Many people attend to a lot of different classes, seminars and lectures, but not everyone absorbs the skills they are being taught. How can you become a better student and a more effective learner?
OneMind Dogs Coach Magdalena Ziolkowska wrote an article series about learning. Here are a few tips from Magda:
- Take responsibility for your own development.
- Pay attention in class. Take notes and draw course maps.
- List the issues you want to focus on at the current stage of your learning, and read them before going to a walk-through in a competition, for example “reconnect with your dog after the tunnel”.
- Videotape your performances and see how your dog responds to your handling.
- After a competition run, if you noticed any issues, list them so you can work on them in training.
- Set up sequences that were difficult for you or that you found you had limited solutions to. Work on the sequences and find all possible solutions for your team. Make the sequence easier at first if it seems too hard.
- Split your long term goals into short and medium term goals. Take one bite at a time.
- Practice and keep learning. Learning is never finished.
