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For me, lectures turn into the teacher from Charlie Brown
Okay, I don't like really talking about myself (isn't it pointless? life should be lived, not discussed IMO), but I actually have questions that demand explaning my background =)
Has anyone here mentioned being unable to learn stuff that becomes associated with frustration? The kind that stems from "doing my best and still failing". Actual reasons for this might be different - sometimes it's "inborn" stuff like dyslexia etc, sometimes it's just the lack of proper documentation for the software you're trying to use.
That's what happens to me.
On the other hand, if I manage to get myself genuinely interested or similarly emotionally involved in something, I'll learn it "in no time". I think it works that way because when you're genuinely interested, there are no negative emotions, no fear of being judged/graded, there's only that interest, you want to learn something just for yourself. Because it will make your world brighter. Then it means you are going to invest a lot of time into researching/practising stuff, and it won't be a chore/torture. It will be you having fun. Enjoying the process, not chasing a benchmark or something. There's a word I found recently that seems to describe this state well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
This is why I put "in no time" in quotes. In reality, it might take A LOT of time. But you don't feel it was wasted.
But I think that there still may exist certain limits to the magic of the "flow". Again, back to stuff like dyslexia: I put "inborn" in quotes because I don't know where it really comes from. I've read some stuff about it online, but it was not in peer-reviewed scientific journals... It's not a well-known concept in Russia. When I'm reading English-speaking forums like this, with people from Europe and all the English-speaking countries, I often feel I'm on another planet, since you all seem to know for sure that your troubles are because of dyslexia or something like that. Do you get this explained to you by doctors, or teachers, or?.. And when? As a small child? And do teachers adapt, or something?..
I'm thinking I might have what you call "dyscalculia" because I cannot find no other reason why I hit a brick wall at some point with maths (calculus etc) and coding. I'm a research engineer by trade, and being unable to speak the language of mathematics and programming as fluently as my colleagues is frustrating. Which kinda prevents me from trying to break through the brick wall by sheer willpower, y'know.
Maybe anyone knows some techniques to overcoming that associated frustration?
Now that's amazing. Is Russia such an underdeveloped country, or are you trolling? I'm actually very serious because my eyesight is fairly non-existent, and I've tried stuff like Bates Method, but it didn't help (and the science that I know says it was not ever going to). Every reliable source says that myopia is purely physical (the eye is too long for light to focus - http://www.iovs.org/content/45/10/3380.full ), and the only way to improve eyesight is surgery (which is no real cure but more like "engraving" a pair of contact lenses on your eyes, and carries a lot of risk - 5% is a lot, to me!!). If you happen to know of any real working "psychotherapy" that can cure this frellin' condition, it would sort of change my world.
No one respond to Taozen or Gedd's previous posts, please, I don't want to get our thread cut. :p
I love learning on my own. I enjoyed it in a classroom, too, but I'm better at finding processes that I can apply to work when I do it on my own. Academic learning tends to pothole itself back into the classroom, at least up through the bachelor level - you have to make the mental leap to life-applicable processes on your own in order to do real research or graduate work. As a result, I end up using the scientific method more now than I ever did in school.
I have the negative association issue with some math. I wish I'd known or been taught about Vedic math tricks when I was younger; it's harder to fix them in my mind at my current age, and now the entire flavor of mathematics in my mind is filled with frustration and arrogant, smug people (only some of them teachers). I had a wonderful professor for Quantum Chemistry and a Calc II professor who made me realize I wasn't inherently "bad" at these things, I just needed to come at them from other directions; but it's still a struggle now to overcome the mental association issues.
I think a lot of people have something like this with some subject, which is why finding new learning strategies is so good for us.
I've never heard about these tricks, so I googled them, and yeah, this is some cool stuff that definitely needs to be taught to kids when they are focusing on arithmetic still. I totally wish I had known the "Multiply any two numbers from 11 to 20 in your head" trick from this page - http://www.classteacher.com/blog/?p=372 - when I was in 5th grade!! We used to have these multiplication dictations every damn lesson, and I always came up last. Grrr, I hated that.
