Becoming more strategic about learning (plan)
Now that you have identified your values, goals, and your current knowledge skills, and values, it’s time to get strategic and make a plan to achieve those goals. While this process is ongoing, here are some components for an initial plan: make a summary of what you need to do, build relationships, identify supports, schedule the actions.
Learning activity: Make a plan
Look through each of the sections below and use your Workbook to take notes on your own approach/plan.
Instruction: Click on each step to learn about them.
Make a summary of your plan so far, including the activities, skills, and the time needed for each activity (the Project management module has some great ideas that could help in this task).
Strong relationships are critical to maximizing your potential in graduate school and future career. This includes relationships with your supervisor, professors, other graduate students, (e.g., as a TA, mentor), members of the broader community (e.g., within your institution, across your discipline).
In your Workbook, identify a few ways that you could build relationships in graduate school. You may also want to add reminders for yourself (e.g., in your calendar or another app).
Some graduate students have made some suggestions below:
- Go to the socials offered by your school. These are a great opportunity to meet other graduate students outside of a classroom setting and have an opportunity to talk with them.
- When you go to conferences, actively engage in networking. This may include introducing yourself to presenters after their presentations, going to socials with your supervisor, attending pre-conferences, and more.
- Use social media to network (e.g., #AcademicTwitter, LinkedIn). You can find out about events occurring as well as comment on other people’s posts – these can also make good conversation starters!
- Try to organize lab get-togethers, your lab is the most consistent social circle you will have in graduate school.
- Join clubs! Clubs are still available in graduate school and these are great social opportunities.
The strongest learners get help. Identify some of the supports you’ll use, which will help you maximize your potential. Here are some examples of supports that could be useful to you.
Go to your Workbook and write about the supports that you plan to use, choosing from the list below or any of your own. Please be as specific as possible.
- Mentorship (see our Mentorship module for more details): ______ [space is to indicate when and how—maybe we add an example?]
- Writing centre: ____
- Software tools (e.g., DeepL, Grammarly, Excel, R) : ____
- Supervisor: ____
- Graduate student peers: ____
- Mental health (see our Academic resilience module for more details): ____
- Family members: ____
- Centre for university teaching
Let’s talk a bit more about learning tools, because there are also many out there! There’s no tool that’s inherently better or essential; rather, the choice depends on your values, goals, current knowledge and skills, and learning needs. Sound familiar?! J
Head to Discord and share some learning tools that you currently use and why, and take a look at the ones others use. We encourage you to try a couple of them out (even for a few minutes) to get a sense of what they can do.
Some quick notes on artificial intelligence (AI) as it’s been such a big topic lately…
You can leverage AI to enhance their learning and become more proficient in their academic pursuits. Verify that the context you’re working in allows the use of AI; ask if you’re unsure.
[Infographic] Here are some ways you can use AI:
- Intelligent search and information retrieval: With the vast amount of information available online, AI-powered search engines and recommendation systems can assist in finding relevant research papers, articles, books, and other resources quickly. Platforms like Google Scholar or Microsoft Academic can help in narrowing down search results and accessing scholarly content.
- Natural language processing (NLP): NLP techniques can help to process and comprehend written text more efficiently. They can help summarize lengthy articles, extract key information, or analyze the sentiment and tone of textual content. You can prompt it to draft a text (e.g., email, abstract, essay), shorten a text, rewrite it for a different audience, etc. Be sure to have permission to do so in your context.
- Translate audio and text: Quickly translate audio and articles into the language of your choice, which could be the language you’re more comfortable in, one you want to practice, etc. Some of our currently favourite tools are Otter.ai and DeepL.
- Personalized learning and adaptive systems: AI can create personalized learning experiences tailored to your specific needs. Adaptive learning platforms can assess your strengths and weaknesses and deliver customized content and recommendations to address your individual requirements. These systems can adapt over time, optimizing the learning process and maximizing knowledge retention. Be sure to verify the accuracy of content and concepts, as many AI systems will invent information to fill gaps.
- Data analysis and research: AI can help you analyze large datasets and conduct advanced research. Machine learning algorithms can assist in identifying patterns, correlations, and insights that might be challenging or time-consuming for humans to discover.
- Virtual assistants and chatbots: AI-powered virtual assistants and chatbots can provide immediate support and answer queries. Whether it’s clarifying concepts, providing references, or guiding you through complex topics, these intelligent assistants can be a valuable resource, available 24/7.
- Collaborative and social learning: AI can facilitate collaboration. Virtual study groups, online forums, or AI-powered collaborative platforms can connect students with similar interests, enabling them to share knowledge, discuss research ideas, and receive feedback from peers.
- Intelligent tutoring systems: AI-based tutoring systems can simulate one-on-one interactions, providing personalized guidance and feedback to graduate students. These systems can adapt to your progress, identify areas of improvement, and offer targeted instruction, ultimately enhancing your learning outcomes.
- Data visualization and storytelling: AI-powered data visualization tools can help present research findings and complex concepts in more accessible ways.
While AI can be a powerful tool for learning, developing a solid foundation in your field of study to critically evaluate the outputs generated by AI systems. AI should be viewed as a complement to traditional learning methods rather than a replacement.
[/Infographic]
Activity: Head over to Discord and share some of the ways you use AI, plus take a look at others’ ideas. You can also ask any questions here, too!
Note: The initial draft of this content was generated by ChatGPT (2023-06-20), based on the prompt: “Describe how graduate students can use AI to learn more proficiently.”
Schedule the time to do the work you need to achieve your goals, including time for learning, rest, eating, playing, etc.
Here is a video on scheduling your time as a graduate student . You can also consult the Project management module to see how you can plan your time in the context of different types of projects (e.g., research, thesis-writing).