aquinas, I think your method is a lot like my DD's-- she drives the rest of us NUTS while that is in-progress-- because she's
talking her way to understanding, if that makes any sense at all...
I'd love to know more about your metacognition as you do this:
Next, I map out the field of knowledge diagrammatically and focus on mastery of individual sub-topics from most to least general.
That is the part of things that I was not very good at until I was into my 30's-- realizing the relationship of subtopics to one another, and knowing that I was building a reasonably balanced and gap-free syllabus for myself, basically.
I'm still not entire sure how I do that step, other than.... erm....
overkill in terms of information-consumption. I know that I've reached that point where every additional random resource that I pick up basically tells me the stuff that I already know inside and out, and tells me
nothing that I don't already know for some base number of pages or period of unit time.
Ahh! Aquinas' edits have answered my question, I think--
I usually cross reference graduate-level course outlines from several universities to build my learning "masthead". Then, colour code the topics, and focus on mastery...
That's what I have eventually settled upon, too-- I also look at intro course textbooks that seem well-regarded by the experts in the field, and use the scope and sequence generated by the detailed table of contents.
I've always wondered if there isn't another way of doing that, though.
Does anyone else have a "percolation" period?
My DD and I both seem to have this. For both of us, hitting a wall often means-- take a break and come back to this in some period of time. Usually the difficulty resolves itself given enough subconscious time to chew on whatever it is.
When I've tried to explain that to other people, I get some really funny looks, though, so I've wondered if it isn't a mostly HG+ phenomenon. DD is
really extreme that way. My dad was rather like that, too, as I recall. He designed, engineered, and built
a suspension aqueduct in the middle of nowhere (seriously-- 40 minutes from even county paved roads) when I was about 8yo. Entirely self-taught, and I often remember him ranting about some technical problem, and going to pound away at something ELSE, only to come back beaming after a day or two, or jump up from his chair and announce that he knew what to do about it.