The worst thing about mathematics, to me, is that I understand its concepts quite well. Like, qualitatively. But when it comes to actually writing down formulas - like theorem proving, solving differential equations etc, I keep making those silly stupid mistakes, like leaving symbols out, losing the minus, etc etc. Same with coding. All the time.
Could I ask what you majored in? Quantum chemistry sounds very exciting! =)
I double-majored in Biology and Chemistry, with a minor in Biochem! Quantum Chem was for my upper-level Chemistry requirement. It was that or Inorganic, and I'd heard Quantum's lab was more fun (which it really was, we had exciting times in there). It didn't matter much which I chose because I was pre-med (so I thought at the time; as you can see, life took me another direction). What about you?
None of my current job skills came from school, and I basically use my degrees recreationally, so I am no advocate for classroom over practical education at this point. You do need a degree on paper to get many jobs; but getting an internship or a job while at school is much more valuable in terms of learning how to do it. People who did this consistently out-competed me when I was looking for chemistry and biology lab jobs after I graduated. I stupidly believed it when I was told that school was all I needed to get a job, and ignored other advice, because I was already swamped and didn't have time or a car to pursue strategies that would have worked.
Further, at that point I thought laboratory jobs didn't matter because I was going to be a doctor. I ended up in a cubicle job when that didn't pan out. I got clinically depressed, buried myself inside my computer, and that's when I actually started learning things that I would eventually be able to use, in my off-time from a job that I hated.
I think the most important thing for a younger person is to do what it takes to get WORK that you can stand. That's going to involve learning outside the classroom for almost any vocation. Don't decide something sounds okay and pays great and assume you will still want to do it when you've been put through the wringer over it for four years (or eight years, or more, for professional vocations). A lot of people that are now my age made this mistake.
I've self taught myself to do many things through a mixture of tutorials with pictures and doing it myself. I do like video tutorials because there is voice and sight and I'm able to pause and rewind to play again.
I shudder to think how you can use Quantum Chemistry recreationally, but I am having an attack of the giggles thinking of ways ... ;)
I'm linear, I guess -- learn by reading. Video tutorials drive me crazy, I really don't learn well from them at all, and I used to read books under the desk through all of school (until my parents pulled me out and started me on homeschooling after 6th grade) because the lectures were doing nothing for me. College was better because most of my classes were discussion-based and I enjoyed that, but I had one chemistry class... well, my grades went from 80s to high 90s after I started sleeping through the class. :P
Once I've read something, it's there. Math doesn't stick as well as stuff I can build a story onto (history, politics, literature, ect) but I was one of those annoying kids who never studied for tests... as long as I'd actually been doing my homework, it was all there.
OTOH I am terrible at learning by doing or being told. I'm a terrible daydreamer and was constantly in trouble when I was working (my parents owned a farm, so I worked all through childhood) because I'd miss things or just be ten times slower than everyone else because I was "drifting." My brother's pretty well the opposite -- never did great academically, excelled at hands-on work -- which my parents used to keep both of us properly humble whenever necessary. :D I also cannot handle distractions AT ALL. It turns out this may be related to my introversion. I am deeply introverted (personality tests tend to put me at 95% or more) and apparently one of the theories floating around out there is that some introversion is actually a hypersensitivity to stimulus. I can't have a tv in the house. I can't have talking or any kind of podcast/radio talk show on (music's usually ok) while I'm doing something. Drives my husband crazy. :P I also can't handle crowds, malls, busy parties, that kind of thing -- it keeps going on I get what I called "defracted" when I was a kid. Sort of like a minor out-of-body experience where I feel like I'm piloting myself from the outside. My family is familiar with the signs and knows to park me in the ornamental plant display until I recover.....
Having a kid is sort of fascinating and terrifying (and exhausting: see also "easily overstimulated". She Does Not Nap.) It's early days to tell what her learning style is going to be, but she's two and a half and she was trying to read Dr. Seuss to me tonight, so whatever it is we may as well accept it's gonna be on overdrive. We're talking about what to do school-wise, because it's pretty clear to both of us she's not going to fit in (it's a very rural area, and the schools are... well, different set of problems than big city schools, but they're not set up for outliers.) And we've both had bad experiences with schools trying to make us fit. Ah well, a few years yet to figure it out....
