Comments on: That is not the way I learn

By: Christy

Christy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:51:58 +0000

Kristina, I understand that, too. I usually grasp the general concept very quickly when it’s presented, and then I’m ready to move on to specifics while people are still discussing what I understood in their first sentence.

By: Kristina L

Kristina L — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:52:47 +0000

I remember being very frustrated when I grasped the overall view right away but needed the details in order to be able to do anything, and the person teaching me kept telling me more about the overall view.

By: Donna Dunning

Donna Dunning — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:30:45 +0000

Hi Sue, Thanks for sharing this story. It is fascinating how one person’s ideal learning setting can be unpleasant for the next person. Knowing type preferences can certainly help us understand and accommodate these individual differences.

By: Sue D'Nem

Sue D'Nem — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:30:30 +0000

When my daughter was in second grade, the school moved to a “new and improved” instructional model. Students had a “home” class and then were grouped by ability level for reading and math instruction (which last for most of the school day). My daughter spend the vast majority of the school day in a small group of children on the high end of the spectrum with a fabulous teacher who provided for different learning styles and kept all the children highly engaged. Heaven (to my INTJ mind). Hell for my child. She HATED school that year. She longed to be in her home class with ALL of the students rather than being segregated.

I never gave learning styles much though when I have had P/T conferences. My child is a freaky kid: gifted in many ways, a pleasant person, and a very good student (does her work, etc). Conferences usually fall along the lines of: “I love having L’il D’Nem in Class” “She sometimes talks too much, but otherwise is a delightful student.”

I have to wonder about the contrast from what my parents had to have gone through. I was NOT a good student (never did my work), was not a very pleasant person (kept to myself, awkward socially). Knowing what I know now, I wonder what those conferences were like…… what was said….. hmmmmmm…..

I think it would have been helpful to have known more about temperament when I was growing up. Maybe things would not have been so difficult if I had understood.

By: Donna Dunning

Donna Dunning — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:59 +0000

Thanks for your comment Christy. I agree it is helpful to understand that people approach learning differently. As well as lowering frustration, it also can provide a way to ask for or seek out what you need so you can maximize your learning. Coincidentally, my next learning post is about how some people like to focus on facts and details first while others prefer to overview a topic and understand concepts first.

By: Christy

Christy — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:12:48 +0000

This is quite fascinating. I’ve been really paying attention to the way I learn recently, because my mother and I work together, and she has been teaching me programming in the way that it works best for her to learn, which sometimes makes me frustrated. If I ask what a certain concept means or how a certain programming language works, she begins by explaining little details about the concept or the language and expects me to put together an idea of how they work based on the details she gives me. Whereas I prefer to be given an overall view and then to proceed to the details of how things work from there. It is very difficult for me to understand what something means or how it works based on little details. It has helped my frustration level a great deal to recognize that she’s teaching me the way her mind works.