Olá, amigos.
O "help" com o livro 6 foi algo excepcional em virtude de um problema com a coordenação da escola à época. Fico muito feliz que ele esteja ajudando a muitos - de fato os textos são desumanos e mesmo professores têm certa dificuldade em compreendê-los.
Entretanto, resolvi não fazer o mesmo com o livro 7 pelas seguintes razões:
- Não há a necessidade de copiar o conteúdo nem entendê-lo na íntegra. O objetivo é a compreensão geral (gist) e a resposta das questões específicas. Note que há algumas questões que nem sequer requerem respostas que estão no texto.
- Para o efetivo progresso da compreensão auditiva, o aluno deve treinar o gist exaustivamente. Assim como em sua língua mãe (L1), a maioria das situações o exige e apenas algumas raras exigem a compreensão verbatim (palavra por palavra).
Para ter uma boa perfórmance nos exercícios de listening do livro 7 siga os seguintes passos:
- Escute o conteúdo quantas vezes forem necessário com o livro fechado concentrando-se apenas no que é dito no texto. Pare apenas quando houver "conforto linguístico", i.e., quando você parar de suar frio.
- Repita o passo anterior com o livro aberto na página das questões - ainda sem respondê-las.
- Desligue o tocador de Cd's e responda as questões. Em seguida toque a faixa novamente e comfira suas respostas.
Siga estes passo à risca se quiser realmente aprender. Você verá que, para o fim do semestre, o número de repetições no passo 1 e 2 cairão consideravelmente.
Caso tenha restando alguma dúvida ou mesmo se a dificuldade persistir, não hesite em me mandar um e-mail. Responderei com carinho e atenção.
Abraços,
TEd
sexta-feira, 19 de março de 2010
quarta-feira, 24 de junho de 2009
The Auditory Learner
Sources: http://www.cuyamaca.edu/eops/dsps/resourcesaud.asp, http://www.studytechniques.org/learning-styles-auditory.html, http://www.trcc.commnet.edu/Ed_Resources/TASC/Training/Auditory_Learning.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_learning.
Everyone learns in a different way, so the specific methods that an individual should use to study a particular subject can vary from person to person. However, there are three primary ways that an individual may learn information, which include hearing the information, learning about something by touching or using it, or by actually seeing the information or seeing the information applied. These three methods, also known as learning styles, are the three main ways that people learn information, but most people will usually learn more effectively using one method than they would using either of the other two methods. Individuals that learn more effectively by hearing the information are referred to as auditory learners.
Auditory learning is a learning style in which a person learns through listening. They may struggle to understand a chapter they've read, but then experience a full understanding as they listen to the class lecture. An auditory learner may benefit by using the speech recognition tool available on many PCs.
The best way to determine whether or not you or another individual is an auditory learner is to ask yourself or the other individual some simple questions. First, when you are checking over an essay that you have written, do you go back and read the sentences aloud to see if they sound right? Secondly, when you have to learn to use something new, do you like someone to explain how to do it? Finally, do you have difficulty reading or spelling certain words if you cannot sound them out aloud? If the answer to all three of these questions is "yes," or if you find that you use sound in similar ways, there is a very good chance that you are an auditory learner.
One should have in mind, however, that each one of us has the three learning styles within. The case is one of them is predominant. Nevertheless, it does not impair you from working out the other two and eventually achieve balance.
Auditory learners may have a knack for ascertaining the true meaning of someone's words by listening to audible signals like changes in tone. When memorizing a phone number, an auditory learner will say it out loud and then remember how it sounded to recall it.
Auditory learners tend to:
• Read to self out loud.
• Not be afraid to speak in class.
• Like oral reports.
• Be good at explaining.
• Remember names.
• Notice sound effects in movies.
• Enjoy music.
• Be good at grammar and foreign language.
• Read slowly.
• Follow spoken directions well.
• Have trouble keeping quiet for long periods.
• Enjoy acting, being on stage.
Auditory Learners Can Benefit from:
• Using word association to remember facts and lines.
• Recording lectures.
• Watching videos.
• Repeating facts with eyes closed.
• Participating in group discussions.
• Using audiotapes for language practice.
• Taping notes after writing them.
Worst test type: Reading passages and writing answers about them in a timed test.
Best test type:
Auditory Learners are good at writing responses to lectures they’ve heard. They’re also good at oral exams, effectively by listening to information delivered orally, in lectures, speeches, and oral sessions. Auditory learners make up about 20% of the population. Auditory learners use phrases such as "Sounds good to me" and "It's starting to ring a bell." When describing memories they will often focus on the sounds they heard, or what people were saying.
It is believed that when an auditory/verbal (i.e. listening to information delivered orally) learner reads, it is almost impossible for the learner to comprehend anything without sound in the background. In these situations, listening to music or having different sounds in the background (TV, people talking, etc) will help learners work better.
Auditory learning can also be considered a different style of learning. Some people are visual learners, some kinesthetic learners, some tactile learners, and some are auditory learners. This is explained as a person who depends on hearing and speaking as a main way of learning. Auditory learners must be able to hear what is being said in order to understand and may have difficulty with instructions that are written. They also use their listening and repeating skills to sort through the information that is sent to them.
Characteristics of auditory learners
• good at storytelling
• solves problems by talking them through
• speech patterns include “I hear you; that clicks”
• moving their lips or talking to themselves to help accomplish tasks.
Teaching auditory learners
• verbal direction
• group discussions
• verbal reinforcement
• group activities
• reading aloud
• putting information into a rhythmic pattern such as: rap, poem, or song.
Techniques for the Auditory Learner
In the article Learning Style Awareness by Annette Vincent and Dianne Ross they explain techniques that auditory learners can use to gain information more effectively. They state “Advice to auditory learners” should include:
• Make tapes of class notes and then listen to them.
• Remember details by trying to "hear" previous discussions.
• Participate in class discussions.
• Ask questions and volunteer in class.
• Read assignments out loud.
• Whisper new information when alone
• Chew gum and talk to yourself during class breaks like lectures and language classes.
Keep fighting. Keep dreaming. Keep loving.
Everyone learns in a different way, so the specific methods that an individual should use to study a particular subject can vary from person to person. However, there are three primary ways that an individual may learn information, which include hearing the information, learning about something by touching or using it, or by actually seeing the information or seeing the information applied. These three methods, also known as learning styles, are the three main ways that people learn information, but most people will usually learn more effectively using one method than they would using either of the other two methods. Individuals that learn more effectively by hearing the information are referred to as auditory learners.
Auditory learning is a learning style in which a person learns through listening. They may struggle to understand a chapter they've read, but then experience a full understanding as they listen to the class lecture. An auditory learner may benefit by using the speech recognition tool available on many PCs.