I shudder to think how you can use Quantum Chemistry recreationally, but I am having an attack of the giggles thinking of ways ... ;)
LOL!
Mainly for making fun of science in fiction, or with my Biology, observing plants and animals (very green here). I haven't made luciferin at home or anything.
I sympathize with katfeete. I never did fit, but I'm still very close with my parents, who knew what to do with an outlier. I know your little girl will thank you one day.
Oh, knocking up a few luciferases and using them would be kind of fun this time of year? :)
On a sort of allied note, I was walking to a friend's place the other evening (veyr laet evening/early night) and just entered a park to cross it when I saw a small ball of green light hovering about, moving in a bobbing fashion ... very eerie for the second or two for logical, rational thought processes to kick in. It was dark enough that even with the glow I could not, at first, make out the dog that had the glowing ball in it's mouth. It got a little worse when the ball went vertical as the owner picked up the dog via the ball! ;)
Spooooky. ;)
Fuseling is your sister?
Awesome!
My sister and I are only a year apart and although we have a tight bond, we couldn't be more different...
About learning:
My motto is "knowledge is power" and I try to live by that.
There are different aspects in life when it comes to learning I think, such as getting to know yourself.
The better you are able to face your own talents and flaws, the more you will be able to get to the knowledge you are seeking and put it to good use.
I had some things in my life that to this day tends to cloud my mind and I am not as reproductive as I know I could be without all those crappy stuff filling my mind.
I learn by keeping my eyes locked on the goal and do the things I need to get to that goal.
For me, every goal in life is determined by this and I mostly have a very clear idea of what I want.
This way I have had several little businesses, I founded a foundation to help young creative GLBT people find their way in life and, of course, my creative goals such as learning to use 3D software.
When I look at the people around me, and mostly at myself, I find that the biggest barricate to absorb anything good, is yourself.
Low self esteem, fear of failure and peer pressure can be hard to overcome and I have been guilty of quitting because I broke down mentally.
The knowledge to everything you need to know is out there, especially with the internet nowadays.
What works for me best is to plan things.
That way I have no excuse to not get the things done that I want to get done!
I'm two years older. We both enjoy language and technical challenges in our work, but it's definitely true that I'm more linear and she is more spatial. If we go anywhere she has to navigate. I can get lost trying to find my way out of a cardboard box.
I promise to leave the flaps open next time ... ;)
I know I am coming late to this discussion. I was one of those kids that teachers loved because I didn't cause any trouble. I created my own set of problems for them, however, as I was usually reading a library book instead of paying attention, or when everybody else was learning long division, I was at the back of the math book learning how to figure square roots or probabilities. I just got bored with everyone taking so darn long to learn the stuff.
In junior high, I checked out and read two library books a day, (the maximum they would allow) generally nonfiction, and had to prove to the librarian I was actually reading them when she challenged that I wasn't. I won that battle early in 7th grade and I believe she ordered books for my interests, although of course I can't prove it.
I never studied, even in college, and pretty much it was if I liked a subject (math, science, music, American history WWII and beyond) I got an A, if I didn't, I got a B. I caused several of my teachers fits, because I wouldn't do homework and yet do well on tests. Actually, that contributed to my grade in the subjects I didn't like as I didn't do the homework, or in the case of English, all my compositions were one draft only.
I learn best by reading and doing. To this day, I cannot understand how you can study for a math test, either you can do it or not. I was lucky when I had geometry in high school as my teacher let us have all the postulates and therums.
I found out way after the fact the school wanted to double promote me, but my mom wouldn't let them. She didn't think that it was socially a good idea. Turns out that idea didn't matter because I wasn't well accepted by my classmates anyway.
My youngest son, pretty much has the same interests and learning styles that I did, with the bonus that he was socially accepted by his peers. His son, now 20 months old, seems to be just like his dad, with a love for books and music (and dance and art - that comes from his mom.)
