Learning Strategies

Learning Strategies for Courses

• Watch the entire course (in one sitting if possible) for first exposure to the material.
• Rewatch the course in segments of 10 – 30 minutes. Take notes as you watch.  Handwritten notes are preferable as the physical act of writing engages more areas of the brain than keyboarding.  This accelerates the process of moving the material from short term memory to long term memory making it available for use in a meaningful way.
• Interact with your notes in some way. This is especially important if you took notes on a computer of some type.  Options include rewriting your notes, adding more detail to your notes, reorganizing your notes, reading your notes aloud, etc.
• Spend some time thinking practically about the material. When, where and how can I use this information?  Incorporate this into your notes.
• Spend some time thinking abstractly about the material. “This is like ____, except ______.”  “This is different from what I’ve heard before in this way: _________.”  “I could use this instead of ______.”  Incorporate this into your notes.
• “Explain it to a 5-year-old”. If you don’t have a 5-year-old handy, explain it to someone who has little or no knowledge of the material.  There is nothing like teaching material to help you master that material.  When you teach it to someone else, you are forced to think about the material in a careful and sequential manner and break it down into manageable components that are the most meaningful to you. 
• PRACTICE. Paper trade.    Knowledge does not truly become yours until you practice it to the point of mastery and automaticity.  Automaticity means the ability to do something quickly and easily without having to stop to take too much time to think about it and without having to review all the related material each time you need to use it.  This is essential in trading.  Physicians need to practice (internships), teachers need to practice (student teaching), and traders need to practice (paper trading). 
• Learn with a group. Your ability to successfully use new information expands when you learn, practice and use that information in the context of a group.  A group that contains at least one or two individuals with considerable experience and expertise and other individuals who are at various stages of mastery is ideal.  Tiresias Trading’s Discord channel provides such an environment of learning, practice and support in what can be a somewhat solitary endeavor.