Not too long ago, I decided to do something about my web skills (or lack of) and enrolled on a home study course in Dreamweaver and Flash.
The course was valuable, not because of what it taught me about website creation, but because I finally managed to nail down what it was that had made me decide to be a complete autodidact, rather than try and follow course programmes that had been structured for the more typical learner.
The first problem is that courses tend not to be structured for the visual-spatial learner.
If you haven’t read Linda Silverman’s book “Upside-Down Genius: The Visual Spatial Learner”, then I strongly recommend it, especially if you have anything to do with teaching.
I have noticed almost without exception with these computer courses that the course pack, tutor, or onscreen guide takes the student through a whole sequence of steps first, and then expects you to realise the result of taking those steps. In other words, without having first been told the purpose of the exercise, the student is then supposed to retrospectively remember the steps taken to get there.
When learning a new application on the job, the purpose always comes before the steps – I am working on a document, and I need to know how to format this table. My colleague shows me what I need to do, and because I already have that purpose in mind, I am more inclined to remember the steps she showed me in order to achieve the desired outcome.
In the case of the course, I would doubtless have to go back to the beginning and go over the steps again to make sure I have remembered them. In the case of being shown at work, where I know what it is that I’m trying to do, I probably won’t need to be shown again. That’s because I, as a visual learner, tend to mentally peg the procedure onto the purpose, rather than just automatically remembering a sequence of instructions, as an auditory-sequential learner probably would. Personally, I find this frustrating.
No doubt if someone were to quiz the manual writer on whether the course had been compiled with the visual-spatial learner in mind, then he or she probably would have answered with a resounding “Yes” on account of the fact that most pages were almost entirely taken up with full colour screenshots. Yet despite the glossy, printed screen captures, the way the manuals were put together was still auditory-sequential in style, as strongly evidenced by its step-by-step lesson plan.
What a visual learner wants is a course designed like a tree structure or mindmap – each major branch is the purpose of what is to be achieved in that section, and the lessons move from the overview and purpose down to more specific details, and as much or as little detail can be added as required for the student to understand it.
The second problem is when a totally uneven learning curve is presented.
The first five lessons of the web design course moved at a snail’s pace through the blindingly obvious: don’t use garish colours that clash and make your page hard to read, pictures can be placed either to the left or right or in the middle, avoid typing in huge fonts with all capital letters, etc. etc.
Suddenly, almost without warning, Lesson 6 gave the grand tour of what goes into a style sheet, but without digging deep enough each of the concepts so that they could be thoroughly digested by the student. It was obviously considered by the author of the course that this overview version was sufficient foundation to go on piling on additional pieces of information, which in their turn were not presented in sufficient depth.
In the end, I resorted to borrowing a manual on web design and CSS from my brother, which discussed the topics much more exhaustively, and made a whole lot more sense.
If I were to draw the relative levels of difficulty of each course element as a line chart, it would look something like the stats of this blog: in the beginning, nothing moved for ages, and then almost overnight I was getting a sharply increasing readership!
Where the course presents material that is too simplistic or obvious, often repetitiously, then even though I really WANT to learn, I find myself shutting down and switching off. I feel as though I haven’t learned anything.
When the course merely skates over the surface of what is doubtlessly a very meaty topic, I am left feeling that I don’t understand it. Possibly covering a topic in such a shallow and piecemeal fashion works for many, but I need depth and detail if I am to feel that I am able to competently achieve results with that information.
Thankfully, I have sufficient understanding of my own needs as a student to fix these problems when they come up. That’s the beauty of Study Tech: it’s very empowering, if you wish to learn anything or teach anything.
7sigma,
It is very refreshing to read your thoughts on this subject. So many times I’ve tried to learn something and just realized that the person didn’t know how to teach it.
Often times, when I am trying to learn I ask questions and the rest of the students and the teachers begin to hate me because it sounds as if I am trying to show the person up. No, I just want more facts and depth and I think that my frustration shows in my voice and manner at times like a challenge. Really I’m just irritated at receiving muddy droplets when I want and need a fresh tap of pure water.
Thanks!
Seig Mens
Hi, Seig Mens (does that mean something in German?),
Thank you for your kind comments. At least as adults, we can choose not to do the course, or to approach it our own way, or just sit back and realise that the tutor is incompetent.
Yet the grades received by kids for their studies are assumed to be a reflection of the best efforts and abilities of the CHILD. When pointing out that your learning style and the way you were taught in school may not have been the best match, people who understand nothing about studying and teaching just assume you’re making excuses. They conveniently forget that some of the most inventive people in history didn’t receive a good formal education when young.
So true. As soon as the law allowed I finished my education by myself. I read some of your posts on the pmemory forum which led me here. I noticed you have completed that course. Are there posts here which pertain to its impact on your life? I would like to read them.
Seignor Ankrut Mens roughly means “Creator anchored mind”.
I haven’t written anything resembling a personal testimony, only an essay giving an overview of the course and basic techniques, which is on my main website
As you will see if you read this and particularly the second essay about study tech, the main use I have found for pmemory is when volumes of precise data need to be known; as I already had extensive experience of study tech both from a personal point of view and as a tutor/student debug counsellor using this methodology on others. To use an analogy, I employ study tech as the main page and GMS as an add-on piece of script. I see little usefulness in memorizing things that are not well understood; by the time I have picked over every inch of what I am studying to the point of conceptual understanding, unless it consists of tables of figures or other precise data, I find it just sticks permanently anyway.
Regarding pmemory forum, it is interesting just how many people have read here or sent me PM’s asking questions about various aspects or study or other forms of self-development, including even one of the less active instructors! I have been seriously thinking about quietly slipping away from the forum because of the know-best attitude of one of the instructors when I shared something about my life philosophy and where I learned much of this cutting-edge mental technology, and also because of the know-all attitude of a couple of medical students on the forum to just about everything. But each time I say to myself, “That’s it, I’m taking that site out of my bookmarks,” I find emails informing me I have new PMs!
This will be very helpful to read when I read it later today. Have you made use of or written about Reading Genius by Ed Strachar? It also uses Mind Mapping in a way. I mention it because it stresses rapid intake and assimilation of data.
I find the same thing when studying a subject. Proverbs 6:3 says “to the understanding one knowledge is an easy thing.” The greater the understanding the easy to absorb new information.
I have found, though, that when acquiring data which was retained because of my reliance on understanding I sometimes run into a problem of inflexible thinking. And when I succeed in adopting a more accurate paradigm I find that some of the data is harder to recall and is not organized. That is why I would like to store some data on its own merits AND through understanding. Hopefully, that will help solve the problem.
Again, thanks for the link.