Many students arrive at colleges and universities with highly-developed skills of disinterest, having learned how to feign interest in school, but not necessarily what it feels like to be genuinely engaged in learning. For two decades, Wilkins-O'Riley Zinn has been asking people when learning is fun for them. Analysis of this data revealed six themes that correlate with motivation theory, adult learning theory, and research related to creativity. Further exploration led her to develop six related skills of interest. Celebration materials will provide details about how skills of basic research can be taught through a culturally-sensitive, autoethnographic research methodology called The Collectory, adaptable for use in multiple disciplines. This interest-based methodology puts the learner at the center of research exploration, broadening processes to include nontraditional sources, expanding the possibilities of the products, and making the researcher's reflective, connective, and interdisciplinary thinking an integral part of collection and presentation of information.