Welcome to the Art of Learning

1) What is meant by learning skills?

Learning Skills are simply the skills that the best learners have that differentiate them from poor learners. When a child is seen at school to be a good learner that ability to learn well is often attributed to a higher natural intelligence than another child who has more difficulty learning, and whilst that may actually be true, the way in which the higher intelligence manifests itself is in the application of specific skills. These skills, once isolated, are skills that can be taught to every child. Once any child has learned the specific learning skills needed to process, understand, remember and apply the knowledge, skills and information given to them at school their learning ability improves. They then gain more confidence in their own abilities, their success in all school subjects improves, they achieve higher results in tests and exams and their manifested intelligence increases.

Just think for a moment, what are some of the simple things that good students do that differentiates them most from poor students?
Do they:
- concentrate better in class?
- take better notes?
- review those notes regularly?
- find areas they do not yet understand and ask questions of teachers or parents or find other resources to help them understand?
- know where the best resources are for each subject?
- do all their homework and keep up to date with all assignments?
For tests and exams do they:
- create a good study timetable well in advance and stick to it?
- manage their time well?
- make effective study notes?
- try different learning strategies for different subjects?
- practice working through old exam questions?
- get extra help when they need it?
- have good exam room techniques
At a higher cognitive level, do they:
- know how to develop self-motivation and persistence?
- understand how to develop resilience to overcome difficulties?
- know how to organise information to suit their own individual processing style?
- monitor the effectiveness of their own learning strategies and make changes where necessary?
- know how to handle pressure and stress?

These are some of the skills that you might call learning skills, and there are many more.
They can all be taught, they can all be learned.
Having all these skills is a huge advantage for any student.


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