The Autodidactic Podcast

This is the last episode for this season, and I want to talk about the role of curiosity in lifelong learning. So, I'll just briefly explain the topic of curiosity. We'll go through the significance of it for lifelong learning and explain the connection between curiosity and the motivation to learn.

Self-Education in the Digital Age. Today, I want to talk about self-education in the digital age. Now, we are in the digital age without a doubt. The internet is everywhere. There's digital equipment everywhere: phones, digital information, pictures, text, blogs—you name it, it's everywhere. Obviously, the accessibility of digital resources has led to a surge in popularity and accessibility of digital learning. Today, I want to talk about the pros and cons of self-education in the digital age and how you might go about doing it better.

Today we'll explore the methods to becoming a Better Writer through Self-Study. When you're a writer, you need to continuously improve your writing skills. To achieve this, we need to emphasize the importance of continuous improvement and establish a measure and baseline to track progress. In this episode, we'll discuss the benefits of self-study for aspiring writers and highlight the strategies and techniques for autodidactic writers.

Today we'll talk about how to use MOOCs and how to get the most from online courses. Introduction to Online Courses and MOOCs First, for anyone who isn't familiar, let me introduce MOOCs. MOOCs stand for Massive Open Online Courses and have gained immense popularity and accessibility in recent years. These courses are offered online and are open to numerous participants worldwide. They provide a flexible and affordable way to acquire knowledge and skills from experts in various fields.

Today we'll look at mentorship and how it can help you as an autodidactic. It's not just about having someone to show you the ropes; mentorship goes way beyond that. When you have a mentor by your side, you gain access to invaluable guidance, support, and accountability. Think of them as your personal cheerleader and advisor rolled into one!

Reading classic novels isn't just about escaping into fictional worlds; it's a journey of personal and intellectual growth. These timeless works expose us to diverse perspectives, cultures, and historical periods. They allow us to see the world through different lenses and expand our empathy and understanding of the human experience.

Expanding our knowledge base through continuous learning is of utmost importance in today's rapidly changing world. It not only promotes personal and professional growth but also enables us to keep up with the ever-evolving landscape in various fields. Lifelong learning has become essential in order to thrive in a dynamic society. By actively seeking opportunities to broaden our knowledge base, we can enhance our critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. When we expose ourselves to diverse perspectives and ideas, we develop a more comprehensive understanding of complex issues. This broader understanding enables us to approach challenges from different angles and find innovative solutions. Moreover, expanding our knowledge base opens up new avenues for career advancement and personal fulfillment. By acquiring expertise in multiple areas, we become more versatile and adaptable, which can lead to increased professional opportunities. Additionally, learning about different subjects outside our comfort zone can bring joy and satisfaction by fueling our intellectual curiosity.

Benefits of self-directed learning for aspiring STEM professionals: Flexibility to explore personal interests and pace of learning Opportunity to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and self-motivation skills

Exploring the use of Critical Thinking in Self-Learning. Critical thinking is a cognitive process characterized by the ability to analyze, evaluate, interpret, and infer information and ideas. It involves actively and objectively examining concepts, arguments, and evidence to form well-reasoned judgments and make informed decisions. For autodidacts, critical thinking is particularly important as it enables independent learning and empowers individuals to navigate a vast amount of information effectively. It's essential to distinguish critical thinking from other types of thinking, such as creative or lateral thinking. While critical thinking involves logical analysis and evaluation, creative thinking focuses on generating innovative ideas and solutions.

Today we'll explore the methods used for memory retention such as memory palaces and peg lists. In this episode, we will explore strategies that will help you use memory techniques. Don’t forget that I put all the transcripts for each episode on my website, autodidactic.info. Memory plays a crucial role in the learning process, as it allows us to retain and retrieve information. In this episode, we will explore memory techniques and mnemonics as effective tools for improving memory retention and recall. Memory techniques and mnemonics are strategies and methods designed to enhance memory performance. They provide practical approaches to encode and store information in a way that is easier to remember and retrieve when needed. By understanding and applying these techniques, we can optimize our memory capabilities and enhance our learning experience.

We'll look at the different methods of note-taking and how to use and enhance them for self-learning

A general review of self-learning goals, techniques, technology looking at Goal Setting and Planning this week.

Today we'll explore the methods to deal with demotivation.

Giving an update on how I have changed my study schedule because of the impact created by a new job. Looking at time management for help.

Today we'll investigate how you can create quizzes and tests for yourself as an autodidactic learner.

Using textbook markups in my destupidification project. I'll talk about how I plan to read, study, and review textbooks as well as creation of pop quizes for myself.

Today I'll cover all the things I'm doing to get resources for learning at no cost, how I'll use mnemonic techniques and create a retrospective timetable for my study plans.

In season three I'm going to explore using all the methods and techniques I've spoken about in seasons one and two. I'm going to be using myself as a guinea pig.