The best way to determine whether or not you or another individual is an auditory learner is to ask yourself or the other individual some simple questions. First, when you are checking over an essay that you have written, do you go back and read the sentences aloud to see if they sound right? Secondly, when you have to learn to use something new, do you like someone to explain how to do it? Finally, do you have difficulty reading or spelling certain words if you cannot sound them out aloud? If the answer to all three of these questions is "yes," or if you find that you use sound in similar ways, there is a very good chance that you are an auditory learner.
One should have in mind, however, that each one of us has the three learning styles within. The case is one of them is predominant. Nevertheless, it does not impair you from working out the other two and eventually achieve balance.
Auditory learners may have a knack for ascertaining the true meaning of someone's words by listening to audible signals like changes in tone. When memorizing a phone number, an auditory learner will say it out loud and then remember how it sounded to recall it.
Auditory learners tend to:
• Read to self out loud.
• Not be afraid to speak in class.
• Like oral reports.
• Be good at explaining.
• Remember names.
• Notice sound effects in movies.
• Enjoy music.
• Be good at grammar and foreign language.
• Read slowly.
• Follow spoken directions well.
• Have trouble keeping quiet for long periods.
• Enjoy acting, being on stage.
Auditory Learners Can Benefit from:
• Using word association to remember facts and lines.
• Recording lectures.
• Watching videos.
• Repeating facts with eyes closed.
• Participating in group discussions.
• Using audiotapes for language practice.
• Taping notes after writing them.
Worst test type: Reading passages and writing answers about them in a timed test.
Best test type:
Auditory Learners are good at writing responses to lectures they’ve heard. They’re also good at oral exams, effectively by listening to information delivered orally, in lectures, speeches, and oral sessions. Auditory learners make up about 20% of the population. Auditory learners use phrases such as "Sounds good to me" and "It's starting to ring a bell." When describing memories they will often focus on the sounds they heard, or what people were saying.
It is believed that when an auditory/verbal (i.e. listening to information delivered orally) learner reads, it is almost impossible for the learner to comprehend anything without sound in the background. In these situations, listening to music or having different sounds in the background (TV, people talking, etc) will help learners work better.
Auditory learning can also be considered a different style of learning. Some people are visual learners, some kinesthetic learners, some tactile learners, and some are auditory learners. This is explained as a person who depends on hearing and speaking as a main way of learning. Auditory learners must be able to hear what is being said in order to understand and may have difficulty with instructions that are written. They also use their listening and repeating skills to sort through the information that is sent to them.
Characteristics of auditory learners
• good at storytelling
• solves problems by talking them through
• speech patterns include “I hear you; that clicks”
• moving their lips or talking to themselves to help accomplish tasks.
Teaching auditory learners
• verbal direction
• group discussions
• verbal reinforcement
• group activities
• reading aloud
• putting information into a rhythmic pattern such as: rap, poem, or song.
Techniques for the Auditory Learner
In the article Learning Style Awareness by Annette Vincent and Dianne Ross they explain techniques that auditory learners can use to gain information more effectively. They state “Advice to auditory learners” should include:
• Make tapes of class notes and then listen to them.
• Remember details by trying to "hear" previous discussions.
• Participate in class discussions.
• Ask questions and volunteer in class.
• Read assignments out loud.
• Whisper new information when alone
• Chew gum and talk to yourself during class breaks like lectures and language classes.
Keep fighting. Keep dreaming. Keep loving.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Today we take yet another different turn in the series. Instead of thematic dissertations, I deliver to you the transcript of a speech given by none other than Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO and creative mind. The speech is indeed longuish and probably you will only have time for it at home or even on the weekend. Even so, I strongly recommend you watch the video and read the transcript, for indeed you will be talking about it for weeks. As usual, we are open for questioning and suggestions. Nice reading.
Transcript of the Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs
From: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1422863/posts
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.
My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
Thank you all, very much.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Transcript of the Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs
From: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1422863/posts
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.
My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
Thank you all, very much.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
segunda-feira, 22 de junho de 2009
The Visual Learner
Sources: http://www.cuyamaca.edu/eops/dsps/resourcesvis.asp, http://www.learning-styles-online.com/style/visual-spatial/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_learning, http://www.leadershipturn.com/the-visual-learner/, http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/learningstyle.htm, http://www.studytechniques.org/learning-styles-visual.html, http://www.studygs.net/visual.htm.
Learning, for visual-spatial learners, takes place all at once, with large chunks of information grasped in intuitive leaps, rather than in the gradual accretion of isolated facts, small steps or habit patterns gained through practice. For example, they can learn all of the multiplication facts as a related set in a chart much easier and faster than memorizing each fact independently. The best way to determine whether or not you or another individual is a visual learner is to ask yourself or the other individual some simple questions. First, when you are checking over an essay that you have written, do you find it easy to just read over the essay again quietly to yourself? Secondly, when you have to learn something new, would you like to read the instructions before you do anything? Finally, when you are attempting to spell a word or understand a concept do you try to visualize that word or visualize an example of that concept? If the answer to all three of these questions is "yes," or if you find that you use visual aids in similar ways, there is a very good chance that you are a visual learner. But remember, people are not same. What is described here is merely a general collection of similar patterns found in individuals of again similar learning behavior. Have also in mind that nobody is 100% visual and 0% the others or vice-versa. What we have is a predominant style. However, it is totally possible to work out the other non-predominant two to try to equalize the three and thus become a more powerful learner.
You will find below some practical lists to help you perform better at school, work, a seminar, etc.
Organizing:
• The visual/spatial perspective is the organizing principle
Perfectionism for visual/spatial learners is a well-ordered and -designed space with each object in its place and appealingly so.
They are uncomfortable, even restless, encountering incomplete or unsettled situations
• With an instinctive sense of balance and completeness
they can tell when something is out of alignment, or not truly horizontal or vertical.
They are adept at working with mirror images and rotating images in their minds, and strive to bring order by constructing, arranging, color coding, or fixing things
Observing/experiencing:
• Visual/spatial learners are good at seeing the “big picture”
of both simple and complex systems. Overviews or summaries are their specialty, often at the expense of remembering details or constructing sequences
• Personal presentation (dress, grooming, even gestures) is important
Their own presentation/dress is as important as what they notice about others. They establish eye contact when speaking, though can be distracted by their surroundings. So also background sounds can disrupt their listening skills, and they often doodle during lectures, at meetings, etc.
