Day 2: Why Learn How to Learn?

Today we discuss why learning how to learn is the most important skill you can master, how it helps you become a self-directed learner, and what changes are occurring in your life and the world that make this skill crucial.

Resources for this lesson:

• Transcripts
• Worksheet

Summary

Learning how to learn is the most important skill you can master. You become a self-directed learner in control of your own life.

• When we went through school as children, we were told what to learn, but we weren't exactly told how to learn, especially anything that we wanted.
• When you don't know how to learn, you perform poorly in classes, work, and other areas of your life, which is a blow to your self-confidence and limits your opportunities.
• This course will teach you techniques that you can use, understand your brain, and take your power back as a self-directed learner

Why it matters: If you learn this skill, you take your power back from the education system, you gain the ability to learn anything, and you don't need another person to tell you what to be learning.

Why You Must Learn This Skill

The first reason is because the world changes and the things that it needs from its citizens require people to advance their careers and change skills.

• Whether you want to change careers, take on new challenges or accelerate your progress, learning is going to be a powerful tool to help you do those things.

The second reason is because as a person you're also changing, new things come up in your life and you reach new milestones.

• Along the way, you're going to have to learn some new skills in order to adopt those new lifestyles like getting married, having children or moving to a new area

The last point I'll make is that education has fundamentally changed. Going the traditional route from high school to college often costs way too much.

• By becoming a self-directed learner, you can do this yourself, picking what you want to learn and gathering your own resources and leading your learning, saving you thousands of dollars.
• Almost anything you want to learn can be found online and you can learn it in a variety of different ways.

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Activity

Please reflect and answer the following questions about your past learning experiences.

1. How were your learning experiences in the past?
2. How would have knowing the skill of learning have helped you in those past experiences?
3. Why is it important for you to learn this skill now? Why does learning how to learn matter to you?

Share with your fellow learners in the comments below, or in the #learntolearn channel in the Plato University community.

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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.