Seamless Learning
When I was at school, there were many things I hated learning. History was one of them. It’s not that I found it boring. There were times that I’ve actually enjoyed reading this stuff. But memorizing dry facts and numbers just to be able to mechanically spill them out in some exam wasn’t my thing. I just couldn’t bring myself to sit down and read the material over and over again for some arbitrary goal I didn’t relate to.
One day my mother came up with a great idea. She told me she had read somewhere that one can actually memorize the learning material during his sleep. All I had to do is tape myself reading the material and play it back while I was asleep.
I was fascinated by the idea. Could I really memorize all this material without investing any energy? Could I really pass the test without getting bored to death? Clearly, I had nothing to lose.
So, I went back to my room, set up the tape recorder, and started to read the material out loud. I taped myself reading about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the Crusades, the great famine and the black death, and a bunch of other cheerful events.
Ten hours and seven audio cassettes later I was so exhausted I went straight to bed. Not without placing my tape recorder beside my bed and playing the first cassette. It was so boring that I fell asleep in two minutes.
When I woke up the next day, I realized that my “perfect plan” wasn’t so perfect. It didn’t cross my mind that I had no way of switching cassettes while I was asleep. All that work was in vain. And since this was the day of the exam, I didn’t even have the time to say to myself how stupid I was.
I got a B+.
I didn’t understand how I managed to do that. All I did in preparation for the test was to read the material once without even trying to memorize it. And still somehow I did remember most of it. It was as if I learned best when I didn’t mean to.
***
The best kind of learning is seamless learning — learning which is merely a side effect of another activity. When I recorded the material for my history test, I didn’t feel I was learning. But I did. And the same thing happens to us in our professional lives. Everything we do teaches us something new. With every task we accomplish we gain more experience. And this kind of learning is far more effective then sitting in a classroom trying to memorize dry details.
With the help of professional mentoring we can do even better — we can shorten the learning time and achieve better results using professional guidance as part of our day-to-day work. Instead of just building experience, we can build it in a guided manner. And the best part is that professional mentoring can be integrated seamlessly into our core tasks.
Seamless learning is also the most cost-effective way of learning. Because it is accomplished while doing your work, your work is almost never interrupted (at least not for a substantial period of time). So from the business perspective, seamless learning does not come on the expense of actual work. It is part of that work.
Classroom-based learning might be a good medium for overviews and introductions. But without day-to-day integrated mentoring, it is extremely difficult to actually learn your craft. If you want to master your craft, find yourself a mentor. Find a mentor who can fine-tune your work on a daily basis while allowing you the freedom to flow.
Whether you are a developer, a tester, an architect, or a manager, seamless learning is the best way for you to become a professional. Seamless learning is the most cost-effective way for any organization to improve the skills of its employees.
Each and every one of us can become better. We all have something to learn. The problem is most of us think we don’t have the time for it. But what better time is there than all the time?
***
PS. Tapes are not required.
July 28th, 2006 at 4:23 am
“she had read somewhere that one can actually memorize the learning material during his sleep”
Well, obviously I don’t know where your mother got it from, but I read about it in Huxley’s Brave New World, so if you found it to be fictional, the reason might be that it is ;-)
July 28th, 2006 at 5:16 am
Well, there’s a lot to say here. Just a few reactions:
About history: nice example — I didn’t like history in high school either. Indeed we weren’t using it for anything — just memorizing it for no apparent reason. Now that I’m more aware of current affairs, and need to support my positions about political events, I have a use for history. Now the names and dates matter, because we got where we are today because of a specific history, with all its details.
About mentoring: it’s only school-brainwashed adults that have to be told to seek a mentor. Kids do it naturally. See
http://talkaboutquality.wordpress.com/2006/07/21/mentoring-is-kids-stuff/
And about school: Maybe the era of disconnected learning for all, that started in the late 19th century, is finally ending. See, for example, the first feeble attempts to “get it”: (I searched “work is learning”)
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/stw/sw300.htm
July 28th, 2006 at 10:44 am
[…] I am once again making an exception to my rule of not writing posts that are little more than links to other people’s posts. I stumbled across an interesting post in the Morning Reading Queue™ today, which led me to another post, which then led me to an insightful comment, all of which are related to one of my burning desires and an episode in my past. Let us begin. […]