• They prefer to read and work under subdued or natural lighting
and in comfortable conditions, and are uncomofrtable with glare/harsh lighting, rough clothing, drafts, and temperature extremes
Learning strategies:
• Focus on the learning objectives of the class
Meet with the teacher to understand and apply these to your situation
• Request advanced organizers
to help you relate to new material with what you already know
• Look for opportunities to work with, manipulate and/or engage new material
o Hands-on approach manipulating forms or objects
o Using visual clues or landmarks rather than (verbal) sequential steps
• Look for visual/spatial dimensions in your study:
Example: geometry has more visual components than algebra in mathematics;
physics rather than chemistry in science;
graphic applications in computer science and technology fields;
studio arts in the creative arts, architecture, mechanics, aeronautics, engineering, urban planning
• Seek out independent and open-ended studies,
problem-based learning, case studies, or ways you can be more active with the material to be learned and have alternative strategies of assessment or demonstrating learning
Study habits
• Always have the "big picture" before you
especially when studying its parts or details
• When trying to remember things,
close your eyes to get a “picture” or image of the information to facilitate recall or use flash cards with limited information so that you can "picture" details and concepts
• Once a concept is grasped,
Practise applying the information to new situations or progressive stepped learning
in place of routine drill and practice that will challenge your attention span
• Use mind or concept maps (rather than outlines)
to organize writing assignments to visualize ideas, their connections, sequences, and conclusions
Brainstorm using illustrations, mind maps and models
• Look for alternative sources of visual material when you study
videos, overheads and PowerPoint demonstrations, graphs, maps, and media programs
Using technology:
• Take advantage of the visual elements
of the computer in studying or locating information
• Take advantage of stop/start/replay
in mediated programs
• Produce your own mediated programs
in place of written reports
• Develop and apply graphical and/or three dimensional models
to understand new material
For lectures
• Avoid visual distractions
in classroom seating (windows, open doorways, etc.)
• Look for opportunities to break up lectures
with reflective though active exercises (question-write-pair-share) and brain-storming sessions
• Illustrate your notes
with images and graphs
• Review and organize your notes after class
with concept maps
• Keep and organize a file of handouts
and summary documents after lectures for review
• Request "guided notes" or blanks in handouts
that provide you with cues for completion
Reading text books
• Look through titles, charts, graphs, and pictures
to get an overall idea of the content before reading a chapter
• Use color highlighers
to emphasize important material
• Write or illustrate in the margins
to emphasize important material
Test taking/assessment
• Write out/illustrate steps in a sequence
as a checklist to keep on task
• Think of visual cues and associations in remembering information
(You may also see the location of an answer rather than the answer itself!)
• If you are challenged by standardized and/or timed tests,
meet with your teacher to discuss alternatives for assessment
• Essay and/or short answer tests, or class presentations/demonstrations may be optional assessment techniques
Keep fighting. Keep dreaming. Keep loving.
Learning, for visual-spatial learners, takes place all at once, with large chunks of information grasped in intuitive leaps, rather than in the gradual accretion of isolated facts, small steps or habit patterns gained through practice. For example, they can learn all of the multiplication facts as a related set in a chart much easier and faster than memorizing each fact independently. The best way to determine whether or not you or another individual is a visual learner is to ask yourself or the other individual some simple questions. First, when you are checking over an essay that you have written, do you find it easy to just read over the essay again quietly to yourself? Secondly, when you have to learn something new, would you like to read the instructions before you do anything? Finally, when you are attempting to spell a word or understand a concept do you try to visualize that word or visualize an example of that concept? If the answer to all three of these questions is "yes," or if you find that you use visual aids in similar ways, there is a very good chance that you are a visual learner. But remember, people are not same. What is described here is merely a general collection of similar patterns found in individuals of again similar learning behavior. Have also in mind that nobody is 100% visual and 0% the others or vice-versa. What we have is a predominant style. However, it is totally possible to work out the other non-predominant two to try to equalize the three and thus become a more powerful learner.
You will find below some practical lists to help you perform better at school, work, a seminar, etc.
Organizing:
• The visual/spatial perspective is the organizing principle
Perfectionism for visual/spatial learners is a well-ordered and -designed space with each object in its place and appealingly so.
They are uncomfortable, even restless, encountering incomplete or unsettled situations
• With an instinctive sense of balance and completeness
they can tell when something is out of alignment, or not truly horizontal or vertical.
They are adept at working with mirror images and rotating images in their minds, and strive to bring order by constructing, arranging, color coding, or fixing things
Observing/experiencing:
• Visual/spatial learners are good at seeing the “big picture”
of both simple and complex systems. Overviews or summaries are their specialty, often at the expense of remembering details or constructing sequences
• Personal presentation (dress, grooming, even gestures) is important
Their own presentation/dress is as important as what they notice about others. They establish eye contact when speaking, though can be distracted by their surroundings. So also background sounds can disrupt their listening skills, and they often doodle during lectures, at meetings, etc.
• They prefer to read and work under subdued or natural lighting
and in comfortable conditions, and are uncomofrtable with glare/harsh lighting, rough clothing, drafts, and temperature extremes
Learning strategies:
• Focus on the learning objectives of the class
Meet with the teacher to understand and apply these to your situation
• Request advanced organizers
to help you relate to new material with what you already know
• Look for opportunities to work with, manipulate and/or engage new material
o Hands-on approach manipulating forms or objects
o Using visual clues or landmarks rather than (verbal) sequential steps
• Look for visual/spatial dimensions in your study:
Example: geometry has more visual components than algebra in mathematics;
physics rather than chemistry in science;
graphic applications in computer science and technology fields;
studio arts in the creative arts, architecture, mechanics, aeronautics, engineering, urban planning
• Seek out independent and open-ended studies,
problem-based learning, case studies, or ways you can be more active with the material to be learned and have alternative strategies of assessment or demonstrating learning
Study habits
• Always have the "big picture" before you
especially when studying its parts or details
• When trying to remember things,
close your eyes to get a “picture” or image of the information to facilitate recall or use flash cards with limited information so that you can "picture" details and concepts
• Once a concept is grasped,
Practise applying the information to new situations or progressive stepped learning
in place of routine drill and practice that will challenge your attention span
• Use mind or concept maps (rather than outlines)
to organize writing assignments to visualize ideas, their connections, sequences, and conclusions
Brainstorm using illustrations, mind maps and models
• Look for alternative sources of visual material when you study
videos, overheads and PowerPoint demonstrations, graphs, maps, and media programs
Using technology:
• Take advantage of the visual elements
of the computer in studying or locating information
• Take advantage of stop/start/replay
in mediated programs
• Produce your own mediated programs
in place of written reports
• Develop and apply graphical and/or three dimensional models
to understand new material
For lectures
• Avoid visual distractions
in classroom seating (windows, open doorways, etc.)
• Look for opportunities to break up lectures
with reflective though active exercises (question-write-pair-share) and brain-storming sessions
• Illustrate your notes
with images and graphs
• Review and organize your notes after class
with concept maps
• Keep and organize a file of handouts
and summary documents after lectures for review
• Request "guided notes" or blanks in handouts
that provide you with cues for completion
Reading text books
• Look through titles, charts, graphs, and pictures
to get an overall idea of the content before reading a chapter
• Use color highlighers
to emphasize important material
• Write or illustrate in the margins
to emphasize important material
Test taking/assessment
• Write out/illustrate steps in a sequence
as a checklist to keep on task
• Think of visual cues and associations in remembering information
(You may also see the location of an answer rather than the answer itself!)
