Looking back on my book assignment of second grade, I realize that if the author of the book had illustrated that the hunt brought food to the woman and children waiting in the teepees back home, I might have learned the cycle of life lesson that I believe now was the point of the book. Although I could imagine the hunt and kill I could not relate the event to a positive outcome. .
Several years later, while a freshman in high school, I struggled with the same learning challenges. I was enrolled in a geometry class. Mr. Hathaway, my teacher was scolding me for not working hard enough to understand theorems. Yet, for hours I poured over my math books, resorting finally to basic memorization to regurgitate the information back to him on a final exam. I barely passed. The concepts of geometry were just too foreign and abstract. I could not relate anything from everyday life to the material presented. Of course now I understand that if I could have made the correlation between the shapes and theories in geometry to the building and bridges and engineering concepts of everyday I might have been able to actual remember something about a 90 degree triangle other than the name. .
This evaluation of my past learning has helped me to understand that my learning style fits well within David Kolb learning model for the dimension of the Concrete experience learner as well as an Active experimentation learner. That is, a learner that combines personal experiences, their sensitivity to others, and their "ability to get things done". Who are risk takers and who think they can influence people, and events through action. In Kobl's model, it is explained that students who display these combined traits are considered Type 1 learners. Type one learners are imaginative, intuitive learners. They best understand by discussion for feeling and a "hands-on" approach. Most especially Type Ones best learn by applying the material to "real life situations" (Algonquin, 1996).
