Learning Modalities: Reading, thinking, talking, writing, building and user testing.

By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.

Reading time: 8 mins

Summary: Learning Modalities

• Learning about an issue, eg inflation: Reading, thinking, talking & writing. 

• Learning to build a product: Reading, thinking, talking, using all major existing products, writing, building & user testing.

If you are doing something you have never done before, at the outset you can’t know the solution. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a systematic process to come up with a solution. 

• “Progress solves all known problems.” Eric Schmidt. 

• I think that learning is the key lead indicator to progress. 

• Normally I want to cycle through units of learning as fast as possible. 

• Typically I count a unit of learning as having cycled through each of the Learning Modalities. 

  • If I want to level up on school classroom behaviour management I’ll cycle through “reading, thinking, talking & writing” as fast as I can. 

  • If I’m wanting to make progress on a new product for Edrolo I’ll try and cycle through “reading, thinking, talking, using all major existing products, writing, building & user testing” as fast as possible. AKA do a unit of learning as fast as possible. Ideally I’ll get through multiple units of learning a week. 

  • Keeping the cycle time for units of learning low is one of the key things I try to optimise. 

• At school there is a curriculum for what to learn and how to learn. In life this often isn’t the case. 

• Jingle: don’t languish in learning limbo, use the learning modalities to level up!

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Details

Details on different the different Learning Modalities

• Modalities I use for learning about an issue

  • Reading

    • I try to do some short term, some medium term and some long term reading. 

      • Short term = news, twitter, etc

      • Medium term = magazine articles, podcasts. 

      • Long term = books. It’s hard for a book to be on the news of the day. 

    • Also, I try to understand all the major schools of thought ASAP. 

      • E.G. With economics I might want to know supply side economics, demand side economics, rawls & modern monetary theory. 

      • E.G. For secondary school maths I’ll want to understand skill and drill, cognitive load theory for maths, conceptual understanding and inquiry based learning. 

  • Thinking

    • After listening to a podcast / reading an article / chapter of book / documentary I pause and ask myself a few questions. 

    • Some typical questions: 

      • How can I apply this to my life? 

      • How can I apply this to Edrolo? 

      • Is there anyone in my life who would be interested in this? 

    • Then if I feel appropriate I’ll write a note about a thought I have, e.g. send myself an email, put something in a doc. 

    • Normally this is only a minute or two. 

  • Talking

    • This is an oversimplification, but I sometimes classify meeting at work in the following categories: 

      • Synthesis meeting: you need to make decisions. 

      • Info disbursement meeting: decisions have been made and you are explaining them and people can ask clarifying questions (if material new info comes to light then you might need to update your synthesis). 

      • Free form chat meeting: the purpose here is to explore, not to synthesise. 

    • Inside work: If there is a topic you want to level up in or you are building a product I think you should have free form chats. Normally set the goal of the meeting at the start then explore away! So many connections and new ideas often come out of free form chat meetings. 

    • Outside work: for each key person in my life I have a notes file in my iPhone and I write down things I think they’d like to talk about. Eg with my mother. I’ll often have three things I come across in a week that I’d like to talk to mum about but then when I see mum I can’t remember any of them. The note is a great solution! 

  • Writing

    • I think writing is extremely powerful, I’ve written about it a few times: 

      • Metacognition Writing: the best way to add value I’m aware of - Dec 2021

      • Language is the ultimate tool. Writing = improving at language. As such: writing = cool! - Oct 2020

      • Writing is problem solving - Dec 2019

    • If I’m trying to level up on inflation (as I am currently) then I’ll try and write about it. Eg what are the different types of inflation, what are the sources, how do you solve them. 

    • This CloudStreaks blog is writing intended to help me level up Edrolo. 

    • I find writing can be a high quality conversation with yourself. If I’m confused about something I just start writing about it and normally progress is made. 

    • In some respects writing is counselling chats with yourself. A strategy I use: if I have something you want to work through, I write about it every week until I have sorted it.  

    • For a product I’m trying to build I’ll write a ‘free form writing’ once a week. What is the definition of free form writing? I define this with an anti-definition, it’s writing that isn’t making product users can use. Basically writing about the problem, not making product to help solve the problem. 

• Extra modalities I do when building product

  • Using all major existing products

    • If you are trying to build a product to help then best to know all the major existing solutions. So buy them all, use them all, speak to people who use them to understand how they use them. Then try and write about what each product is and compare and contrast. 

    • Or as Newton put it, ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’. 

  • Building

    • Try to figure out the smallest unit of product you can make that will be able to be shown to your target market to get a valid unit of user testing. 

    • Then build this. This is standard lean methodology. Build, measure, learn. 

    • I find that building is often hard core synthesis of all the prior Learning Modalities. You’ve got to try join them into a cohesive whole! 

  • User testing

    • If you are trying to help others then you have to watch them use the product. Normally I think a minimum of one user testing session a week is needed to make sure you aren’t wildly off course. 

An example - learning about inflation

• Reading: go through wikipedia, listen to podcasts, read books you find on the topic. 

• Thinking: after each unit of reading stop and think for a few minutes. 

  • Some people say that learning is when you can make a metaframework for an idea / product. I quite like this definition. 

  • So I’ll often be trying to build a framework in my head. 

• Talking: I’ll chat with one of my friends in finance once a week and just talk about inflation. Normally this is 15-20 mins while at something social.

• Writing: try make a model / metaframework. 

  • As an example I’m thinking about 3 kinds of inflation: ‘demand pull inflation’ (where demand exceeds supply), ‘cost push inflation’ (where eg oil prices spike because of OPEC in the 70s or Ukraine in early 2022) and then ‘velocity of money inflation’ (eg weimar republic in germany). 

  • Then I’ll try and write out when each of these types of inflation has occurred in say the last 100 years, and what the response was by governments and central banks. 

  • Then if I’m really up for it make a decision tree of what could happen from here today and map out the estimated probabilities of each branch. 

  • Basically with a framework in your head you can start to calibrate the data points you get. I’ve found a framework can allow you to build knowledge maps, not collect data points. 

An example - building maths product for the US

• Reading: podcasts, research papers, etc. 

• Thinking: again this is normally after a unit of reading for a few minutes. Sometimes I’ll send myself an email after etc.  

• Talking: Have a free form discussion meeting once a week or more. These can be so much fun! 

• Writing: I’ll write a weekly email on how my understanding of the problem space is shifting and / or possible solution sets. This is very important ‘metacognition’. 

• Using all major existing products: normally try to understand one existing product in the market a week. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to know a product 100%, my goal is to get 80% understanding and normally I can do that in <1 day. 

• Building: make something. At a minimum this can be one question, or one answer. When you start off on a new product it’s very small, but a few months later you should hopefully have significant prototypes. 

• User testing: find ways to speak to your target market, segment the market into personas and systematically speak to people from all personas. Ask them what products they use, what they like and don’t etc. You can then calibrate what is said with your understanding of the product. But also show unit of product you have built for feedback. 

• I try to do two complete cycles a week. Each cycle normally means material updates to everything! At some point you zero in on something that works! 

If you only take away one thing

• The more you know about something normally the more interesting it is. 

• The better you are at something normally the more rewarding it is. 

• Systematic use of Learning Modalities is a great strategy to make things more interesting and rewarding!