• If you are challenged by standardized and/or timed tests,
meet with your teacher to discuss alternatives for assessment
• Essay and/or short answer tests, or class presentations/demonstrations may be optional assessment techniques
Keep fighting. Keep dreaming. Keep loving.
quinta-feira, 18 de junho de 2009
Persuasion
Persuasion
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity_(psychology), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance.
Persuasion is either the power for convincing people, the act of doing it or a set of beliefs, e.g.: The Catholic Persuasion, The Modernist Persuasion, etc. Anyway, as you can see, in the end it’s all about convincing other people that what you do or think is more appropriate to them. In other words, it is to “sell your mind” to another person or to many people. The price they pay is often respect, obedience, manpower and even money.
Now, persuasion is probably in our instincts and has attestedly been used ever since we keep record of History. The fine art of persuasion is called Rhetoric, which will be more properly addressed in a future article. In this one, we’ll take a look at certain tools that help us convince people. A finer analysis of such tools and some portions of History will come in the aforementioned article. Consider this one an introit.
Firstly, we need to know that we basically have two ‘fields’ in which persuasion takes place: reason and emotion. We also have the subconscious persuasion, which we will deal with later.
To be more straightforward about persuasion, let’s imagine you’re selling a product. Here you have two areas in which you can exert your persuasion: pragmatism and style. The first has to do with reason; the latter with emotions. If your product is both very usable and fashionable, your arguments should focus on whatever makes you listener more interested. Example: a car. If you’re selling a car which is both beautiful and economic, but your prospect client only ask questions regarding its engine, durability, fuel consumption, etc, forget the beauty and give him what he wants – it’s as simple as that.
Now, let’s imagine that your client opposes one or two things you say about the product. Here you have three options in two scenarios:
1) If your client doesn’t seem to trust or like you:
a. Agree with him/her openly but, as soon as you have a chance, say you will “present another perspective, which is very intelligent and surely will satisfy his level of intellectual sophistication”. Here you’re inflating the client’s ego. Remember this: the higher the ego, the lower the guard. However, never fawn. That doesn’t seem to work under such circumstances.
b. Back up your opinion with testimonials or insights from people whom your client probably likes. For example: the car dealer could convince you by making you imagine a weekend drive with all your beloved family members in this new comfortable car you’re about to buy or even by saying he had a talk with your manager (assuming he knows him), who highly praised the car’s “dependable stability”.
c. Give him a bonus which will make him feel special. For example: say he’s entitled to an extended test-drive. This will appease his discomfort and inflate his ego. And you remember the dynamics of ego: the higher it goes… Plus, you’re giving the client a tangible experience. People like this, especially Brazilians. Let him feel as if the car was his already. Let him choose the way, but always stay near, so that he associates this future pleasure with a couple of papers he has to sign.
2) If you client seems to trust you:
a. Put up an I-know-it-all face. People respect knowledge and expertise. If you don’t know much about the product or simply drew a blank, get a hold on whatever positive aspect which can impress your client in your opinion and apply the disguised redundancy technique: repeat it till exhaustion, but each time with a new facet exposed. For example: If the car is economic, say it clearly first, then the exact number of liters per kilometer it runs, then how much your uncle saved on a trip to the Northeast, then how much money will be left for different investments, then say it loud as if surprised, like: “My God, I think I’m gonna buy this car myself. It’s so economic!” Just remember to put some nice interval between the insertions to make sure it sounds natural.
b. Similarly to step number two in the previous scenario, use some testimonials or insights from people your client admires. People tend to rely on any external direction when in acute doubt.
c. Explore your client’s senses, namely, touch, taste, hearing, vision, smelling and intuition/imagination. In other words, have him start the car engine just to hear the roar, tell him to sit in the driver’s seat and feel the comfort of the wheel, let him smell the interior and, as soon as you have a chance, ask him whether he thinks he will be happier with the car (intuition) and to imagine a weekend drive with the family (imagination). The more senses you have working, the better.
Captatio Benevolentiae
Captatio Belevolentiae or, in English, “seizing of benevolence” is a rhetorical tool to ease you convincing. It consists of gaining the sympathy of your listening by using some psychological tools. Naturally, this tool is a complex one and would need a whole article to bring it to light more properly. However, it is possible to underline some techniques it supplies us with:
• Humor: Tell a joke or try to make the person laugh. Do it naturally and the person’s guard is guaranteed to lower.
• Pity: Tell him/her something sad about your life. Do it naturally and the person’s guard is guaranteed to lower.
• Be the friend: approach the person with warm informal language and a believe-me-I-am-your-friend look. Do it naturally and the person’s guard is guaranteed to lower.
• Swell his ego: before you do anything tell him how intelligent and sophisticated the people who have bought the product before were and extol the profile in which he will unconsciously fit himself in. Do it naturally and the person’s guard is guaranteed to lower.
These were just some outlines of the dense and complex topic persuasion is. In the future we’ll be developing parts of this article more thoroughly.
Fight the Good Fight.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity_(psychology), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance.
Persuasion is either the power for convincing people, the act of doing it or a set of beliefs, e.g.: The Catholic Persuasion, The Modernist Persuasion, etc. Anyway, as you can see, in the end it’s all about convincing other people that what you do or think is more appropriate to them. In other words, it is to “sell your mind” to another person or to many people. The price they pay is often respect, obedience, manpower and even money.
Now, persuasion is probably in our instincts and has attestedly been used ever since we keep record of History. The fine art of persuasion is called Rhetoric, which will be more properly addressed in a future article. In this one, we’ll take a look at certain tools that help us convince people. A finer analysis of such tools and some portions of History will come in the aforementioned article. Consider this one an introit.
Firstly, we need to know that we basically have two ‘fields’ in which persuasion takes place: reason and emotion. We also have the subconscious persuasion, which we will deal with later.
To be more straightforward about persuasion, let’s imagine you’re selling a product. Here you have two areas in which you can exert your persuasion: pragmatism and style. The first has to do with reason; the latter with emotions. If your product is both very usable and fashionable, your arguments should focus on whatever makes you listener more interested. Example: a car. If you’re selling a car which is both beautiful and economic, but your prospect client only ask questions regarding its engine, durability, fuel consumption, etc, forget the beauty and give him what he wants – it’s as simple as that.
