Learning to Learn

So..... it's still snowy and my eldest daughter's school is still closed. She's at home and really would like to spend all day watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer but I (and the school) don't think this is a suitable addition to the National Curriculum!

I'm really impressed with the use of technology at her school. They have constantly updated their web site to let us know what's happening snow wise and, to make sure that the children keep up with their work, each year has a section on the site with their own special homework assignments.

What has been really interesting today though is watching how my daughter approaches this work......


..... She perused the list and immediately ticked off the items that she'd already done or those she shouldn't be doing ("we're not reading that book and I'm not doing textiles" apparently!) and then she picked out the ones that she thought would be fun, polishing those off in no time at all. Then she starts on the more laborious tasks. Understandably by the time she's been at it on her own in her room for a couple of hours she's getting stir crazy and is trying to sneak Buffy back on to her laptop (apparently having it playing helps her with her maths!).

Obviously, I took it away so that Buffy was not an option. Another hour or so later I pop back to check progress and find a sullen, unmotivated youngster. She's trying to concentrate on the mathematical problem but really all she can think about is the outrage of TV deprivation. So we get in to a discussion about responsibility for learning. 10 minutes in and we're both entrenched in our own views and no maths is being done. She is completely overwhelmed by the number of assignments she needs to complete by tomorrow and she's lost all motivation to study.

So.... what to do?

We start by making a proper list with a column for her to tick those items that she's completed and write in where she's done as much as possible and what she needs to do when she's back at school. As she ticks the ones that she's done already I can see her face brightening. It appears she's only now got 4 left to do but it didn't seem that way until she really organised the task.

Next, we talk about which of these are likely to be the hardest and which ones can be picked off relatively easily and we separate them into two sections with a hard and an easy one in each (nothing she's doing is dependent on another thing so it does make it easier for her to pick and choose at will). Then I whip out "the Buffy card" and explain that if she completes (to my satisfaction) one of the sets of two items then she'll be able to watch one episode of Buffy before she has to get straight back to doing the other two.

In an instant she's like a new girl. She does make sure that she's tied down the details of the negotiation (like mother like daughter!) but then she ushers me out of the room and sets to on the maths problem. I'm called for input about 20 minutes later, just to check that she's on the right lines, and then dismissed until I'm needed as an audience for her Drama project (stereotypes). I check her maths and then watch her play an old man, a clown and a mad scientist (very well I might add, although I may be a touch biased). We're done with the two items completed and ticked off the list in less than an hour and now she's upstairs getting her treat and fully understanding of the fact that once this episode is over she's got English and Design and Tech to do.

This made me think about motivation and how to push on through the important but sometimes boring things that we have to do. In the courses that we run at Computeach sometimes there are really difficult concepts that have to be understood before moving on to the next item and they can be such a hard slog, especially when you're doing them on your own using distance learning. But it's no different than my daughter and her over-facing school work. There are some very simple but very effective techniques to help you get through them:

1. Make sure you break down the task into manageable chunks - we help to do this by providing a structured study plan but within that you can also work out how much or how little you can achieve in each sitting.
2. Make sure you can easily review your progress so that when you have lots left to do you can still take 2 seconds to look at how much you've already done. It's amazing how much of a boost this can give you. Use "My Report" in SkillPort to review your progress or make a simple checklist and refer to it often.
3. Set yourself milestones along the way to the main goals. Whilst your overall goal may be passing a certification exam, with upward of 250 hours of study to do, this is a long way off. Use your study plan and the topics of eLearning or the chapters of the books to give yourself natural milestones.
4. When you've identified your milestones, work out what your reward will be for reaching one of them. I'm not talking about something fancy or expensive. It can be as simple as "I can have a cup of tea (or an episode of Buffy) when I finish this chapter". Having something to aim for and something that provides a break, no matter how short, can really help to keep you focused.
5. Don't overstretch. You do have to do all the study if you want to progress but it's better to do that in a manageable way than to over face yourself and find you can't juggle everything. Everyone's situation is different but you need to factor in work, spouse, children, football, telly, whatever your things are. They haven't disappeared because you started a course and you need to keep a balance. So set space in your timetable for the other things that you need to do alongside your learning.

Employing these simple but effective points can help you keep on track with your studies.

Of course there is a huge wealth of research and theory about motivation and learning and anyone who's really into that level of detail may laugh at the simplicity of the messages above but they work for me and they seem to be working for my daughter, who just came downstairs, post Buffy, eager to make a model of the seating area she's designed.

Now where are the cocktail sticks, string and sticky back plastic - Valerie Singleton (who?)has got nothing on me!

Happy studying
Lucy