This is the last post in my three-part series on how to learn a new subject. You’ve already learned the basics with some structured learning. You’ve even started doing. You’re awesome! Now, how do you know what you are doing is correct? You need feedback.
Back in our classroom days, the feedback was tests or school projects. Yeah, I know. Tests suck. But it was the best they had. In residency, we had someone above us looking over our shoulders to make sure we didn’t hurt anyone.
The problem is where to find someone like that. It kind of depends on what you want to learn. Here some basic tips and some examples. Say I’m trying to learn a language. I can study and practice all I want, but I could be saying everything the wrong way and have no idea. I would need to find someone that knows the language. A tutor. Unfortunately, most that I know are pretty expensive. They also aren’t available in the middle of the night, my preferred time to learn.
The internet has made this process much easier. Through a website called italki.com, I was able to find a language tutor in Spain that worked well with my schedule. He was a college student that was a native Spanish speaker, so it was a lot cheaper than I’d have to pay a formal tutor.
Well, what about other subjects? This may seem a bit odd, but another great source of feedback is through Facebook. Specifically, Facebook groups. For example, say you are learning a new program or application. There is almost always to be a relevant Facebook group. When we were creating our online course, the Kajabi Facebook group was pretty helpful. What if you wanted to learn the basics of finance? Well, there are a ton of Facebook groups to help you. There’s even one’s for specific careers such as finance groups for engineers, lawyers, or doctors. There’s even a Facebook group for people trying to learn Spanish.
There are a couple of benefits from joining a Facebook group to help you learn:
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You learn by reading what other people are talking about (passive learning)
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You’ll start to recognize some of the words and topics you learned in your structured learning. And it’ll transfer to long term memory (spaced repetition)
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You can start to ask questions such as I was thinking of investing here or why do you use this word instead of this? (active learning)
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I’ve found people are pretty helpful on Facebook and will often go out of there way to help you (social learning)
This discussion with the members in the group will help you solidify what you learned in structured training. As scary as it can be, once you start posting and getting feedback, you’ll speed up your learning. At some point, you’ll even be able to help others and take your learning to the next level.
Now you’re ready to learn anything. Let me know how it goes. What subject did you decide to learn?