My oldest son is in college trying to prove me wrong that a performance degree in music is near useless - he's working on his MA at the moment.
Both of my sons majored in music, as I did (music ed for me.) Neither of them went the education route, as they are convinced that dealing with other people's kids is not their idea of fun (they are right!)
I have to agree with that as well. What I don't know is how to convince my students about this, though.
Dear Dino, I do know people like you exist, I had a friend like that. The only subject she had to STUDY-study was philosophy for her postgrad entrance exams, and that's because she hated philosophy with all her gut, for ideological reasons.
Thankfully, there are very few people like you and her, otherwise I'd long be dead with jealousy. =D
Also an interesting subject for me because I grew up with learning disabilities.
For the record; Visual, Spatial with a little kinesthetic (I'll also note I am ASD).
Tell me a list of steps, then ask me to do it - I might skip a step.
Write down a list of steps while talking - I might skip a step.
Write down a list of steps then let me write down that list - I’ll do better.
Show me how to do something (e.g.: youtube video where I can pause as needed) - best results.
In short, I learn best in an environment that lets you see what’s being done and then do it myself.
I have a particular knack for mechanical things (figuring out how something works), navigating (if I ride as a passenger to a location I can find my way back, even years later), and visualising things in terms of space (if I go to a furniture store, for example, I can tell if a piece of furniture will fit in a space I’ve seen - fairly close anyway).
I can also look at a 2D drawing (like a house blueprint) and convert it to 3D in my head.
On the flip-side; I’m not great at Mathematics. I have trouble writing while someone is talking (I like to say I only have one language channel, lol).
Edit: Oh yeah... on the 2D to 3D conversion I can go the other way too (as in, look at a room and see it as a plan) - but only with non-organic forms.
Aha! I try to do everything yourself, only then I go back and follow the manual / tutorial / video etc..
But that has been the subject of television reportage: "We, Brazilians just read the manual after several unsuccessful attempts"
and it's true When we buy a household appliance, do not give any attention to the following instructions, all we do is just go ripping plastics, and try to fit the pieces ... After being almost tearing their hair out of the head. .. then finally surrender to the manual.
The first time I had contact with an image editor (photoshop), I stayed for hours trying to use the brush on the gray area of the program, only later discovered that it was necessary to go to the file menu and open a blank page, so now the brush could operate on the sheet.
I always have to try first alone
It will take me about 5 times of failure for me to pick up instrauctions
I have a photographic memory and similar in hearing which I used in my livelihood. It depended on me listening, reading, learning and to apply it immediately accurately and cost effectively. Now that I'm retired, digital graphics is such a huge field of study, I haven't run out of anything to learn. It's all been on my own, because I don't know anyone in real life who cares for it. Thankfully, through the help many people have posted with very helpful tips, and even a couple of manuals without too many typos or errors or downright missing pages.
I don't like learning from videos. It's annoying, when a simple sentence or paragraph stating the steps would do. I've listened to tutorials in languages foreign to me, with the canned music, with the dogs barking in the background, and bad colds, and the one key step is mentioned so quickly and never returned to. And the dang cursor is swizzled around, which I think is important, until it just goes hither and yon aimlessly. Please, stop that! I can put up with the barking, the overly dramatic music, the overlong titles, a different language, please make the cursor go to the correct tab, and not move until the next maneuver.
Check out any of the videos about "Dformers". Gah! I have not learned that yet. Is it me? Is it the vids? Probably both. A thing moves, a field, a spawn, wha? Can't get a handle on it. I've been trying to learn how to morph a blanket over Vicky. The freebies don't work, and none of the vids explain sufficiently why. So that's up there with figuring the velocity of a falling object or Celsius temps for my austral friends. There's a C, and a something, You don't even know how many makeup classes with that I had to take.
If it helps, I did a basic how-to for Dformers: http://www.sharecg.com/v/71562/view/3/PDF-Tutorial/Creating-ripples-in-Daz-Studio
I learn best when I find a topic interesting. That's why, with topics that "bore" me, I try to find a way to connect to them, and make them interesting for myself.
