Secrets of Success: Speed Up Your Learning with Triangulation

One of the secrets of being a really great grant writer is developing the ability to write quickly about things you know nothing about. Personally, I find this business challenges me to learn new things quicker than a meteor. Luckily, my training as a political scientist gives me unusual advantages when it comes to high speed learning. These advantages have been important to my success, since so much of what I do tends to take place on an emergency basis.

Ironically, I did not get good at learning until I was already half-way through my graduate career at Cornell University.  It was only then that I started to receive higher quality instruction from professors who were paid to share practical tips, useful advice, and easy-to-follow templates.

For much of my life, I had assumed that learning was supposed to be hard, confusing, and solitary. I had come to believe that enduring poor quality teaching was actually good for me. The big break-through for me occurred after I earned my Ph.D. At that point, I started taking post-graduate classes in statistics and something inside of me snapped. I realized that if the professors explained something to me and I did not understand them, then that was their problem not mine.  

One of the best ideas I picked up at the University of Michigan while I was studying statistics was the idea that I should read at least three statistics textbooks at a time.

This way, I found it a lot easier to make sense of a topic. In my experience, reading just one textbook makes study difficult, in part, because it does not give me any sense of what was crucial to know, good to know, or simply useless detail. By reading about the same topic in three different textbooks, I found that I started getting a better fix on the priorities attached to any given topic. This approach made it easier for me to concentrate on the important stuff I really needed to know immediately and to only memorize the details that I would need to hold on to for the future. Looking back, I wish I had an instructor in high school who might have suggested this same idea to me while I was studying physics or mathematics. (I also wish I would have had a high school teacher who explained that learning math and science was a long road to follow, but that it was quite beautiful when it all came together during graduate work.)

As a grant writing consultant, I use triangulation to help me quickly understand the client's field of interest.

Typically, I start by reading the client's literature, reviewing their website, and interviewing their staff. Then, I search on-line to see what other experts have to say about the topic and then supplement this with my own library research.

I have found that this technique of using multiple sources makes me a much more knowledgeable participant in the grant writing process. For example, I have found that the federal government keeps track of role-model programs, measurement techniques, and other things that will improve your grant application. There are resources out there on the issues of responsible fatherhood, healthy marriage, and substance abuse.  

The main thing, in my experience, is to not rely on a single source of information. There is safety and insight in accessing multiple sources of information on the same topic. At the very least, you quickly learn what it is okay to forget.

How Do You Find a Great Teacher: Not as Easy as It Looks

I was so cynical as a young man that I doubt I would have recognized a great teacher at all. For the most part, I thought the folks who taught me in elementary school and high school were losers because they were not college professors. Later, I discounted my college professors because they were not highly published research university professors. Even as a graduate student, I despised my graduate school professors for being unsupportive, distant and unhelpful. Nevertheless, I concede did stumble across great teachers and I found that the really great ones had a manner of teaching which made everything easy, unintimidating and clear. They remain in my mind the greatest teachers in my life because they showed me the techniques which made my chores easier to accomplish. I try to honor them in my own teaching whenever I get an opportunity.

When a Physics Teacher Knows His Stuff

Accordingly, if I'm looking for a great teacher, then one of my first requirements is that I need to be able to understand what they are talking about. I have reached a point in my life where if I find I do not understand something, I no longer blame myself. I blame the lousy teacher. 

As a political scientist, for example, I am opposed to the deliberate obscurantism of philosophers like Jacques Derrida. In the New York Review of Books article "An Exchange on Deconstruction" (February 1984), John Searle offered one of my favorite comments on deconstruction: 

. . . anyone who reads deconstructive texts with an open mind is likely to be struck by the same phenomena that initially surprised me: the low level of philosophical argumentation, the deliberate obscurantism of the prose, the wildly exaggerated claims, and the constant striving to give the appearance of profundity, by making claims that seem paradoxical, but under analysis often turn out to be silly or trivial.

I have also found it useful to seek teachers who have succeeded in the fields where I want to see some success myself. To be sure, a track-record of extraordinary success does not necessarily make someone a great teacher since teaching is an entirely different skill set. Nevertheless, if I want to learn about grant writing, I'm not going to study under someone who has not won many grants or someone who has stopped writing them all together to focus instead on teaching. I need someone who is still active in the profession, who is also aware of the current trends and other significant contemporary issues in the field. 

