Day 11: Foundational Knowledge

Our learning journey begins in the explore phase where we learn the fundamentals, the foundational concepts or base knowledge. In this lesson, learn what foundational knowledge is, why it's important to learn first, and how you can begin learning this knowledge.

Resources for this lesson:

• Transcripts
• Worksheet
• List of Scientific References

Summary

What Should We Learn First?

Our learning journey begins in the explore phase where we learn the fundamentals, the foundational concepts or base knowledge.

• The main goal at this stage is to get your feet wet and develop some hands on feel for any skill or topic that you're learning.
• If you remember back to the Trivium of classical education, this is known as the grammar of a subject, which answers the question of the who, what, where, and when of any subject.

What is Foundational Knowledge?

Foundational knowledge is the knowledge that all other knowledge and understanding stems from, the basic building blocks or key principles of a skill that will be used over and over and over again.

Sometimes this knowledge is referred to as a first principle, a  proposition or assumption that stands alone.

• When you're building arguments or reasoning, you can go any further down than first principles
• When you're reasoning from first principles, the idea is you're breaking down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassembling them from the ground up.
• This applies to learning as we break down large topics into basic elements so that we can learn each of them and then reassemble them to master a skill.

Foundational knowledge is the set of knowledge that is never going to change. They're the areas that are virtually guaranteed to be valuable in the future. No matter what happens.

• Learning foundational concepts that underlie all skills and knowledge sets allow us to quickly adapt, upskill, or reskill in an ever changing world.

Why Learn Foundational Knowledge First?

Presenting foundational material first provides a backbone to which one can attach additional information, allowing an organized mental structure to be built up over time.

• Learning is enhanced [1] when you take advantage of existing associations and provide the most basic material first, and then you integrate new material over time.

Learning foundational knowledge first helps with transfer, the ability to learn a skill in one setting and apply it in an entirely new one.

• The key to far transfer is to distinguish between surface characteristics that may be happening in one particular situation and the underlying deep characteristics, which tell you which knowledge should be transferred to this present situation.

In practicality, a focus on the fundamentals is going to help you in your career because they are the things that are unchanging even when the world is rapidly changing.

How to Learn Foundational Knowledge

The basic process is to:

1. Review your research and plan and identify which concepts are at the core of all other concepts. Focus on these first.
2. Build on prior knowledge and associations
3. Learn directly if possible - learning skills that have direct application to what you want to do

Notes on associations:

• When learning something new, the more associations you find with information stored in memory the better.
• You are not a blank slate, the more you can associate with things you know, the easier it will be to learn.
• As you learn this effect will compound making any learning endeavor in the future easier.

Notes on learning directly:

• Try to mimic the environment that you would actually use this knowledge or skill in.
• The more we're able to learn directly and apply knowledge to real situations, the greater our ability

There are 4 strategies for learning directly:

• Projects: practicing a skill by producing something or solving a real problem.
• Immersion: process of surrounding yourself with the target environment in which the skill is used.
• Simulation: practicing a skill by mimicking an environment, paying close attention to the cognitive elements around making decisions and cueing knowledge.
• Overkill: increase the challenge of applying the skill so that the skill level required is wholly contained within the goal that is set.

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Activity

Identify the fundamentals of the skill or knowledge concepts that you want to learn and then begin exploring those fundamentals.

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Skill Lesson Mastered

Demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson by applying it to the above activity. If, and only if, you have a full understanding and have mastered the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson, select the next lesson in the navigation.