Now, let’s imagine that your client opposes one or two things you say about the product. Here you have three options in two scenarios:
1) If your client doesn’t seem to trust or like you:
a. Agree with him/her openly but, as soon as you have a chance, say you will “present another perspective, which is very intelligent and surely will satisfy his level of intellectual sophistication”. Here you’re inflating the client’s ego. Remember this: the higher the ego, the lower the guard. However, never fawn. That doesn’t seem to work under such circumstances.
b. Back up your opinion with testimonials or insights from people whom your client probably likes. For example: the car dealer could convince you by making you imagine a weekend drive with all your beloved family members in this new comfortable car you’re about to buy or even by saying he had a talk with your manager (assuming he knows him), who highly praised the car’s “dependable stability”.
c. Give him a bonus which will make him feel special. For example: say he’s entitled to an extended test-drive. This will appease his discomfort and inflate his ego. And you remember the dynamics of ego: the higher it goes… Plus, you’re giving the client a tangible experience. People like this, especially Brazilians. Let him feel as if the car was his already. Let him choose the way, but always stay near, so that he associates this future pleasure with a couple of papers he has to sign.
2) If you client seems to trust you:
a. Put up an I-know-it-all face. People respect knowledge and expertise. If you don’t know much about the product or simply drew a blank, get a hold on whatever positive aspect which can impress your client in your opinion and apply the disguised redundancy technique: repeat it till exhaustion, but each time with a new facet exposed. For example: If the car is economic, say it clearly first, then the exact number of liters per kilometer it runs, then how much your uncle saved on a trip to the Northeast, then how much money will be left for different investments, then say it loud as if surprised, like: “My God, I think I’m gonna buy this car myself. It’s so economic!” Just remember to put some nice interval between the insertions to make sure it sounds natural.
b. Similarly to step number two in the previous scenario, use some testimonials or insights from people your client admires. People tend to rely on any external direction when in acute doubt.
c. Explore your client’s senses, namely, touch, taste, hearing, vision, smelling and intuition/imagination. In other words, have him start the car engine just to hear the roar, tell him to sit in the driver’s seat and feel the comfort of the wheel, let him smell the interior and, as soon as you have a chance, ask him whether he thinks he will be happier with the car (intuition) and to imagine a weekend drive with the family (imagination). The more senses you have working, the better.
Captatio Benevolentiae
Captatio Belevolentiae or, in English, “seizing of benevolence” is a rhetorical tool to ease you convincing. It consists of gaining the sympathy of your listening by using some psychological tools. Naturally, this tool is a complex one and would need a whole article to bring it to light more properly. However, it is possible to underline some techniques it supplies us with:
• Humor: Tell a joke or try to make the person laugh. Do it naturally and the person’s guard is guaranteed to lower.
• Pity: Tell him/her something sad about your life. Do it naturally and the person’s guard is guaranteed to lower.
• Be the friend: approach the person with warm informal language and a believe-me-I-am-your-friend look. Do it naturally and the person’s guard is guaranteed to lower.
• Swell his ego: before you do anything tell him how intelligent and sophisticated the people who have bought the product before were and extol the profile in which he will unconsciously fit himself in. Do it naturally and the person’s guard is guaranteed to lower.
These were just some outlines of the dense and complex topic persuasion is. In the future we’ll be developing parts of this article more thoroughly.
Fight the Good Fight.
terça-feira, 16 de junho de 2009
Kinesthetic Learning
Kinesthetic Learning
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesthetic_learning, http://www.learning-styles-online.com/style/physical-bodily-kinesthetic/, http://712educators.about.com/od/learningstyles/p/kinesthetic.htm, http://www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm, http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/tactile.htm, http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm, http://unsnews.com.br/unsteachers/post/25/learning-styles/, http://www.vaknlp.com/.
Being kinesthetic has to do with learning styles, namely, auditory, visual or kinesthetic.
Much has been said about issue and the roars grow higher as the topic goes capitalistic, i.e., money-yielding. However, what you need to know is that they offspring from years of serious researches on how people actually learn.
Before you read the rest of this article, which is faulty as many others due to the fact that it will make you think you are a little kinesthetic yourself, you need to know we are all kinesthetic, auditory and visual, I mean, we have the three styles, the difference is that each of us has a natural inclination towards one of them. This article will deal with the kinesthetic way.
Kinesthetic learning is when someone learns things from doing or being part of them. They make up about 15% of the population and struggle to pick things up by reading/ listening to things. Many people mistake themselves for kinesthetic/ tactile learners because they have not used the full variety of learning options, which means they cannot find the right learning state for them. The kinesthetic learner usually does well in things such as chemistry experiments, sporting activities, and acting. They also may listen to music while learning or studying. It is common for kinesthetic learners to focus on two different things at the same time. They will remember things by going back in their minds to what their body was doing. They also have very high hand-eye co-ordination and very quick receptors. They use phrases such as "I can see myself doing that" and "It's starting to come alive". You will find below some characteristics of the kinesthetic learner:
A Kinesthetic Learner Learns Best By:
• Doing, hands-on approach (manipulation, objects, simulations, live events)
• Physical involvement in learning
• Field trips to gain knowledge
• Small group discussion (2-3 in a group)
THE KINESTHETIC LEARNER LEARNS BEST BY DOING.
• Study in short blocks of time rather than extended periods.
• Take frequent breaks when studying.
• Change locations each time you take a break to help stretch your legs and give you a chance to move about when studying.
• Have as many experimental learning opportunities as possible, such as lab and studio courses, as opposed to straight lecture classes - if you have a choice.
• Consider building models or giving demonstrations to the class as opposed to more traditional written reports or term projects.
• When writing, jot down words whose spelling you're unsure of, to see if it "looks" correct.
• Utilize study groups.
• Role play/simulation
• Engage in field trips.
• Use memory techniques requiring movement - hand gestures.
• Engage in body demonstrations where a motion means a concept.
• Use flash cards.
• Make colored strips of paper that represent different concepts - link those papers together.
FACTS ABOUT THE KINESTHETIC LEARNER
Is A Natural At:
• Sports, dance
• Adventure, competition, challenge
• Running, jumping, leaping, rolling, swimming
• Action using large motor muscles
Studying/Reading Characteristics:
• Reads "how-to" books, such as carpentry
• Reads action-oriented books and plays
• Reads books, plays, articles that are brief
• Studies for short periods interspersed with moving around
• Lays on floor or bed to study
Difficulties in School:
• Having good interpersonal skills
• Having legible cursive handwriting - better with printing or keyboarding
• Sitting still; tend to fidget and need to move
• Listening to lectures more than four minutes
• Spelling
• Communicating without getting physically close to another person
• Recalling what is seen or heard - better at recalling what is done
• Expressing emotions without physical movement and gestures
• Sticking with one activity for a long period of time - best to enroll in courses that meet in one-hour blocks.
