Steps to Success – Step Five!    

Listen with Intent

Just as with reading, you should go into a lecture with a purpose.

Step 2 was all about reading with intent, so I called this one “Listen with Intent,” but I have written blogs and made videos about “Listening for Meaning” which is the same idea.  You always want to be looking for the meaning so that you can keep building your knowledge base.

Remember, it is your education, so you want to gain as much as you possibly can from your efforts.

(Check this week’s Monday quotation blog – Thoughts 5)

Use the questions and notes from your readings and prep work (steps 2 and 3), and then listen for answers or additional information to add to your notes.  The spaces you left in your note-taking effort will come in handy now.  Of course, if you don’t have enough space, you can always simply use a numbering system to make connections from your lecture (listening) notes to your reading notes. (#1 matches #1, #2 matches #2, etc.)

Come prepared to learn. 

Having done some prep work as mentioned above helps; however, if you are going ’cold’ into a lecture, start by asking yourself broad questions:  “What is the topic of this talk going to be? How will it relate to me?  How will this information network with other material I have learned in the course?

You see. It is always possible to start engaging!

I have talked about lectures, but listening for meaning works with videos, podcasts, or any auditory learning experience.

Here is your next step:

1. Find a video (or videos) or podcast about one of the topics you have read in the past couple of weeks (doing steps 2 and 3).

2. Listen with intent. Use your questions/notes from previous steps – add to them as you listen for meaning.

Yeah!

You are making great progress.

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