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Jinn · 04-03-2006, 04:15 PM

Will you marry me? :-D

Only kidding -- however, the "art of learning" is one of the topics I'm divinely passionate about. No matter how much I profess to know about it, and guide others to the "right way to learn," the same tools seem to escape me. You've outlined a great set of them above, and there are very valid points.

I think another important thing to analyse when discussing learning styles is motivation. I find that I'm very performance oriented when I'm doing something for myself, and very perfection oriented when other people are going to see the results of my work. Thats why I could write an ugly program that did what I needed, but when I have to turn it in; its perfectly indented with comments every other line and spacing for clarification. Most things (I'd estimate about 90%) I'm very intellectually curious about, and it saddens me to see how "performance-oriented" most of my peers are.

It seems that my intellectual curiousity is a motivation that others actually stimulate in me. If no one knows the answer, I want to be the one that shows them the answer -- so I am immediately motivated to do it. I learn all of the different and most efficient ways to do it, so that I can better explain it to others.

And I think from this you can draw a very important correlation: the best TEACHERS are perfection-oriented. By being performance-oriented, teachers frustrate any student who has done the assignment in their "own" way. These are the teachers you'll find marking someone off just because they did it a "different way." Its not the way that the instructor has perfected, so it must be incorrect. Perfection-oriented instructors, on the other hand, will praise such a student simply because they've come up with an innovative solution (or a more effecient one) that they hadn't previously seen. And if there's anything we need right now, its innovation.

That's all I thought of off the cuff, but I'm sure I'll revisit this thread.. soon.

04-03-2006, 04:15 PM	#2 (permalink)
Jinn Lover - Protector - Teacher Location: Seattle, WA	Will you marry me? :-D Only kidding -- however, the "art of learning" is one of the topics I'm divinely passionate about. No matter how much I profess to know about it, and guide others to the "right way to learn," the same tools seem to escape me. You've outlined a great set of them above, and there are very valid points. I think another important thing to analyse when discussing learning styles is motivation. I find that I'm very performance oriented when I'm doing something for myself, and very perfection oriented when other people are going to see the results of my work. Thats why I could write an ugly program that did what I needed, but when I have to turn it in; its perfectly indented with comments every other line and spacing for clarification. Most things (I'd estimate about 90%) I'm very intellectually curious about, and it saddens me to see how "performance-oriented" most of my peers are. It seems that my intellectual curiousity is a motivation that others actually stimulate in me. If no one knows the answer, I want to be the one that shows them the answer -- so I am immediately motivated to do it. I learn all of the different and most efficient ways to do it, so that I can better explain it to others. And I think from this you can draw a very important correlation: the best TEACHERS are perfection-oriented. By being performance-oriented, teachers frustrate any student who has done the assignment in their "own" way. These are the teachers you'll find marking someone off just because they did it a "different way." Its not the way that the instructor has perfected, so it must be incorrect. Perfection-oriented instructors, on the other hand, will praise such a student simply because they've come up with an innovative solution (or a more effecient one) that they hadn't previously seen. And if there's anything we need right now, its innovation. That's all I thought of off the cuff, but I'm sure I'll revisit this thread.. soon. __________________ "I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel Last edited by Jinn; 04-03-2006 at 04:18 PM..