Learning is most commonly associated with passively consuming information (from videos, books, lecturers, etc.) to build a correct mental model of the world.

But there are many other ways to learn. I’ll show some of them in this post. But, you must choose the correct way for each situation because there’s no ‘the best way of learning’ for everything.

You can learn by taking notes and creating summaries. Search Collaborative-learning to see the group version of this way of learning.

You can learn by trying to find a feasible solution to an unsolved, real-world problem and optionally implementing that solution. See Problem-based learning and Challenge-based learning.

You can learn by building things, doing projects, following tutorials, and reinventing wheels (existing solutions).

You can learn by experimenting to test theories, build an intuition of how a system works, finding out the advantages and disadvantages of an approach, etc.

You can learn by posing one question and then dig around to find answers to that question.

You can learn by focusing on a phenomenon (financial crisis, friendzone, etc.), raising questions against that phenomenon (5W1H), and trying to find answers based on multiple disciplines (economics, psychology, etc.).

You can learn by deliberately practicing fundamentals of a skill.

You can learn by teaching others or creating a presentation to convey ideas.