interact with your learnings. It pushes you to adapt your imagination to the limits of context and tools available. Creating, interacting and tinkering allow you test what works and what doesent in the real world.

Memory

Memory is a construction, not a recording. The more you actively process information, the easier it will be for you to retrieve it when you need it later. Its not enough being exposed to the information, you need to make sense of it.

Motivation

When you do something not because you expect something in return, but because you enjoy it, you will do it better, for more time and have more fun.

Passion

When you work on things you feel passionate about, you have more motivation, energy and tools to learn. Remember you can have multiple passions at different stages of your life.

Personalization

Everyone is different and has different needs, tastes and limitations. The more you understand how you learn, the easier it will be to cater the learning experience to your needs.

Playful

When you have fun, you are more engaged, motivated, creative and happy. Playing can help you enjoy the process and be less focused on the outcome.

Project

Applying your knowledge in a real-life project will help you use what you have learnt in new situations and connect your passions with your learnings.

Scaffolding

When you are learning something new, you are going to need more help and more structure. The more you know about a topic, you will need less structure and more challenges that demand creativity and adaptation.

Storytelling

When we learn something through stories that relate to ourselves, we remember them easily, feel more engaged and build emotional attachments to that knowledge.

Structure

Too much structure in a learning experience leads to frustration and trumps creativity, while too litte will lead to uncertainty and disorientation. Good structures act like a guidelines, not a limitation.

Support

Variability

You learn more by trying different ways of applying your knowledge instead of doing the same thing over and over again. When you apply your learnings in different contexts, you will see patterns and understand the underlying fundamentals more easily.

Space

Re-arranging the space around or changing environments can help you see things from a different perspective, inspire you and refocus your attention.

Question

Curiosity is a huge motivator and a great learning tool. Asking "Why?" something is the way it is will lead you to fascinating discoveries and to find unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated topics.

Tinkering