[Paddlewise] Student types & Now: Communicating with Different Learning Styles

Mike (both):
There is a significant improvement communicating to students and/or other 
people in  general if one identifies the type of learner that you are 
communicating to.

Here is a hasty generalization that ought to get someone going:  Engineers 
are not by nature or training a touchy feelly sort of person and tend to be 
more thing or fact driven.

Example:  Rolling is a right brain action.  It is not intuitive nor is it 
mechanical.  I can't follow steps one, two, three ........   and expect to 
be able to roll.  Another example is: Try letting your left brain steer a 
bicycle, drive a car or fly a plane (I couldn't analyze my way to a hover!) 
- The act and "NOT" the rules are right brain controlled.  So, how does one 
communicate right brain activity to a left brain student?  As Nike 
says:  Just Do It!  Detail can get in the way of the best and brightest of 
us!  Follow up the lesson with detailed explanation if the student wants it.

An interesting perspective is to realize that some people want to know 
"HOW" it works in order to visualize "Why" it works.  As my Brother In 
Law  (a test pilot on the FB-111) once told me when I asked him how in the 
world they could go so fast at such low altitude and control the 
aircraft.  His response:  Computers and Magic!  He was afraid to ride in a 
helicopter with me at 3 feet off the ground and 150 mph flying nap of 
earth.  He just didn't believe that they should work.

Know your audience as well as your subject!  Both will benefit!

Now if we were receiving instruction on designing a boat with all of it 
detailed dimensions, physics and engineering jargon - I'd be next to lost, 
though I might grasp the concepts  and persist at trying I probably would 
not do a very good job at it.  I salute those left brain folks in this world!

Fred

At 12:16 PM 10/9/2000 -0400, MJAkayaker_at_aol.com wrote:
>Knowing your purpose would help in formulating the correct
>response.  Secondly if you are going to make such statements there are more
>effective ways to make your point.  Surely you could include more concrete
>examples.

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