After all these many years of enjoying attending school and higher education, it has been fascinating to learn so much about my learning preferences. School plays well into my bi-modal learning preferences…or is it that my bi-modal learning preferences play well with school?
I have always taken notes and, usually (but not always), gone back over them prior to a test. It just seems to me that writing it out accomplishes some sort of muscle-memory “thing” for me and I don’t really have to go back over my notes so diligently. At long last, I have found that there is a name for that kind of learning: read/write AND kinesthetic. The examples that teachers utilize to bring a point home work with me. And I need that in order to learn more effectively. I just had never put the effort into finding the terminology for my learning preferences. Must be my right-brain procrastination taking over.
So now that I know what goes on with me and learning, I can put into practice more effective tools for utilizing them and the way I am. I have good things going for me and that’s exciting! On-line classes use reading and writing and examples and practical applications: wow! I should excel at on-line classes!
Well, what should be and what actually happens….hmmmm. Already, I performed miserably on a test because I had not put my preferences of note taking into practice. Lesson learned. I’m doing much better in the class this week but I won’t know the results until the next text. But I’m aware of what I need to do and I’m doing it! Plus the class has some extra credit material to help me out. Yay! Reading and writing! This I can do: just have to put procrastination into the trash bin.
Then there are my felines: my beautiful and distracting felines. Watching them is a distraction but that is workable. Right now they are napping….all of them! There’s a miracle. So it’s easier for me to apply myself to this task. Yet, I find that I am very much like my felines. They’re paws-on and I’m hands-on. They live in the moment as do I: hence, my difficulty with procrastination. (If it’s not a pressing issue now, then it is not that important. It’s sure easy to let tasks slide that way) And my felines and I share a fascination with nature and birds: differing in perspective but still something we share.
Interesting. I use note taking to create a “visual” reference to the material – not so much kinesthetic. It’s a multi-modal tip! Thanks for sharing your use of the technique for comparison!
So dogs are left-brained and cats are right-brained. Pretty interesting to look at the habits of left and right-brained people and see if you can draw a correlation to your pets. I did see how right-brained are flexible and left-brained are more on a schedule. Hmmm? When our dogs don’t get their daily walks at the same time every day, they go crazy. Maybe it is the left brain in them! Sleeping pets can be a distraction. I tend to wake mine up on purpose from across the room, just so I can see their cute faces….probably will not work when we have sleeping children!
There’s an interesting correlation about dogs and cats! Cool! And I agree about sleeping pets: so cute just to watch them sleep…..cats I leave sleep…..stuff stays where I put it when I let them sleep. Thanks for your reply! 😀
I know exactly what you mean when you say your cats are a distraction! They’re just so darn cute. As one of mine lays at my feet as I type, I can’t help but to poke him with my toes just to annoy him. But the worst of all is that I just adopted a puppy and I can’t ever put him down. Maybe it’s those motherly instincts kicking in. I just want him to be around me constantly. But of course as any normal baby animal he doesn’t want to sit still. So he’ll be on my lap one minute and then biting my toes the next. Aren’t pets just great? You can annoy them as much as they annoy you and they’ll still love you the same!
I know what you mean about pets being a distraction. I have 2 dogs and a cat, and I did have 5 baby chicks that I recently re-homed due to financial burdens preventing me from building them a secure coop. I also have 2 kids, and I’m a right brainer, too!So when it comes to distractions…SQUIRREL!” I have a lot of them. But I’m learning to overcome and so can you!
Thank you for your encouraging words….. Yep, here I am watching a cat watching the bugs outdoors. (I keep mine in so they stay safe. Give them lots to do: carry my stuffed animals around the house or knock my dust-collectors around or actually use their cat trees and scratching posts!) But it’s soothing too…..just to watch them….just gotta do it in small doses and get back to school…. Thanks……
I love that you mentioned how your cats distract you. I thought only I had that problem, haha. Except, rather than cats, I have two dogs and a rabbit that I seriously think try and purposely distract me from school work.
I completely understand about the distractions…whether its a pet or something else. Matter of fact…as I am typing this my 11 month old son is trying his best to close my laptop. It makes it really tough when there are distractions but I think it is really cool to see how we react to them. People have there on ways of dealing with distractions like some people take their selves out of the situation like going in a closet and locking the door. Others find different solutions. What have you tried and what has worked? I am just interested to know how you deal with that kind of distraction (mine is different so it is nice to learn more about other’s struggles).
Hello, I think that taking notes is a great way to learn for your material online. I just started my online school these past three weeks and honestly I haven’t done a very good job at taking notes. I also to the left brain/right brain text and I am mainly right brained as well. I share in the pain of having the tendency to procrastinate sometimes. I really thought your analogy to your cats was really cool. I am a big animal lover and I have three cats here in Ohio. It is pretty amazing how distracting animals can be sometimes. I hope all goes well the next few weeks and online school works well for you.
-Joey Cramer