If the physical style is more like you, it’s likely that you use your body and sense of touch to learn about the world around you. It’s likely you like sports and exercise, and other physical activities such as gardening or woodworking. You like to think out issues, ideas and problems while you exercise. You would rather go for a run or walk if something is bothering you, rather than sitting at home.
You are more sensitive to the physical world around you. You notice and appreciate textures, for example in clothes or furniture. You like “getting your hands dirty,” or making models, or working out jigsaws.
You typically use larger hand gestures and other body language to communicate. You probably don’t mind getting up and dancing either, at least when the time is right. You either love the physical action of theme park rides, or they upset your inner body sense too much and so you avoid them altogether.
When you are learning a new skill or topic, you would prefer to “jump in” and play with the physical parts as soon as possible. You would prefer to pull an engine apart and put it back together, rather than reading or looking at diagrams about how it works.
The thought of sitting in a lecture listening to someone else talk is repulsive. In those circumstances, you fidget or can’t sit still for long. You want to get up and move around.
Common Pursuits and Phrases
Pursuits that involve the physical style include general physical work, mechanical, construction and repair work, sports and athletics, drama and dancing.
You may use phrases like these:
• That feels right to me.
• I can’t get a grip on this…
• Stay in touch.
• Get in touch with… • That doesn’t sit right with me.
• I have good feelings about this.
• My gut is telling me…
• I follow your drift.
Key Learning Methods for Kinesthetic Learners
Kinesthetic learners learn best through doing, including manipulating items, simulations, role plays and other methods that physically involve them in the learning process. They enjoy and learn well from experimenting and firsthand experience. Further, they learn best when activities are varied during a class period.
Ways to adapt your lecture or presentation
As mentioned above, people are not exclusively auditory, visual or kinesthetic – they have a learning bias towards at least one of these. So, when preparing a presentation or a lecture, make sure to vary activities or moments as much as possible. Variation and surprise do well with the kinesthetic learner and will ensure his attention for greater stretches of time. If possible, plan some “handwork” or “do-it-yourself” moment and be sure it will be the climax of your presentation.
Fight the good fight.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesthetic_learning, http://www.learning-styles-online.com/style/physical-bodily-kinesthetic/, http://712educators.about.com/od/learningstyles/p/kinesthetic.htm, http://www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm, http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/tactile.htm, http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm, http://unsnews.com.br/unsteachers/post/25/learning-styles/, http://www.vaknlp.com/.
Being kinesthetic has to do with learning styles, namely, auditory, visual or kinesthetic.
Much has been said about issue and the roars grow higher as the topic goes capitalistic, i.e., money-yielding. However, what you need to know is that they offspring from years of serious researches on how people actually learn.
Before you read the rest of this article, which is faulty as many others due to the fact that it will make you think you are a little kinesthetic yourself, you need to know we are all kinesthetic, auditory and visual, I mean, we have the three styles, the difference is that each of us has a natural inclination towards one of them. This article will deal with the kinesthetic way.
Kinesthetic learning is when someone learns things from doing or being part of them. They make up about 15% of the population and struggle to pick things up by reading/ listening to things. Many people mistake themselves for kinesthetic/ tactile learners because they have not used the full variety of learning options, which means they cannot find the right learning state for them. The kinesthetic learner usually does well in things such as chemistry experiments, sporting activities, and acting. They also may listen to music while learning or studying. It is common for kinesthetic learners to focus on two different things at the same time. They will remember things by going back in their minds to what their body was doing. They also have very high hand-eye co-ordination and very quick receptors. They use phrases such as "I can see myself doing that" and "It's starting to come alive". You will find below some characteristics of the kinesthetic learner:
A Kinesthetic Learner Learns Best By:
• Doing, hands-on approach (manipulation, objects, simulations, live events)
• Physical involvement in learning
• Field trips to gain knowledge
• Small group discussion (2-3 in a group)
THE KINESTHETIC LEARNER LEARNS BEST BY DOING.
• Study in short blocks of time rather than extended periods.
• Take frequent breaks when studying.
• Change locations each time you take a break to help stretch your legs and give you a chance to move about when studying.
• Have as many experimental learning opportunities as possible, such as lab and studio courses, as opposed to straight lecture classes - if you have a choice.
• Consider building models or giving demonstrations to the class as opposed to more traditional written reports or term projects.
• When writing, jot down words whose spelling you're unsure of, to see if it "looks" correct.
• Utilize study groups.
• Role play/simulation
• Engage in field trips.
• Use memory techniques requiring movement - hand gestures.
• Engage in body demonstrations where a motion means a concept.
• Use flash cards.
• Make colored strips of paper that represent different concepts - link those papers together.
FACTS ABOUT THE KINESTHETIC LEARNER
Is A Natural At:
• Sports, dance
• Adventure, competition, challenge
• Running, jumping, leaping, rolling, swimming
• Action using large motor muscles
Studying/Reading Characteristics:
• Reads "how-to" books, such as carpentry
• Reads action-oriented books and plays
• Reads books, plays, articles that are brief
• Studies for short periods interspersed with moving around
• Lays on floor or bed to study
Difficulties in School:
• Having good interpersonal skills
• Having legible cursive handwriting - better with printing or keyboarding
• Sitting still; tend to fidget and need to move
• Listening to lectures more than four minutes
• Spelling
• Communicating without getting physically close to another person
• Recalling what is seen or heard - better at recalling what is done
• Expressing emotions without physical movement and gestures
• Sticking with one activity for a long period of time - best to enroll in courses that meet in one-hour blocks.
If the physical style is more like you, it’s likely that you use your body and sense of touch to learn about the world around you. It’s likely you like sports and exercise, and other physical activities such as gardening or woodworking. You like to think out issues, ideas and problems while you exercise. You would rather go for a run or walk if something is bothering you, rather than sitting at home.
You are more sensitive to the physical world around you. You notice and appreciate textures, for example in clothes or furniture. You like “getting your hands dirty,” or making models, or working out jigsaws.
You typically use larger hand gestures and other body language to communicate. You probably don’t mind getting up and dancing either, at least when the time is right. You either love the physical action of theme park rides, or they upset your inner body sense too much and so you avoid them altogether.
When you are learning a new skill or topic, you would prefer to “jump in” and play with the physical parts as soon as possible. You would prefer to pull an engine apart and put it back together, rather than reading or looking at diagrams about how it works.
The thought of sitting in a lecture listening to someone else talk is repulsive. In those circumstances, you fidget or can’t sit still for long. You want to get up and move around.
Common Pursuits and Phrases
Pursuits that involve the physical style include general physical work, mechanical, construction and repair work, sports and athletics, drama and dancing.
You may use phrases like these:
• That feels right to me.
• I can’t get a grip on this…
• Stay in touch.
• Get in touch with… • That doesn’t sit right with me.
• I have good feelings about this.
• My gut is telling me…
• I follow your drift.
