Most of us are taking a hard look at areas that we perceive as weaknesses or need some additional improvement to round ourselves out. As we use various methodologies of pin pointing those areas for improvement we set in action a plan to learn, progress, and improve over time.

Given the 13 week semester, will we all progress the same amount if we all put in equal amounts of effort? David Brooks points out in his article, ‘Learning Is No Easy Task‘, that progress is rarely linear. Tasks yield results in different proportions, and being aware of this phenomenon is the first step to mastering the learning process.

Some learning progressions are logarithmic in shape yielding great advancements on the front end of the learning process; you make a lot of progress when you first begin the activity, but as you get better, it gets harder and harder to improve.

Conversely, some learning progressions are exponential in shape, yielding little progress on the extensive efforts put forth on the front end, but your progress multiplies quickly on the back end of the process.

Learning progress curves come in all shapes and sizes. Some are step functions and some are valleys where you have to go down before going back up to higher highs. Whatever the curve shape, the importance is to be aware of the shape so you can effectively change your mental and strategic approaches to successfully master the learning task.