Re: Can you teach someone how to learn?

["CB Casper" <knowone -at- surfy -dot- net>]

Karen asks:
> Specifically, can you teach someone how to 
> learn a product so well he or she becomes 
> an expert? 
> 
Jim embellishes:
> Assume a room full of motivated people who 
> need to teach themselves how a piece of 
> software works. Assume that you, yourself, 
> have no specific knowledge of the software 
> in question. 
> 
> Are there guidelines, schemas or plans of 
> action that you could give them on how to 
> learn this software on their own? That is, 
> are there "content-free" guidelines to 
> becoming an expert?
> 
> To ask it another way, are there tricks to 
> such self-teaching, and can those tricks be 
> taught? 
> 
> P.S. I know that an unmotivated learner 
> cannot be taught, while a motivated learner 
> will learn despite bad teaching. 

Observing my SO and 15 year old provides the
following insights. Some people are openly
hostile to changing anything from the way
they have always done it. change = discomfort

I was helping, and by making small changes, we
were able to understand the steps. It drove me
nuts watching the mouse move to the same place
over and over and over . . . . knowing that
keyboard equivalents were available, but the
user was actively against using them.

Others are willing to listen & learn new
techniques, but may not use them right away,
but are at least willing to be taught.
Enough family rant.

- and now for the good stuff -

As for specific tricks for self teaching?

Setup a test system that promotes playing
with the product. Assurances that even when
logged in as 'root' no real damage can be done.
Have someone available to bail them out if the
need arises; perhaps a sys admin to reboot if 
it goes that far, not for product support,
system support only.

When I taught beginners on general Mac use, 
Interleaf, and other very broad products,
I went over what-could-be-done with a broad
brush, with just enough of how-to-do-it and
where to find more information to get them 
started. For active learners, just knowing 
what-could-be-done piqued their interest in 
self learning how-to-do-it.

This is what frustrates me in User Help,
informing me that xxx can_be_done, but
providing no clue as to _where_ the
information on how-to-do-it is available. 
I want to learn, but they don't provide 
enough info on where the materials are 
located. (MS does this frequently)

CB
-- 
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