Learning by doing 8 doc

GETTING INVOLVED IN LEARNING

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notes or make drawings in your notebook, or speak into your tape

recorder. Record what was important or useful to you, as well as what was

confusing. Copy the sentence or phrase you’d like to remember, noting

the page it’s on.

If You Are Listening

If it’s an audiotape, listen to it once, just to get started. Then write in your

notebook what interested you most about what you heard. Return to that

part of the tape and listen to it again.

If you’re listening to a lecture or speech, you don’t have the oppor￾tunity to hear the whole thing once before you start. In that case, you

have to try to get interested before the talk begins. Does the lecture have

a title, for instance? Perhaps something in that title, if you think about it,

will remind you of something you know. Are there any audio-visual aids

in the room? Have you been given a handout? Any of these things can

help you find out what’s interesting to you about the talk before it begins.

If the speaker hasn’t given you any aids, focus on the speaker him- or her￾self. Does this look like a person you would trust to give you good infor￾mation or advice? Does he or she look like someone you know? Even

focusing on the speaker’s appearance may help you become interested in

what the speaker has to say.

ACTING OUT

What if you’re studying something and, despite your best efforts, you

don’t find anything of particular interest in it? Sometimes you just can’t

find anything that you can connect with.

In that case, pretend you’re someone else who can relate to the mate￾rial and has an interest in it! You can become interested in a subject when

you involve yourself in it, even when you’re just role-playing. (See Chap￾ter 5, “Learning by Doing,” for more on role-playing and other ways to be

an active learner.)

• Pretend you’re the instructor; decide what will be the focus of the

next class. Let that direct your studying.