“Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.”
This statement is mentioned quite a lot when talking about learning and development. But what does it take to become a self-regulated perpetual learner? Continue reading to find out more about regulating yourself to adopt learning practices and to turn yourself into a high achiever.
Here are some ways you can become an effective self-regulated learner.
Change Your Attitude Towards Learning
It all starts with your attitude. The first thing you need to do is to modify your attitude towards learning. View learning as an end in itself rather than a means to an end. As a student, a lot of us are just interested in getting a decent grade or GPA. This hinders the learning process, as the focus remains on securing a high grade only. Instead have a mindset where you want to learn new things and gain new knowledge for their own sake. If you maintain this attitude, you will automatically secure good grades.
There are times when it is easy to adopt a learning attitude. For example, if you are studying an elective or pursuing a college degree in which you have an intrinsic interest, you will autonomously adopt a learning attitude. This is because you are doing something you like and so you will willingly invest your time and effort into it, regardless of the grade you end up with. In other instances, when you are forced to study a course you are not particularly fond of, it will become tougher to adopt a learning attitude.
Even if you have to study a non-elective course that you did not choose for yourself, try to find some elements within that course that may be of interest to you. Just go with an attitude that you will be learning something new and use this motivation to get you through such a course. Adopting this practice over time will eventually make you a self-regulated learner.
Explore Various Styles of Learning
Variety is the spice of life. The same applies to learning styles. There are several learning styles that you may adopt. Some of them are visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and spatial. Thoroughly explore what these styles mean and which styles will suit you better than others.
Discover How Learning Works
Before you become a self-regulated learner, you need to know how the learning process works. If you study psychology and cognitive science, you will learn how to create memories, retain knowledge, and how learning is affected by emotions. Get an understanding of the learning tools at your disposal before you put them to use.
Do Self-Reflection
Introspection is a big part of self-regulated learning. Do a learning evaluation and introspect on the times you have been most and least effective in learning new things.
What was your favorite subject in school and why? When and why did you lose interest in a particular subject? Ask yourself these hard questions about your learning process. Doing so will help you move forward in life.
Find Your Devil’s Advocate
We all need someone who will call us out when we make a mistake or deliberately do something wrong. Look for someone among your family, friends, or co-workers who can play the role of devil’s advocate. This person should be someone who you trust so you can always take them into confidence. We often do not realize the follies we make. So having a devil’s advocate will make us get on the right path. It will make you self-aware and will eventually transform you into a self-regulated learner.
Conclusion
There is no shortcut to self-regulated learning. To become an effective self-learner, you need to fix your attitude about the purpose of your learning. You may start by choosing something that is of interest to you and take the learning process forward from there.
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