The Best Way to Learn

"We've always known that one-on-one is the best way to learn...but we've never been able to figure out how to do it." Until now.

So says Salman Khan, the lovable math nerd behind the much celebrated Khan Academy, in which students teach themselves math and other subjects via online videos, then work with their teachers individually on the bits they're struggling with. Khan Academy has attracted lots of attention, including a $1.5 million investment from Bill Gates' foundation. You can read more about it in this Wired magazine article, "How Khan Academy is Changing the Rules of Education."

I love Khan's venture, because it goes to the heart of one powerful way that people learn -- by working, on their own, on problems just out of their reach. According to research psychologist Anders Ericsson, who has famously studied expert performers in a variety of fields in order to understand how people get to be great at what they do, "serious study alone" is a key predictor of talent and expertise.

When I interviewed Ericsson for my forthcoming book on introversion, he explained why. It's only when you're alone that you can engage in something he calls "Deliberate Practice." In Deliberate Practice, you identify the tasks or knowledge that are just out of your reach, strive to upgrade your performance, monitor your progress, and revise accordingly. Deliberate Practice is best conducted on one's own because it involves working on the task that's most challenging to you personally. In an ideal world you'll also have the guidance of a coach or teacher, so you don't get stuck.

Only when you're alone, Ericsson told me, can you "go directly to the part that's challenging to you. If you want to improve what you're doing, you have to be the one who generates the move. Imagine a group class -- you're the one generating the move only a small percentage of the time."

Group work has its place in education too, of course. That's how students learn to share, explore, and debate ideas. But lately we've become too enamored with group learning -- a development that's especially burdensome for introrverted students -- so I'm pleased to see signs of balance.

What do you think of Khan's work? How do you (or your kids/students) like to learn?

If you like this blog, you might like to pre-order my forthcoming book, QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.

Also, be sure to sign up for my newsletter. Get blog updates, plus a chance to win a half-hour coaching phone session with me. (Periodic drawings.)

For earlier posts on the Power of Introverts, please visit my website here.

Want to join the QUIET Online Book Club, for thoughtful, cerebral people? Please go here.

FOLLOW ME on Facebook and Twitter!