TL;DR I will listen intently, scrap useless crap, relate meaningful nuggets of information, recognise it in the everyday

With the start of the semester, Networked Media, and the first ‘unlecture’ in particular, I want to ask myself a very pertinent question: How do I learn? How exactly do I attend to, absorb, and synthesise information, regardless of whether it’s a formal context or not.

What prompted me to think about the very first step of the learning process – attending – was highlighted in this document written by a reporter for the Washington Post, Anne Hull (link may only be accessible by RMIT students). In short the lesson she imparts with for budding journalists is pay attention. Not just to one thing, or the subject relevant to your story, but everything and I feel that this is extremely relevant, even for classroom learning, at least the way I learn. What is the teacher saying? How are they saying it? Are they emphasising anything? Are they biased toward one opinion or another? Are their claims or facts entirely true? Is there a better way to word the information?

When these questions go through my head, I realise I am an extremely critical learner, cynical even. Attendance to information I find is the most important part of learning, not just to cram your head with information, but to harvest it wholesale and without inflection, much like ore is harvested from a quarry; crude and unrefined.

The next step is then to analyse the information, or skim over it to remove any waste or excess information to throw away. This is generally unnecessary words – the absorption of language and information in the human brain only concerns key word or phrases – or any information that I already recognise to be a truth, or intrinsic to my knowledge base, which could be anything like “proofread your work” or “don’t leave assignments till the last minute”. Once this process is complete, I can finally inscribe the remaining key phrases and information into either my short term memory – usually when learning while practicing, or on the go – or onto a text document for recall and reiteration later – such as during a lecture or speech where information is being streamed out. The most important part here for me is only to take down information that is meaningful to me, rather than copy it word for word in my notes, I try to assign meaning to it before moving on, to further concrete the information.

The final and most brief part of absorbing this information, and synthesising it for further use, is to put it into practice or recognise it in the ‘ordinary world’ or a context that doesn’t ask me to recognise it. This could be done either by performing a technique I’ve learned, or by mentally ticking the information off whenever I see it.

I realise at this point that this process sounds ridiculously thorough and articulated, but that’s how I think, constantly turning information over in the short term until it stay there in the long term. Recognition of the process simply helps to break down and reassemble it in the most useful way possible.

Lets say I’m taking notes during a lecture or discussion. The lecturer says a phrase, “The Cahiers Du Cinema is a French film critique magazine founded in the mid 20th century.” Immediately the only parts of that phrase that need recognising are ‘Cahiers du Cinema’, ‘French film critique’, ‘magazine’, ‘mid 20th century’. I can instantly make meaningful ‘Cahiers du Cinema’ and ‘French’ simply by the name of the magazine. Any essay or critique would have been in print in the mid 20th-century due to media constraints, hence ‘magazine’ and 20th century print are then made meaningful. Visualisation in short term memory helps here as any other subsequent information related to the magazine are explained.

I knew I’d treat the blog as a way to articulate my brain but good lord is it nuts. I had no idea how thorough my thought processes were. Right now I can note that I need to focus on streamlining and directing information, but until then, tally ho!