Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Learning strategies

   Sometimes I look back and wonder how I ever went to college let alone graduate in 4 years from a program most took 5 years to complete.  I did not have any study habits.  And sometimes I wonder what I could have achieved if I had known basic things about my own way of learning.
 I cannot process sound and read at the same time.  This Sunday there was a powerpoint presentation.  I could understand the meaning if I was myself the one asked to read the slide to the group.  When others were reading, I could not.  I could look away from the text, and listen.  I've learned from experience that the best way for me to learn is to read and take notes.   Then from those notes to organize the information into some sort of table, outline, or other graphic way. 

If I had known this in 11th grade, when my AP American History teacher put her lecture on transparencies and then read it to us, things would have been different.  I loved that teacher.  I felt so bad that my inability to absorb the information seemed, to me, to reflect disinterest in the subject...  Man, if I had understood the power of making a timeline!  Not just as busy work, but as an essential way for my mind to organize the information, I would have made one for every chapter, period etc...
I really enjoy participating in musical groups.  I sort of enjoy attending music events.  I very rarely listen to music for enjoyment.  Being a music teacher, people often assume I'm really into music.  Actually I really like to make music, but am not really interested in "music".  I can't listen to music for enjoyment because my mind reacts to it too much.  And thinking back, I actually hate going to live music events as an audience member because I'm always bothered by the noise other people make. 

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