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General Discussion

Fedor Andreev
Fedor Andreev
6,438 Points

If you had to learn CSS for the first time? (Deep Dive)

How would you tackle it?

Would you learn one lesson, and use everything you learned to experiment with it?

Or would you learn all lessons and then go back to the first and then start experimenting?

What's the best way to take notes during the lesson? Just listen, and then go back and take notes?

Write down all the codes? Or write down a section of the code and what's important.

I'm asking this because I wrote down every code on paper for the first 3 lessons and I felt like I wasn't learning anything because I seemed to have paid more attention to what I wrote down.

I know people have different ways of learning but because there was so much content in CSS I wanted to hear from someone with experience what's the best way to learn CSS. Remember there are over 100 videos in that Deep Dive.

Thanks for reading.

2 Answers

Personally, I wrote down properties that were introduced with their definitions, then followed it with an example of that snippet. I toke notes as I watched, pausing , and rewinding here and there. Writing down the entire code seems a bit much, but if it helps you, then go for it. I'm also a highlighter, I use 4 different ones, orange for definition terms, yellow for definitions, pink to identify when an example begins, and blue to highlight/divide new topics; this made it very easy to go back find something when I need it. I do this for all my programming notes.

My personal experience is that one learns best by doing, so when I stumble upon something new the best way to remember the intricacies is to use it frequently at least for a short while.

My personal stance on taking notes is that one should keep notes regarding the things YOU did, how YOU did them, and what PARTICULAR challenges or quirks you noticed in the experience of building your own projects, as opposed to taking notes from TeamTreehouse videos.

IMO, the TeamTreehouse videos provide a great basis for showing off what is possible and how to do it. Reference guides are easy to find and search through for particular syntax examples. My notes are there to supplement the references I use and the general ideas I have in my mind. As to the particular syntax and code one might encounter, it's far more important IMO to know how/where to find the references one needs and how to read them than it is to copy the syntax/code and memorize it.

So, for me, the best way is to watch the videos and wonder how/where I can implement the skills I see used, refrain from taking any notes regarding particular syntax/code, jot down general/interesting stuff, and THEN work away on my own projects and take notes on the things I've personally done/doing. This, I think is the best way for me, but it might not be the best way for you. Be open-minded and experiment with the ways you learn...