2-2: The Learning Plan
The learning journey is a wandering one, but that doesn't mean you should be aimless from point to point. Composing a plan keeps you accountable to yourself, and allows you to describe clear measures of success. This is the essence of a learning plan.
They can take many shapes. You can build a learning plan for a specific subject, or a broad course of study. You can have multiple interrelated plans for different target areas. However you choose to organize it, a comprehensive plan should have a few core components.
Plan Components
The Learning Plan comprises several elements. You can use some or all of them, but each has value in guiding your journey.
Target Area
The most important elements of your Learning Plan, however you make it, are the target areas. These are broad topics of study you wish to pursue. You want a target area to be broad enough to encompass many skills and concepts, but not so broad that it doesn't provide direction. For example, "Python Programming" is a good target area, but "Learning to Code," not so much. Even school subjects are too big. "Math" is a terrible target area, but "Calculus" works well.
Rationale
Why do you want to learn this? The answer here will be important throughout your journey, so be honest and thorough. As you'll see later, when the going gets tough, this section will remind you why you're doing this.
Learning Objectives
For each target area, you need to have clearly-articulated learning objectives. What are the skills and concepts you wish to master during your study? I like to split these up, because they fall nicely into two questions?
- What do I want to be able to do?
- What do I want to be able to understand and explain?
While related, these are different results—especially when pursuing target areas with specialized skills. One can become quite proficient at knife techniques without grasping fundamental concepts in cooking, although both would be reasonable learning objectives for someone learning to cook. Or, closer to home for me, you can perfectly explain the theory behind power generation in boxing, but still have terrible form when throwing a punch.
Existing Strengths
You aren't starting from scratch when beginning your course of study. You likely already have somewhat-related knowledge and/or skills that will help you along the way. Your Learning Plan should list these in some way to form a foundation for creating connections between skills and concepts, and to remind you that, actually, you do have what it takes to succeed.
Resources
For each target area, list what materials you'll need for your study. This could be space, time, notebooks, software—whatever it is you need on hand so you can get to work when you have the time.
Evidence
What will be your proof to yourself that you have accomplished your learning goal? This exhibition of mastery tends to take the form of a large project that involves most, if not all, of the skills and concepts listed in your learning objectives.
Schedule
Arguably the most important component besides the target areas. This is where you hold yourself accountable by committing time to your study. How many hours per week? When will you study? Use this space to commit to this time investment.
Now this is a very text-heavy way of thinking about your plan. Obviously that is my bias, but there are other ways as well. For the visually-oriented, we'll explore the Study Map.