Curiosity-Driven Learning in Children

A study, Conversational Agents for Fostering Curiosity-driven Learning in Children, showcases how children learn better when they question their environment and how curiosity plays a significant role in their learning and understanding.

Although the study focuses on children, why, as adults, have we been conditioned to stop asking questions? It’s clear that activating our curiosity-driven instinct is a natural way to learn and grow.

• Identifying a knowledge gap leads to curiosity-driven learning

• Asking questions leads to better memorization over reading or listening (Bethier & Hurbert 2021)

• Guidance from an individual can help motivation levels

🌱 Curiosity as a Seed to Creativity

Another interesting correlation between curiosity and its relationship to creativity is how these two behaviours complement each other. Researchers in the study of Cultivating an Understanding of Curiosity as a Seed for Creativity looked at this exact thing.

Being curious is something we can all benefit from. Think about writer’s block or problem-solving a challenging thing. Curious individuals often think outside the box. Now utilizing this in business or personal growth, we can definitely contribute to positive outcomes.

• We are in a constant flux between seeking and satisfaction

• Curiosity involves the pursuit of new knowledge and experiences

• Curiosity also involves transforming knowledge, ideas, and experiences into something new and exciting

Mind-Mapping

Mind-Mapping is the process of exploring a central subject. Brainstorming without any structure. It allows us to structure ideas and thoughts visually. Diagrams, words, pictures and various colours can all be incorporated into our mind map. The benefit of mind mapping is to make connections between ideas or create a whole new thought/idea we didn’t think about before.

How do we create a mind map?

• Begin with a central image or subject.

• Jot down one-worded thoughts. Let your mind wander. Use wavy lines which help stimulate the brain. Be colourful. Use bold or CAPITALIZE specific thoughts. Be you!

• Make connections between thoughts, called branches. Distinguish thinker branches with main ideas and thinner branches for related ideas, called children.

5 Steps to Manage Workflow

In the book, Getting Things Done by David Allan, he breaks down the five steps to managing workflows that I think are very useful to be aware of and ultimately utilize.

Just thinking about what must be done will not create space or bandwidth in our brains. Instead, it will continually pop up in our mind; it likely happened reading this newsletter.

• Collect: everything that needs to be done should be collected into ‘baskets’ to get them out of our minds. This doesn’t mean they need to be completed, just acknowledged. Anything that is, I need to, ought to or should is considered an item.

• Process: go through all projects and assign them accordingly.

• Organize: into measurable action plans.

• Review: Weekly review is ideal to ensure tasks are still relevant, updated etc.

• Do: Based on Four-Criteria Model for Choosing Actions in the Moment; 1. Context 2. Time available 3. Energy 4. Priority