The first several readings for the Non-Course

I did not read the pieces in the order that I'm going to recommend below.  You need not do that either.  That said, there is a certain logic to this particular ordering as a way to flesh out ideas that require understanding, though the initial reading might surprise you and make you smile. Since all of these are listed on the tab, The Reading Habit/A Reading List, I will not link to the individual pieces below. as they are each linked on that tab.

My suggestion is to begin with the James Surowiecki book review, Later. This is about procrastination. Don't expect a cure. Learn to give yourself a break, instead. Regarding procrastination, join the club; we all do it now and then. As I've written elsewhere, you can manage it somewhat by doing those things you want to do immediately (so you don't procrastinate on them) and put aside those other things that you are somewhat reluctant to do. You can't proceed this way at work, but you certainly can with voluntary reading. And if you're the type who crams for exams, but otherwise doesn't study all that much, you might come to realize that is what you've been doing about your schoolwork.

The next set of readings are aimed at dispelling myths that most students cling to about intelligence and learning. In a very broad strokes way, the question is whether it is nature or nurture.  We can readily agree that it is a mixture of both, but in what proportions?  The myth is ascribing too much importance to nature. It's not entirely unimportant in the story that follows. But nurture is far more important than most students believe. As our focus is on self-teaching, the person providing nurture is the same person as the one who is receiving it.  The language in these readings focuses on the receiver, the learner.  So, we will be inquiring about what behaviors in the learner produce real learning and, by doing that, implicitly critiquing those other behaviors that are merely going through the motions.  The jargon in the education literature refers to that as surface learning. 

Below, the next set of readings are given as an annotated list. 

1. The Expert Mind by Philip Ross
   This piece is a fun read, because the focus is on learning chess, a game where learner proficiency is readily measured, by playing other chess players who have established ratings.  (Other subject areas, unfortunately, don't have nearly as good measures of what the person knows.)  The piece tells the story of a chess master father who teaches his children to be chess masters.  By considering in some depth the regime the father puts the children through, the piece makes a strong argument for nurture. In some sense, it serves as a prelude to the next piece. 
2. The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance by Ericsson et. al.
   Sometimes deliberate practice is referred to as effortful study.  It is the key to improvement and how one develops expertise - in some sport, in playing a musical instrument, as well as in some academic discipline.  The intuition is practicing just beyond one's current capabilities.  Staying within what one already is capable of, practice produces no learning.  Going too far beyond one's capabilities, failure will be inevitable and this too won't produce learning.  But getting this just right is tricky, so what to practice isn't always spot on.  This means there has to be some situational learning as to what to practice, and not finding that immediately means real learning will happen in spurts rather than as a smooth growth curve.
3. How People Learn The National Academies Press
   Read the introduction and the first three chapters.  The second chapter on how experts differ from novices brings into question what it means to understand something.  Experts understand something in many different ways. Novices aim for one way and maybe will learn one other way, at best. It takes much study to get beyond that.  The key chapter is the next one on learning and transfer.  Transfer means using what has been learned in a novel context.  Students need to practice transfer, but my experience is that many do not.  The deliberate practice in the previous item should be about transfer.  That's how learning in depth will occur.   For students who haven't done this before, one should start gradually at it, but then keep doing it.
4. What if the Secret to Success Is Failure? by Paul Tough
   Let's immediately relate this title to the previous items.  Fear of failure is one big reason why we procrastinate.  In this case, there is an excuse for mediocre performance - the person hasn't put in the requisite time to produce strong performance.  Avoiding procrastination would seem to require coming to grips with fear of failure.  Likewise, with regard to deliberate practice, one doesn't get it immediately, so there is failure on the path to learning.  If that failure can't be tolerated, the deliberate practice stops.   You have to be able to live with yourself while you fail and not be so impatient as to block further deliberate practice.  I like to think of failure of this sort as intermediate product.  Real learning is final product.
5. The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen J. Langer
   Mindful learning is a somewhat different idea than transfer, yet both elevate the importance of context.  Consequently, they emphasize nuance rather than mindless application of rules, which invariably have some truth but leave out a good bit of the story.  Mindfulness is being aware of context and then constantly being in tune with trying to understand the specifics of the situation under consideration.  Mindful learning also can be the subject of deliberate practice.  
6. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
   Will you engage in deliberate practice or not?  According to Carol Dweck, you will if you have the growth mindset, an inner belief that you can learn in a deep way, but you won't if you have the fixed mindset, where you are convinced you'll never be good in that area regardless of how much you practice.  The fixed mindset is associated with a nature view of learning, and a belief that nature didn't endow the person with aptitude in that area.  The growth mindset is more in accord with a nurture view of learning and a belief in oneself to master something new by putting in the time and then practicing at it. 

I could make this list longer but I think it is more than enough to get started down the path.  Let me give a talkie discussion about what should come next, without being explicit on the readings for this part.  What is the motivation to practice?  There seem to be two distinct views.  I subscribe to the view that if practice is a form of play, you'll keep at it.  So as much as possible, keep the practice enjoyable.  The alternative view is that practice requires discipline; it will often be hard work.  To keep at it you need discipline.  Carol Dweck seems to be on both sides of the fence on this one, in my reading of Mindset.  But some are squarely on one side or the other.  

Now I want to flip this around and talk about engagement in an activity - you become so absorbed in it that you lose track of time and pretty much everything else.  Many students have told me that video games produce this sort of effect for them.  My question for those reading this post is this.  Can you produce engagement in something without video games?  If so, you are said to be intrinsically interested in the subject.  Does intrinsic interest matter for deliberate practice?  I think it does, but I might use different language to describe what's going on.  It's like going on an adventure, an exploration.  Here the question is: what engages is our own curiosity?  The exploration is a way for us to satisfy our curiosity. Doing that is learning.

What drives your curiosity?  That's a good question with which to end this post.