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| I am: Jessica Santamaria |
| On this page, I am going to tell you about me and the way I learn. I wish that I could be exuberantly articulate and contagiously knowledgeable about the forms of learning, but in my case, I can only tell you what I've read. For a class assignment, our teacher told us to take a survey that asked us questions about how we learn. After completing the exhausting task of answering 80 questions, I wasn't all that surprised at my results. I've always known that I am tone deaf when it comes to music and that I also have a tendency to faze out when I am being lectured to. For this reason, I wasn't surprised to find that I scored low in Musical and Linguistic learning. It's not like I don't try, however. It's just that when a teacher is talking, I concentrate so hard on how I need to pay attention that I forget to actually listen. I think this might also be a factor in my musical handicap. I try so hard to hear the notes and beats of music, that I end up only being able to hear my own words in my head telling me what I think I should be hearing. Over all, I believe that it is appropriate to say that my mind is a mystically confusing place. Along with my problems involving hearing, I also have difficulties with math. I have come to the inevitable conclusion that no matter how hard I try, math will never make sense to me. Based on this reason, I realized that my mind isn't wired properly for the complex world of mathematics. I enjoy the kind of questions that do not have a right or wrong answer, like: "what do you think..." and things along those lines. I can't touch numbers, I cannot manipulate coefficients and fomulas in my hands. I find it important, in fact necessary, to not only see something in front of me, but to feel it in order to fully comprehend what it is I am trying to figure out. Due to my hand and mind attachment, it wasn't surprising to find that I scored rather high in Body/Kenesthic learning. However, knowing that I can't learn by just seeing, imagine my astonishment when I found out that I scored higher in Vishual/Spacial learning than I did in Body/Kenesthics. I don't know how I pulled that off, but in some way it seems to make sense. I rely on my senses. When I am being taught something, I try to obsorb as much information as I can through any source available, if it allows me to avoid using my ears. If your not interesting, I'm not listening. I need humor and large gestures and actions in order to keep me involved. This would bring in the visual learning. If I am told that there are four elephants swimming somewhere in the forest, draw me those four elephants and maybe we can talk. Who would "watch" a movie on a radio rather than on a tv? I know I haven't come across anyone yet that would. With the notion of visual comprehension in mind, I think that the outdoors is beautiful to look at. In fact, I just happen to have a couple of windows at my house. I am fascinated by the towering height of trees and by the roar of water molecules colliding into each other at the bottom of waterfalls. I am mystified by the range of colors that mother nature wears and how she can change her mood from sad and crying to joyously uplifted. However, why take the beauty out of nature through analysis. Part of the enchantment of the outdoors is that I know little about it. I don't know how crickets chirp and I don't know what a tree is made out of, and I am ok with that. The more I know about nature, the less intriguing it becomes. I love animals and I like the fresh smell of clean air, but I am in no means a Naturalistic Learner, and the survey picked up on this. I scored rather low in this department of educational intake. I don't know how many blades of grass are in a plotted region, all I can do is guess that there must be a lot and that is all I wish to know. Though I scored low in Naturalistic Learning, I apparently advance at Interpersonal Learning. In fact, it was my highest score. This is no surprise to me. My theory is, 'why talk to yourself when there is someone else to talk to.' I love to communicate with others and strangely enough, I like having friends. If I'm not sleeping, I don't like being alone. I find solace in another's words, as long as they are not jamming knowledge into my head. Even though I like being surrounded by people, there are always those moments when I need to be alone. Whether I curled up in my bed or I am deep in thought, I want all talking to stop. If words are not coming out of my mouth, I either don't know what to say or I am thinking, either way my mind is always going. Because of this, I am sometimes an Intrapersonal Learner. I do good by myself and I always need at least a few hours a day to just space out and reflect on things that need reflecting on. An hour is a long time, but for some reason I keep myself very entertained. I did not score very high on the survey for Intrapersonal Learning, which makes complete sense. A large percentage of me loves people, while only a tiny percentage of my wants to tell people to shut up. Taking this survey pretty much just further confirmed what I already knew about myself. If a teacher is trying to make me learn, they should be captivating and intriguing. I need pictures, actions, humor, hands on interaction, you know all the fun stuff. I like to learn when I don't know that I am actually learning. The best classes are those that you can tell yourself you have literally learned nothing, yet if asked, can recreate an entire text book on the subject at hand. Education doesn't always have to be boring, but can sometimes be actually interesting. Home |