Key Learning Methods for Kinesthetic Learners
Kinesthetic learners learn best through doing, including manipulating items, simulations, role plays and other methods that physically involve them in the learning process. They enjoy and learn well from experimenting and firsthand experience. Further, they learn best when activities are varied during a class period.
Ways to adapt your lecture or presentation
As mentioned above, people are not exclusively auditory, visual or kinesthetic – they have a learning bias towards at least one of these. So, when preparing a presentation or a lecture, make sure to vary activities or moments as much as possible. Variation and surprise do well with the kinesthetic learner and will ensure his attention for greater stretches of time. If possible, plan some “handwork” or “do-it-yourself” moment and be sure it will be the climax of your presentation.
Fight the good fight.
Telephone Coaching
Telephone Coaching
Adapted and revised from: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Leadership/4198/Telephone-Coaching-Be-honest-to-yourself-and-your-client-What-do-you-need-to-do-and-know-about-telephone-coaching.html.
Telephone Coaching: Be honest to yourself and your client. What do you need to do and know about telephone coaching?
Contrary to The United States, telephone coaching is a rather new phenomenon in Europe. Most coaches still conduct only face-to-face sessions.
During mentor coaching and other coach services, one can encounter that most coaches do not really know how to prepare themselves or their clients for phone coaching. This article is based on training material.
What is coaching?
The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as: a partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
A PCC certified coach’s approach to coaching is based on the International Coach Federation (ICF) guidelines. His work with his clients is to support them in developing their leadership potential, starting from where they are now to where they want to be.
Why and when Telephone coaching?
Telephone coaching is coaching sessions carried out by phone. Usually it involves the coach and one client, but team phone coaching happens. However, one loses a lot of interaction and information.
Telephone coaching is a practical and cost effective way of coaching. It also allows the coach to build a coaching practice across borders, offering more coaching slots throughout the day and be more pro-client.
Problems:
• Lack of time;
• Fully booked agendas;
• Not knowing your client’s way of learning (auditive, kinesthetic or visual);
• Missing the face-to-face interaction;
• Not being able to look in your client’s eyes;
• Interruptions by third parties or surroundings;
Benefits:
• Any time during the day;
• Cost effective in: travelling, traffic and time;
• Choice of environment and make yourself at home, safe, comfortable;
• Shorter coaching sessions, once they consist of discussed points applicable immediately;
Coach: How to get ready?
The coach is in charge of managing the process and making sure the client is ready for the coaching session. The coach needs to understand how telephone coaching works and educate the client to take the time to get ready for each session.
Before you start the telephone coaching session:
• Make sure your surroundings know you are not to be disturbed;
• Switch the telephones off you are not using;
• Your coaching space (office) should be comfortable and calm;
• Clear your mind before you start getting ready;
• Take 5 to 10 minutes to look through your notes and plan the coaching session and be ready for your client;
• Block your time: 10 to 15 minutes before the call and about another 10 after the call (to make the notes);
• Be honest to yourself and your client: Take the time to prepare your space and your mind;
• Make sure your client has the telephone number he needs to dial in;
• Send a remainder of the call with needed information, including telephone number.
During the call:
• Greet your client in a calm way and ask how he/she has been doing;
• Exchange information like how has it been since last session, new things and find out what are the things the client wants to work on during this session;
• Ask your client to take a couple of deep breaths;
• Make sure the introduction is not longer than 10 minutes;
• Remind the client that everything said during the session is confidential;
Tell the client how much time you have for the session and check the client’s goals;
• Ask your client to draw you a picture of where they are: sitting place, computers, music, etc;
• If you have a feeling the client’s place is not adequate, see how you can change this: opening a window, switching telephones/computers off, turning the chair around, etc;
• Ask the client if his/her surroundings know: NO interruptions;
• Learn to “see” your client by visualizing him/her and listening to the words and intonation. Listening and powerful questioning are great tools to “see” your client;
• Develop empathy - reflective questioning and mirroring are tools you should master;
• Understand how YOU communicate;
• Know what kind of learner your client is: visual, kinesthetic or auditive;
• Adapt language to your client’s communication style;
• Keep building trust throughout the session;
• Check the agreements and goals the client wants to achieve. Remember that a common goal in mind will assure a good outcome;
• Stick to the agreed times. Preparation and wrapping up time should not be forgotten;
• If you can, record the call;
• Write phrases down and check with the client.
After the telephone session:
• Create a system to keep in touch: email, SMS, chat, etc;
• Share track performance with the client;
• Record successes;
• Spend some time in writing the important things of the session;
• Ask the client to send you an email with the agreements and goals.
Client: How to get ready?
Before the call:
•
Make sure your surroundings know you are not to be disturbed;
• Switch off telephones you are not using;
• Your coaching space should be comfortable and calm with a good and comfortable chair;
• Clear your mind before you start getting ready;
• Be honest to yourself and your coach: Make the time to prepare your space and your mind;
• Look at your notes, achievements and prepare question you want to ask;
• Think at the issues you want to discuss during the session.
During the call:
• Tell your coach how you are really feeling, only then can the coach support your needs;
• Trust your coach and keep building on your relationship;
• Keep agreed times. Call in on time;
• Commit yourself only to the things you are going to do;
• Do not drink any alcohol before or during the coaching session;
• Demand your coach to be ready and in a good coaching environment.
After the call:
•
Take some minutes to ground yourself and reflect on the session;
• Take notes if necessary;
• Plan your actions and how best apply them.
Tools you can use to improve your (telephone) coaching services:
Learning styles:
People use different ways to learn and communicate. As a coach you need to know as much as you can about learning styles. The internet is full of tests, assessments you can use to help your clients understand how they learn, communicate and how they can improve their communication skills.
When working with your clients through the telephone you lose part of your visual support. When knowing how your client communicates you will be able to understand how he/she concentrates and learns, then you can adapt your communication skills to better support them.
There are three basic ways people learn and communicate:
1) Visual people need to see pictures or "see it in writing". You often see these people frantically taking notes or mind mapping in meetings and seminars. They generally use words and phrases such as, "This is how I see it," "look at it this way," or "I think I'm getting the picture."
2) Auditory people learn by hearing. They often listen to entire lectures or presentations without taking any notes. They generally like to ask, "How does this sound?" "Can we discuss this?" or "Are you hearing me?"
3) Kinesthetic people think in terms of sensations or feeling. They often move their hands as they talk, and respond physically as well as verbally. They like phrases such as, "How does this feel to you?" "I'm comfortable with that idea," or "Are you aware of this?"
Technology
When telephone coaching, make sure the technology you are using is reliable and that you get acquainted with the system before you start coaching. Otherwise, things can go terribly wrong.
Nowadays technology gives you a range of choices:
• Telephone;
• Videophone;
• Skype;
• MSN;
• E-coaching services.
