Meta-learning

Chapter 6 of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance, by Jay Cross

 Meta-Learning

Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world. Arthur Schopenhauer

A knowledge worker needs one thing only: to learn how to learn.  Peter F. Drucker.

META-LEARNING TREATS LEARNING AS A PROCESS. 

     Learning is a skill, like playing golf. The more you practice, the better your performance, but if golfers followed the pattern of business people learning, they would arrive for a match without ever having thought about the game or touched a club. Hence, meta-learning begins with raising awareness of learning, listening for feedback, praising advancement, and getting lots of practice. This is how one learns to learn.

     Meta-learning also embraces a variety of conditions that interfere with the learning process, such as mismatch of the form of learning and the maturity of the learner. The commitment of the learner is involved, for without it the doors to the mind slam shut. People need the communication skills to participate in the knowledge economy. Stress and poor health are frequent obstacles to learning. All these factors and more are under the meta-learning umbrella.

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