Thursday, January 13, 2011

Profile

It seems that you have made it inside my head. Now, I'm supposed to

give you atour of the learning area of the brain and explain what I
need to do to become a better learner.

The Big circles represent my brain
The diagram you can see on the right is of my body, (no I do not look
like that) the orange parts of the body indicate which side of the
body for that limb is dominant. Basically the orange part is the
dominant one, the better one, the white not as proficient .

This blog will be based mostly on a sheet of paper I have with me.
Using the information I have gained by finding out my dominant limbs I
have discovered that I have a profile. The profile tells me how I
learn best and what areas I need to grow in to become a better
learner. It tells me how I can do this, as well as what will happen to
my abilities if I become stressed. It told me that was of the
logical-sequential brain type as opposed to the gestalt brain type. As
the name suggest a person with my type of brain is logical and
sequential, e.g. we like instructions, while a Gestalt person wants to
have the whole picture first and details later. I have used this
information to create this blogpost. Let me tell you that I became
stressed out during the writing of this blog and was by the end,
rather fed-up.

It turns out that I learn best by "visually focusing on and analyzing
the details of information", I think that means that I learn best by
looking at the details, before just focusing on the bigger picture. I
like to think of it as taking things one thing at a time, no need to
rush on when there's still work to be done here. I prefer it if these
details are placed before me in an orderly manner with a clear reason
why one is before two.

I need to sit on the right side of the classroom, at the front of the
class, because this will put me in a better spot from which to listen
and look at the teacher. This particular spot is best suited to me as
my dominant eye is my right eye, allowing it to be used more, and my
dominant ear is my left ear, meaning with it at the front of the
classroom it will be more aware of the teacher. I also need to read
more non-fiction books, I don't know if this has anything to do with
what I'm talking about now, but I'm supposed to read more non-fiction
books. This strikes me as counter-productive, as I am
logical-sequential won't reading a structured, ordered book with lists
and boxes, stop me strengthening the gestalt part of my brain; while
reading a book that branches wildly out into random directions help
the Gestalt part of my brain? For example "The Hitchhikers Guide to
the Galaxy" was a book that totally blew me away, events that I would
usually consider to be rather important e.g. million litres of custard
randomly falling out of the sky or whales falling out of the sky or
petunias thinking while falling out of the sky; completed their use in
the story damn fast. To me this blew everything out of proportion and
I had to sit down and try and comprehend this for a few days. Doesn't
that sound like the Gestalt part of my brain grew?

Strategies that would help me learn would include letting me fidget.
It is stated very firmly that a person with my profile loves movement
and that I would learn better if I were allowed to fidget, say with
clay while I was listening to someone talk. I should also read out
loud (perhaps a non-fiction book?) but not too loud as I must also
practice my active listening skills (my mother has already harped upon
this one). I must use megaphones, as I am now, and I must also listen
to the lyrics of the song I am listening to, as I am now, I don't
think this will help with learning, it's just recommended. Apparently
when under stress my communication skills become less efficient, a
strategy that would help me deal with this is to massage my jaw
(Temporal Mandibular Joint to be precise, bet you didn't know that)

I would like my teachers to know most of the above as well as one
other thing. I need to know why. I need to know why I am learning
whatever it is you're teaching me. I need to know how this will affect
me, me as a human. If you tell me that the Scotia tectonic plate is
placed in the Southern Atlantic ocean and borders the Africa plate,
I'm going to ask you why anybody cares. Why should I care? This has
gotten me absurd stares from my classmates, in their heads they think
"Why can't he shut up and let the teacher dismiss us to go outside?".
My question is why are we inside? I think that a lot of the stuff that
is taught is only useful as trivia and unless you go into that field,
useless, absolutely useless. Okay back on subject, time to talk about
brains and profiles, oh by the way I want my teachers to know that
unless checked I will go on long rants as I just have.
Calmed Down
I would like my teachers to know that I am a visual learner, and that
pictures and slides help me a great deal. During projects when at a
loss I will go and look at a slideshow of what I have to do, it calms
me down and puts me back on feet. If it would be possible to have
these as well as auditory instructions it would help a great deal.

This Blogpost has given me a chance to rant as well as provide some
useful pointers about my educational training. I hope I will look back
at this and realise that back then I was at least a little bit right.

This is
AlexK
Signing out

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