| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 719.1 | Reply | ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI | just a revolutionary with a pseudonym | Mon Mar 27 1989 09:47 | 64 |
|
While I dont know about the effectiveness of the course itself,
I do like the program's title!
Personally, I feel that "will" has more to do with learning
than any "teritary" skill like note taking or study habits...In
fact, I'm quite convinced that will _is all you need_ to accomplish
*anything*, the "mechanics" will be picked up as you go!
Motivation in a world full of other directed reasons is a tricky
thing to teach, in terms of the self. Does this course offer any
of that? Or is that still blasphemy, even for the 1990's?
Anyway, I has an interesting experience with this in college.
My motivation was always poor and it had showed in my grades in
my first 2 semesters. During my second year, I had a girlfriend,
who was also an engineering undergrad; very smart and socially well
known. Oh, how the "hick from upstate NY" wanted to impress her
and found it "easy" to do so being motivated in that context!
We took an evening "Diff Eq" course together - supposedly the
toughest in the whole 4 year curriculum! With her there to motivate
me, I easily "aced" all three mid-term exams and the course - without
having to take the final exam.
My "Signal analysis and Tranform Methods" class - the other
"toughie" - where I had no such "other" to influence my motivation
(i.e. I had to use my sense of self), was barely passed; I had to take
an incomplete and struggle through it again the following summer!
The *difference* between my performance in taking each class was
entirely motivational; had nothing to do with "study habits" or
"the way I took notes". While motivated in the context of another,
I was able to perform well beyond my expectations; motivated in
the context of my self, I barely was able to pull it off.
While it may seem at this point that the better way to go is
to motivate a child in the context of another, be careful in making
the choice of "the other" as "the other" tends to go away in time!
Certainly the girl for whom I could motivate myself to accomplish
nearly *anything* is no longer a part of my life! Things change,
people come and go, and the loss of the other - by whatever means
- can be quite devastating to a soul set up to see things in this
way.
Some people choose God as their "other directed motivation",
as God is invariant both conceptually and actually. As the quantity
of religious turmoil in this world indicates, even choosing this way
has it's associated problems...
By the courses title, I would hope that it teaches motivation
for accomplishment through strengthening of the person's own will
and did this in the context of one's self. But, I suspect that it's
a very "vanilla" treastise on "effective note taking" and "how to
listen", that was designed to be as inoffensive/obtrusive as possible,
given that it's something marketed to the general public.
I sure wish I could accomplish as much in the sense of me, as
I know I could "so easily", doing so in terms of another's approval of
me. My being this way has to do with how I was brought up and I'm
just beginning to realize the effect of the reasoning I was given
for becoming accomplished. "Mom" is no longer alive.
Joe Jas
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| 719.3 | | BUSY::KLEINBERGER | Disic Vita Lux Hominum | Mon Mar 27 1989 14:12 | 4 |
| You might ask this in the parenting conference
KP7 and all that jazz....
|
| 719.4 | | ACESMK::CHELSEA | Mostly harmless. | Mon Mar 27 1989 14:25 | 13 |
| Re: .1
>I'm quite convinced that will _is all you need_ to accomplish
>*anything*, the "mechanics" will be picked up as you go!
I'm not willing to bet on it. There are mechanics I could not "pick
up" because I was not aware that they existed. To me, "picked up"
means self-taught, which doesn't include reading up on your own.
(Reading is having the book as your teaching rather than personal
experience.) I agree that the desire to learn is the most important
factor; however, desire is not sufficient. A vector involves both
magnitude and direction. Desire provides the magnitude, but without
guidance, the vector will have a hard time going anywhere.
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| 719.5 | ! | ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI | just a revolutionary with a pseudonym | Tue Mar 28 1989 11:46 | 14 |
|
And for a vector of magnitude zero (no desire), which way does
it point?
I guess I meant "learned along the way", as each tool is picked
up, it regenerates the effectiveness of the learning process.
I can agree with the idea of "guidance", as being a necessity.
When that gets confused conceptually with "the reason to bother
trying" is when trouble starts. It's easy to see how one person
can attempt to do both for a child.
Joe Jas
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| 719.6 | | ACESMK::CHELSEA | Mostly harmless. | Tue Mar 28 1989 18:18 | 6 |
| Re: .5
I'm just not so sanguine about people picking up the tools. I spent
16 years in school. I don't take good notes and my study habits
leave much to be desired. If I haven't picked up these tools by
now, how long does it take?
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| 719.7 | Pencil Blisters | ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI | just a revolutionary with a pseudonym | Wed Mar 29 1989 10:23 | 30 |
|
Re:
Somehow, I managed to develop "a study habit that worked for
me", when I was in college. It's so simple, that I think it may
be easy to see how this could have been wrought from sheer desire.
If I want to learn something, I must write it down. Going thru
the writing *process* is what "learns me", if you will. You can
tell I really do care about remembering something, if you see me
write it down.
Even something that takes a certain level of conceptualization,
like "Integral Calculus", can be learned by me in this way. All I need
is the detailed answers to all the problems given as "homework" and some
time to _write out_ both the problem and the corresponding answer,
and I can do very well on a "final exam" consisting of similar problems.
Without my trusty pencil and paper, I wouldnt stand a chance.
I attribute my discovery of this "method" directly to my desire
to someday graduate with my engineering degree. (Actually, I wanted
to impress this girlfriend....) I "just did it" one day and noted
that it seemed to work very well for me, when I started getting "A's"
on my math exams. (I made sure I got the answers to *all* the home
work problems) I'm sure, however, that having this well in place
*beforehand* would have been beneficial during the time it did take
for me to "discover" a learning method on my own.
Joe Jas
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| 719.8 | more pencil blisters | STRATA::LAMY | | Fri Mar 31 1989 08:45 | 10 |
| RE.7
YOUR "method" is also the way I learned things Joe. I found that
the more I wrote something the longer it stayed with me. One example
is my note taking. In class i would quickly scribble notes and when
I got home I would copy these notes into my "neat" notebook which
could be easily read and understood, as compared to my class notebook
which only i could understand. I found that copying my notes
over like this made the material sink in and it was well worth the
extra hour or so it took me to do this.
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| 719.9 | | HPTS::JOVAN | pa$$ion | Tue Apr 04 1989 14:50 | 10 |
| I just yesterday ordered the high school set for my son - takes 4
to 6 weeks to get here, then a semester (quarter) to tell if his grade go
up. I think the most valuable thing the tapes seem to offer are methods to
study, which are not taught in the school my son attends. He is
exceptional smart, but does not understand how to study, take notes or take
exams. It is my hope that this will help him and in the long run raise his
self esteem as he realizes he can get good grades. They are but a tool for
him to use. They are expensive, but I can't put a price on his education.
Angeline
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