So, you’ve finished your course and feel great about yourself, on to the next course!
Wait a minute, how much did you actually remember out of the course you just finished?
In learning, there are at least 4 stages of learning. There is being able to understand it, being able to explain it, being able to teach it, and being able to debate it. For the most part, once you watch a course for the first time, you will be at the understanding stage. You might feel that you know it 100%, but once you start to articulate what you’ve learned to someone else, something totally different comes out, or it just comes out terrible and sloppy. This is normal though, because of the stages of learning. And sometimes you might not be interested in moving up the learning stages.
Surely, you’ll find interest on this course especially it’s offer using the Great Courses Coupons that will teach you a lot more than you can imagine.
However, if you do want to move up the stages, here are several things you can do to get the most out of your course.
- Read the outline before watching the lecture.
- Do the supplemental reading at the end of the outline of each lecture. This is required if you want to be able to teach it and debate it.
- Answer the questions at the end of the outline of each lecture and write them down. Depending on the difficulty of the questions and which professor it is, answering them will help you be able to debate it.
- Buy the transcript along with the course and as you watch the lecture, follow along in the transcript and underline key points on there. This is very helpful with the more technical courses.
- Write about the lecture. Writing about what you’ve learned will get you to the stage of learning where you’re able to explain it.
- Take advantage of the glossary in the last pages of your outline book. This glossary is so often ignored.