Things remain in memory best if I am doing something, "trial and error" so to speak. Fail and frustrtion is part of that, but if I am interested enough in a topic, the fail and frustration will become a motivation rather than a hinderance.
On the other hand, being interested in a topic often leads to getting distracted by "too much source material". For many topics, there's a lot of great and thoughtful learning material available. I'm getting excited looking at it and think "Wow, you can use that!" but in the end, I have not just one book/video, but four or five... and then the problem in regards to "allotted time" begins. Or discipline, of keeping the daily schedule, so that all my other tasks don't suffer.
But basically, if I'm invested in a topic, I forget time, which in the end leads to setbacks in other topics I am interested in. Then I start flitting from one interesting topic to the other, without doing anything properly, and the end result is that I learn a lot of things superficially, but fail to learn in depth for a certain topic - because there's so much interesting stuff out there worth looking at and learning!
I have to say, I learned a lot more about history after college than I ever did during school for that exact reason, lee_lhs. The parts of history that are interesting are personal and people-related to me. The parts that are usually taught are date- and political-event-obsessed, and not in the right way; politics is something that is done by people, too!
I have little to be proud of with my post-educational learning other than as it relates to my work, because of the same thing. I can spend a whole evening reading about a species of spider and then watching videos of people with their pets of that species on YouTube and I still cannot reliably find many countries on a map. I suspect many people are this way (except with subjects they like rather than spiders).
Your post is as if I wrote it. Quite literally we are the same. So many videos and books for that matter can be more than overwhelming and it's kind of hard to keep up with everything.
When it comes to way of learning, visual way is the way to go for me. When I learn from the book without visual representation of the subject I'm trying to digest no it normally ends up with having hardships to understand it all. With visual it just sinks in better.
Apologies for the long post…
Ooops! I fear I’ve rambled on a bit. :red: :-P
Hi there SickleYield! (Waves energettically.)
Let me turn the question around for a moment and talk about what sabotages the learning process for me... Placing me in a CLASSROOM with a group of students will almost always make learning more difficult for me. Normally, learning with a group of other students is supposed to be helpful in that it gives you insights into problem solving by seeing how others go about it, by giving you inspiration through exposure to the ideas and the accomplishments of others and by improving your social skills through interactions with others. I'm over simplifying things, but you get the idea. All this I find true, however, there are several reasons why I find the Classroom to nevertheless be deleterious to learning for me personally. The two main reasons are...
1. I am naturally an introvert, as is a third to half the population according to estimates, and yet today's classrooms tend to look down on introverts and extol extroverts. To further understand and explain this problem please have a look at the TED Talk video "Susan Cain: The power of introverts". In addition to being an introvert and shy, I spent the first part of my childhood growing up in a forested, farm like setting, without exposure to a lot of other children and reveled in the freedom to explore the wilderness around me by myself or with my brother. I didn’t need or desire much in the way of social interaction. Don’t get me wrong, though, I do like people and interacting with them, just not in large groups. The greater the number of people the more nervous and suffocated I feel. Those nervous, suffocating feelings can very easily derail learning in a school or classroom situation, whereas the lack of need for social interaction and the ability to guide myself allow me to thrive under self-guided studies or in one-on-one mentorships.
2. During the second part of my childhood my family had to move across country due to my father's job and we ended up in the dense, sprawling suburb of a city, which I would best describe as hell in disguise, and which I never want to see or set foot in it again for the rest of my life. During this time I was subjected to some of the worst public schooling imaginable. I wasn't educated... I was institutionalized in the worst sense of the word. Because of where we lived I was trapped in a school district and schools where the adults didn't care and the kids were monsters, literally. Normally kids can be and are very cruel to each other, but in this environment something had gone horribly wrong and the ruling behavior was to elevate one's ego by crushing the egos of everyone around you. Bullying wasn't just a problem. It was rampant. I wasn't attending school. I was being forced by the uncaring school district to attend a juvenile hall (youth prison facility). I was expected to get an education in this environment!?! Really!?! Thankfully, though, through other activities I was able to escape occasionally and see that other schools and their neighborhoods were populated by better, kinder, and more humane people. The hell I was trapped in wasn't all there was, there was hope, but it did change for me what the classroom represented and did hold back my education until my parents pulled me out of it during high school and enrolled me in a private school in another part of the city. I swear the change was one of night and day. I will never ever be surprised when I hear about school shootings. I am only surprised when I hear some adult express their surprise that such a thing could happen. Wake up! But that is enough of that. I'm getting off topic and only wanted to point out one of the reasons the classroom doesn't work for me when it comes to learning. I have too much baggage and a plethora of negative experiences hiding in that closet. Thank you very much public schooling.
