3 Ways To Learn a Topic Well

1. Learn something while attaching the knowledge you want to gain with a strong emotion attached, along with a deadline of some sort.

2. Act as though you are teaching someone else. If you write something to a person at a beginner's level, you will retain the topic in your own brain all the better.

3. Play is one of the most instinctive ways of learning. So as you learn a topic, don't forget to play with the topic. Play is unstructured and natural. Still stay in the sandbox of the topic you are learning, but allow yourself a certain amount of time to wander through a topic as a child wanders through their playtime.

EMOTION AND A DEADLINE

A couple of years ago I needed to learn front-end web development in order to prototype the Cimitra web-client. I needed a real-world project. My granddaughter's 10th birthday was coming up [Emotion = Love]. I wanted to foster the STEM ambitions she was already displaying. So I made a game that would challenge her math skills. I was able to stick to my project because of my love for my granddaughter and my desire to have the math game done by her birthday [Deadline = Birthday]. We went to a restaurant together, and she played the game on an iPad. She also shared it with her friends and teachers. Joy! Here's the game:

https://tinyurl.com/sashamath

TEACHING BEGINNERS

Fortunately, Skillstruck has been making good inroads into our local schools in Utah lately to teach children programming skills. So I don't have to write a truly beginner's programming course. So when my granddaughter is ready to make the jump into more advanced JavaScript programming I'll have something waiting for her. Here is my first lesson for her, and anyone else interested in this topic. There is more to come.

https://cimitrasoftware.blogspot.com/2020/02/lesson-1.html

PLAY

I don't have to teach you how to do this. We were all children at one time! Just have some unstructured fun time with the topic or skill you are learning.