Digg Deeper Learning Pattern

This pattern is a great idea for a beginner such as me. It offers a way to complement the lack of knowledge that comes with the lack of experience. It should be used carefully because of the ease of wanting to just reinforce the skills you are already good at. Knowing a little on a lot of subjects will not help getting things done and knowing a lot in just one subject will get you just as far. The secret as I see it is to have a good toolbox and know how to at least hold each tool. As you need to pick up each of these tools you learn about them more in depth but not too much to hinder your progress. As you shuffle through this toolbox picking up things you need and not obsessing on one tool you build a hierarchy of depth in the knowledge of things you need most. We will handle the same tool more than once and every time we do, we should dig just a little more.

The author presents a more all in version of the dig deeper which I think is the philosophical normalized world idea. It would be nice if we had the luxury of tunnel vision and look for the PhD dissertation of the original design algorithm for every tool we use, but it is also the easiest way to fall into a deadlock. I find that in school it is very hard to get in depth knowledge on every subject as much as I want. Time and time again I see myself compromising and kicking the can down the road, because I do want in-depth knowledge in some subjects, but there are time sensitive co-responsibilities that need immediate attention. Although, as I said earlier, some of these tools that I want to understand better come up again and again over the semesters and I do indeed gain a little more ground on understanding them.

I believe the author is right when he says that we need to learn to dive into ever lower levels of understanding.  By lower I mean from specific to general and by specific, I mean not only the surface high level function you need. The author does throw a little caution which I also mentioned earlier. The risk of becoming what some call a one trick pony.  The balance is really hard to define, and it is very personal. I don’t have my own balance definition yet, but I hope that with time this too will come.

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