Hello and welcome to the autodidactic podcast Season 2, Episode 13. This is the last episode in this season. I decided I would spend a little time telling you what I will be doing over the next few months with regards to my own self-study plans and what my plans are for this podcast. Hopefully you’ll be able to take something from my plans in order to use for yourself and you’re own autodidactic study. I’m currently focusing on five main areas for self-study. The two programming languages I’m focusing on are assembly language for the ARM processor, and Rust. A lot of listeners will not be familiar with these but they are low level programming languages which are very helpful when programming computers. The reason for learning these is that they are closely related to one of my other learning projects which is electronics. Learning all three of these topics at the same time tends to reinforce each other. Understanding the electronics and logic chips used to build a computer, helps to understand the syntax and usage of both assembly programming and Rust programming. Learning the assembler shows how the binary operating codes used by the electronics is used in software. I’m also writing a program assembler in rust, so creation of software used to write software ties everything together. Perhaps you have two or more topics of interest which you are learning that you’ll be able to create linkages between. I’m creating an 8-bit CPU from wires and logic chips, and writing all my own software from scratch. This type of synergistic project forces me to use the learnings from each of the three topics in a real world project. I’ve said before that having an actual use for what you are learning, and using what you are learning for a project outside the realm of the textbook exercises will do wonders for your understanding. I also wanted to focus on the calculus and understanding and using it. Originally I thought I would go through all of the maths books I have on a shelf from basic maths through algebra, then trigonometry and into calculus. But I have decided that since calculus is want I actually want to know, why not just jump in and learn that? Two weeks ago I shelved the algebra book I was working on and pulled down two of the calculus books I have. It didn’t take long to identify the things I had been doing in the algebra book were not of much use for calculus, but it also identified a weakness in some other areas of maths. So yesterday I put the calculus books back on the shelf and pulled down the trigonometry book. Boning up on sine, cosine, tangents is helpful for the chapter of the calculus book I’m on right now. So here I’m not making a linear progression through one book to the next in order. For me, at this time, it is better from my study and motivation to go through the textbook in the topic where I want to be, and discover knowledge gaps. That way I can go back, plug the gap then return to the higher level book. For some people skipping around like this is suboptimal, but for me it works much better since I’m time constrained. Some people will say this method will cause me problems in the future because I don’t have a grounding in the basics before moving on the more advanced things. Normally I would agree, but I did a lot of maths back when I was in school, and most of the books I’m falling back to are refreshers for me anyway. The problem with not using knowledge is that in the 30 odd years since I first learned all this stuff it has mostly wasted away through non-use. But unlike the first time I learned it, a review is normally enough to remember what I need. So is this method appropriate for what you need to know? Have a think about what you are studying and if it is unknown or if you are just slogging through a refresher course just because it is the next textbook in the sequence? Again for many things I would advocate learning things in sequence from most simple to the most complex. But I find frequently...

Welcome to the Auto Didactic Podcast, Season two, Episode 12. This week, I want to discuss some learning processes that I use. That might be helpful for you as you become self taught. One of the main issues that you may find yourself running into is motivation. So you start off quite well and you’re charging along learning whatever it is you wanted to learn and then you dip, you run into an intermediate learning stage where you’re not really learning much more and the subject doesn’t excite you as much as it did initially. And you basically run into the problem that you just aren’t motivated to continue to study this. Now, some things about this might be helpful if you just decide that you’re going to take a break. Sometimes it’s very worthwhile just to have a break and then come back to it. Now you should decide in advance before you take your break how long that’s going to be. So you decide, well, I’m going to not bother to study for another week for example, but don’t just stop without a restart time and date in mind because otherwise you may just never start again. So this is what you need to keep yourself on track if you take a break and you need to restart. The other problem you may have is that you’re doing too long study period. So for example, if you’re doing study periods of five or 6 hours a day, then you can quite quickly get burned out on study and you’re not really interested. And it becomes a problem. You can avoid this by trying to shorten your study times or take a break or try and change things up in one way or another. Something else that can help you stop procrastinating or not studying is to increase the urgency of why you need to study. So if you are learning a language for example and you look at it as a long term thing, uh you know, you’re going to go to Spain in 10 years time and you want to learn Spanish. The fact that it’s 10 years from now doesn’t give you a driving urgency to learn. So you need to add some urgency to your goal, assign a date to complete certain tasks. So you’re going to start having conversations in Spanish in two months time. Well this makes it a lot more urgent because two months isn’t very long compared to the 10 years. Set yourself a shorter deadline and a more dynamic thing that you need to do. Now, one of the other problems that many people have when they’re studying is time management. For me, this is a bit of a misnomer because you can’t actually manage time. Everybody has the same 24 hours in a day, so you can’t actually manage time. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. What this actually is, is scheduling management, it’s scheduling your time properly to fit in, all of the things that you need to fit in and to do. I did a podcast on some time management aspects in season one, but realistically you need to manage your schedule not time because you can’t actually manage time. And part of the thing for managing your schedule is prioritizing your study time. So if you’re falling behind in your studies, it might be that you have not prioritised it over watching television or some other task that’s bit more pleasurable or you’re not finding the study time pleasurable, in which case you should try and find some way to make that, you know, a bit more interesting and a bit more fun. Now, one of the ways that you can make your study time a bit more interesting is that actually use what you’re studying now frequently if you are learning a new skill, typically, if it’s a physical skill, like, I don’t know, juggling, you’re going to be doing this in a, you have to juggle in order to learn juggling. You can read a few books, but at the end of the day, you’re going to have to practice juggling. This really does work as motivation because you’re physically doing it. Some other studies, such as computer programming, you can read a book and not actually do any programs and you work under the assumption that you understand what you’ve read, similar would be mathematics or...