Getting back on topic, though... "How do YOU learn?” ...I would say I learn by doing or by knowing the back story! Don't ask me to just memorize straight facts and data. It won't happen. The act of performing a task imprints the knowledge, as does knowing the why and the how. I need to put whatever I am learning into context and know the story behind it to be interested, to understand it, to make the intuitive leaps, and to commit the knowledge to my memory. With regard to my senses and learning or memory, often my visual and auditory senses will work together to remember things. Sometimes my olfactory sense will get in on the act. For example, if I can consciously capture an image of a person in my mind, see their name spelled out, say their name, and pay attention to the sound of their voice I can seal their name in my memory. If I fail to complete one of these steps the chances of my remembering their name goes down with each step missed.
I honestly don’t know if I am more of a linear or spatial thinker. If I go down the checklist of factors defining each I think I tend to fall more on the spatial oriented side of things. For example, I can trek deep into an unfamiliar wilderness and find my way back out without trails or overt landmarks to guide me. I kind of unconsciously construct a geographic map of what’s around me and a visual recording of where I have been in my mind as I go along. So long as I don’t panic I always know unerringly which way to go to get back to my origin point. I’m also good with maps and city street navigation.
I've looked in on this thread from time to time and found that I fall into a Odd place among the best style of learning. I prefer a mixed media type format and find it to be the fastest way for me to grasp information. And this is what I mean by mixed media...
The base is a Printable PDF with chapters clearly defined on each topic and or sub sections for tutorials. The Text should be accompanied by clear images marked as they relate to the supplied information. Each section or topic should provide a Link to a off PC or downloadable video file covering the information as well, to be viewed as needed, a pause feature is needed on the Off PC player for video if a third party player is used.
I then can take my time and learn at my pace, I can read the printed PDF as it sits beside me as I go, and read it away from the PC also. I can Open the PDF in the background on my PC as I follow along at any time and also read it in my free time. The Video gives me a visual idea of how the program is laid out and or how to use the interface as the example is done by another using the program. To me this is the perfect combo for me to move ahead and truly learn any thing. I'm finding this to be a practice more and more companies use now days and it helps me greatly.
@Jaderail... If that is an Odd place to be among the best styles of learning then I'm afraid we are both Odd. ;-)
Glad to hear this practice may be becoming more common.
I was watching The Mentalist re-runs recently and I got reminded of that "memory palace" strategy. More on the concept here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci
How do you think folks, does this strategy have a place in actual learning? Has anyone had any experience with it or any other "mnemonic" technique?
I agree, the way history is usually taught at school is boring all over the globe. For me, it's not even about people per se but about the two ends of their life spectrum: the way their mundane lives were organised (their food, clothes, homes etc) and what they believed in (religion and philosophy). Thankfully I had history of philosophy at high school =)
I'm a visual learner and I also learn more easily by seeing someone else do it and then trying to do it myself. I also retain what I've learned a lot better this way. For example: After watching my Mom make pancakes and what ingredients she used, I started making my own pancakes almost as good as hers.
If I read the info on a page, I'll still learn but at a much slower rate because I'll often forget how to get from point A to point B. Then comes the endless repetition of re-reading an d RE-READING over and over again what I just read so my brain can file it away in my MEMORY rather than the trash bin where I don't want it to be.
That's why I love YouTube tutorials of how to do things. I learn by watching and doing.