Deliberate Practice: How Continuous Learning Gets Done
We probably all have a few Udemy courses we'd like to finish
In a world where jobs can be performed remotely worldwide and artificial intelligence is rapidly increasing worker productivity, unlocking the ability to learn new skills faster can lead to unprecedented opportunities. As software developers and knowledge workers, continuous learning is often a part of our lives that we could improve. So how do we get better at getting better?
Get intentional about learning
The first thing to realize is that learning is a skill. We can get better at it! While most of us have spent years of education in schools, colleges, and universities, many of us have not received formal training on how to improve our learning processes. To get started learning how to learn, the work of researcher Barbara Oakley is foundational.
Secondly, we need to make time to learn in our busy schedules. Not having enough time is a common excuse for not learning new skills, yet we always seem to have time to scroll through social media. Surely we could claw some of that time back?
For example, if we spend 15 minutes every day on Instagram and TikTok, in a year we will have spent 3.8 days watching "content" with nothing to show for it! If we can consistently apply even a few minutes each day to learning a new skill, over time we can make a great deal of progress.
Adopt a growth mindset
To accelerate our ability to learn, we also need to adopt a growth mindset. Having the right mindset strongly affects our ability to learn. If we believe we can't learn something, who is going to prove us wrong?
A fixed mindset treats personality characteristics, talents, and abilities as finite and rigid. Believing these characteristics are not subject to change, a fixed mindset might lead people to be dismissive of new technologies or resigned to the belief that they can't learn something new.
A growth mindset, in contrast, recognizes that we can all improve our skills and learn new ones. To give ourselves room to grow, we should also understand that occasional mistakes and failures are inevitable if we are making a strong effort.
To achieve growth, we will need to force ourselves out of our comfort zone, but ideally not too far out. The sweet spot is probably in a situation where we know the correct answer about 85% of the time so that we can connect what we learn to what we already know.
One way of pushing out of our comfort zone is to use a technique called interleaving, where one learns multiple similar skills in parallel at the same time. By not allowing the brain to resort to short-term memory and forcing the use of long-term memory, interleaving can yield faster results than focusing on one skill at a time.
As test engineers, we can practice interleaving by using the learning paths of Test Automation University. Since the learning paths all have similar content and build upon common standards such as Selenium WebDriver, the opportunity exists to learn in more than one programming language in parallel.
For example, I am comfortable coding in Java so interleaving suggests I should try to tackle both the Python and JavaScript tracks at the same time. Alternatively, if I am comfortable writing tests in Selenium and Appium, then instead of learning a new test framework like Cypress by itself, I should interleave Cypress and Playwright together to push further outside my comfort zone.
Engage in deliberate practice
Reading this post, you might be saying to yourself "Okay, I'm sold! I'm ready to adopt a growth mindset and start practicing deliberately. So how do I do it?"
Remove distractions and be mindful of learning
To make learning a habit instead of an exercise of willpower, we need to schedule consistent times to learn and not allow that time to be interrupted. Scheduling time very early during the day or late in the evening can provide focused, quiet time for study while keeping time during the evenings and weekends free to spend with family and friends.
Combining late evening and early morning study might even yield some unexpected benefits; research suggests that learning right before bed and then first thing in the morning might be an effective trick to retain memories better!
Set small, concrete goals
To get good at something, practice sessions need to have clear expectations and intent focus - think of sports practice or music lessons, as featured in the book Peak: The New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericcson. Though practice methods for real-life topics are usually not as well-defined as practicing a sport or a musical instrument, important practice steps include breaking a training topic into small pieces, receiving fast feedback, and reviewing the results of the training to find ways to improve.
In the martial art of karate, a kata is an exercise where a student repeats a series of movements many times, striving each time to make improvements in technique. Though other exercises might emphasize speed or force, movements during katas are intentionally performed at a slower pace.
While the world of software development has yet to formalize "coding katas" for aspiring developers, educational tools such as JetBrains Academy, freeCodeCamp and Codecademy make use of similar principles by teaching software development skills through small, incremental training exercises that use unit tests to provide rapid feedback.
Get other people involved
Deliberate practice demands a lot of self-discipline. While the most stoic among us may be able to go it alone, for many of us it helps to have the support of a team. To achieve best results, the consulting group McKinsey suggests learners should try the "3x3x3" approach, which involves:
setting three goals
over three months
with at least three other people
Setting a small number of well-defined goals makes planning a course between our current state and our goal easier. Meanwhile, a three-month period to execute our plan is usually long enough to see tangible results and also fits nicely into a typical workplace performance review cycle. Finally, sharing our goals with others improves our chances for success by increasing accountability.