Unfortunately, you may not have access to a great teacher in your community. Accordingly, I think the next best thing is to create your own best possible teacher. You can do this by buying at least three books on the topic of grant writing and then reading all of them in order. The trick is to look for the common themes which appear in each book. For example, if all three books say it is important to follow the funder's directions, then you can be confident that this is a major point to reflect on and remember. If a key idea appears in only one of these volumes, you may be well advised to write it off as an individual idiosyncrasy for now.  

Along these lines, I prefer to have a teacher who has produced a book or a workbook. Although I get a lot of good information from listening and taking notes from an expert in the field, ultimately I have found that I learn best if I have something to read. I need to be able to study an idea, review it, and reread it later when I'm in a bind. I just cannot do that with a typical classroom lecture. I have also found that I need to keep that book around for a while as a reference tool. Too often I have found that my memory of what was written, particularly the step-by-step procedures they recommended does not stay locked in my memory banks. I need to go back to the source and refresh my memory to really grasp what I need to do. So, I've found it pays to work with an instructor who also has written materials to distribute to the class.

Speed Up Your Learning with Triangulation

Ironically, I did not get really good at learning until I was already half-way through my graduate career at Cornell University. It was only then that I started to receive the higher quality instruction from professors who were paid to share practical tips, useful advice, and easy-to-follow templates.

For much of my life, I had assumed that learning was supposed to be hard, confusing, and solitary. I had come to believe that enduring poor quality teaching was actually good for me. 

Peeled Orange - 2016
by John C. Drew, Ph.D.

The biggest break-through for me occurred after I earned my Ph.D. At that point, I started taking post-graduate classes in statistics and something inside of me snapped. I realized that if the professors explained something to me and I did not understand them, then that was their failure not mine.

One of the best ideas I picked up at the University of Michigan while I was there studying statistics was the idea that I should read at least three statistics textbooks at a time.

This way, I found it a lot easier to make sense of a topic. In my experience, reading just one textbook makes study difficult, in part, because it does not give me any sense of what was crucial to know, good to know, or simply useless detail. By reading about the same topic in three different textbooks, I found that I started getting a better fix on the priorities attached to any given topic. This approach made it easier for me to concentrate on the important stuff I really needed to know immediately and to only memorize the details that I would need to hold on to for the future. Looking back, I wish I had an instructor in high school who might have suggested this same idea to me while I was studying physics or mathematics. (I also wish I would have had a high school teacher who explained that learning math and science was a long road to follow, but that it was quite beautiful when it all came together during graduate work.)

As a grant writing consultant, I use triangulation to help me quickly understand the client's field of interest.

Typically, I start by reading the client's literature, reviewing their website, and interviewing their staff. Then, I search on-line to see what other experts have to say about the topic and then supplement this with my own library research.

I have found that this technique of using multiple sources makes me a much more knowledgeable participant in the grant writing process. For example, I have found that the federal government keeps track of role-model programs, measurement techniques, and other things that will improve your grant application. There are resources out there for example on the issues of responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage.  

The main thing, in my experience, is to not rely on a single source of information. There is safety and insight in accessing multiple sources of information on the same topic. At the very least, you quickly learn what it is okay to forget.

I recommend the same sort of broad based immersion for someone seeking to learn grant writing. I think it pays, for example, to read multiple books on the topic.

I think it helps to attend multiple workshops - not just one. It pays to try to learn this material using multiple channels including on-line learning, reading, and audio tapes.

If your experience is like mine, then I think you will quickly find that there are certain bedrock, common sense principles behind any endeavor. These principles cover about 80% of what you need to know to succeed. It may take a lifetime to figure out the other 20%, but you can certainly get the 80% you need to prosper quickly and effectively using these techniques.

If you use multiple sources of information, then you quickly get a solid idea of who is teaching the real stuff and who is just offering fluff that will not lead to lasting results. 

By accessing multiple sources of information, you will quickly figure out how to sort the good from the bad teachers when it comes to consuming grant writing instruction.  

In my philosophy, what matters is not what you are learning, but who deserves your trust as a student.