Telephone:
There is a range of telephones you can choose from. Make sure you buy something that feels good to you. If you are good with technology, complicated systems might be the thing for you, but do not give in to the temptation of buying them if you think a simple telephone with a hands-free is right for you. The internet is full with information about telephones and how to use them.
Try not to call using mobiles (cell phones) for coaching sessions as you might have a lot of interference.
Videophone:
You can use this system to interact with your clients seeing them. Both of you will need the same device.
Skype and MSN:
The internet is full of chat systems where you can see, write and talk to clients. Some will allow the recording of the sessions. These systems need to be used with a computer and a headset (or speakers and a microphone, which is not recommended because of the possibility of echo). Both parties need the same program and each of them a user id.
E-coaching services:
There are some companies which have developed IT programs where the coach can communicate with the client through a coaching platform. This system is quite new and offers many new possibilities. Be careful when purchasing the system as people have complained that they are not 100% secure.
Fight the good fight.
Adapted and revised from: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Leadership/4198/Telephone-Coaching-Be-honest-to-yourself-and-your-client-What-do-you-need-to-do-and-know-about-telephone-coaching.html.
Telephone Coaching: Be honest to yourself and your client. What do you need to do and know about telephone coaching?
Contrary to The United States, telephone coaching is a rather new phenomenon in Europe. Most coaches still conduct only face-to-face sessions.
During mentor coaching and other coach services, one can encounter that most coaches do not really know how to prepare themselves or their clients for phone coaching. This article is based on training material.
What is coaching?
The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as: a partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
A PCC certified coach’s approach to coaching is based on the International Coach Federation (ICF) guidelines. His work with his clients is to support them in developing their leadership potential, starting from where they are now to where they want to be.
Why and when Telephone coaching?
Telephone coaching is coaching sessions carried out by phone. Usually it involves the coach and one client, but team phone coaching happens. However, one loses a lot of interaction and information.
Telephone coaching is a practical and cost effective way of coaching. It also allows the coach to build a coaching practice across borders, offering more coaching slots throughout the day and be more pro-client.
Problems:
• Lack of time;
• Fully booked agendas;
• Not knowing your client’s way of learning (auditive, kinesthetic or visual);
• Missing the face-to-face interaction;
• Not being able to look in your client’s eyes;
• Interruptions by third parties or surroundings;
Benefits:
• Any time during the day;
• Cost effective in: travelling, traffic and time;
• Choice of environment and make yourself at home, safe, comfortable;
• Shorter coaching sessions, once they consist of discussed points applicable immediately;
Coach: How to get ready?
The coach is in charge of managing the process and making sure the client is ready for the coaching session. The coach needs to understand how telephone coaching works and educate the client to take the time to get ready for each session.
Before you start the telephone coaching session:
• Make sure your surroundings know you are not to be disturbed;
• Switch the telephones off you are not using;
• Your coaching space (office) should be comfortable and calm;
• Clear your mind before you start getting ready;
• Take 5 to 10 minutes to look through your notes and plan the coaching session and be ready for your client;
• Block your time: 10 to 15 minutes before the call and about another 10 after the call (to make the notes);
• Be honest to yourself and your client: Take the time to prepare your space and your mind;
• Make sure your client has the telephone number he needs to dial in;
• Send a remainder of the call with needed information, including telephone number.
During the call:
• Greet your client in a calm way and ask how he/she has been doing;
• Exchange information like how has it been since last session, new things and find out what are the things the client wants to work on during this session;
• Ask your client to take a couple of deep breaths;
• Make sure the introduction is not longer than 10 minutes;
• Remind the client that everything said during the session is confidential;
Tell the client how much time you have for the session and check the client’s goals;
• Ask your client to draw you a picture of where they are: sitting place, computers, music, etc;
• If you have a feeling the client’s place is not adequate, see how you can change this: opening a window, switching telephones/computers off, turning the chair around, etc;
• Ask the client if his/her surroundings know: NO interruptions;
• Learn to “see” your client by visualizing him/her and listening to the words and intonation. Listening and powerful questioning are great tools to “see” your client;
• Develop empathy - reflective questioning and mirroring are tools you should master;
• Understand how YOU communicate;
• Know what kind of learner your client is: visual, kinesthetic or auditive;
• Adapt language to your client’s communication style;
• Keep building trust throughout the session;
• Check the agreements and goals the client wants to achieve. Remember that a common goal in mind will assure a good outcome;
• Stick to the agreed times. Preparation and wrapping up time should not be forgotten;
• If you can, record the call;
• Write phrases down and check with the client.
After the telephone session:
• Create a system to keep in touch: email, SMS, chat, etc;
• Share track performance with the client;
• Record successes;
• Spend some time in writing the important things of the session;
• Ask the client to send you an email with the agreements and goals.
Client: How to get ready?
Before the call:
•
Make sure your surroundings know you are not to be disturbed;
• Switch off telephones you are not using;
• Your coaching space should be comfortable and calm with a good and comfortable chair;
• Clear your mind before you start getting ready;
• Be honest to yourself and your coach: Make the time to prepare your space and your mind;
• Look at your notes, achievements and prepare question you want to ask;
• Think at the issues you want to discuss during the session.
During the call:
• Tell your coach how you are really feeling, only then can the coach support your needs;
• Trust your coach and keep building on your relationship;
• Keep agreed times. Call in on time;
• Commit yourself only to the things you are going to do;
• Do not drink any alcohol before or during the coaching session;
• Demand your coach to be ready and in a good coaching environment.
After the call:
•
Take some minutes to ground yourself and reflect on the session;
• Take notes if necessary;
• Plan your actions and how best apply them.
Tools you can use to improve your (telephone) coaching services:
Learning styles:
People use different ways to learn and communicate. As a coach you need to know as much as you can about learning styles. The internet is full of tests, assessments you can use to help your clients understand how they learn, communicate and how they can improve their communication skills.
When working with your clients through the telephone you lose part of your visual support. When knowing how your client communicates you will be able to understand how he/she concentrates and learns, then you can adapt your communication skills to better support them.
There are three basic ways people learn and communicate:
1) Visual people need to see pictures or "see it in writing". You often see these people frantically taking notes or mind mapping in meetings and seminars. They generally use words and phrases such as, "This is how I see it," "look at it this way," or "I think I'm getting the picture."
2) Auditory people learn by hearing. They often listen to entire lectures or presentations without taking any notes. They generally like to ask, "How does this sound?" "Can we discuss this?" or "Are you hearing me?"
3) Kinesthetic people think in terms of sensations or feeling. They often move their hands as they talk, and respond physically as well as verbally. They like phrases such as, "How does this feel to you?" "I'm comfortable with that idea," or "Are you aware of this?"
Technology
When telephone coaching, make sure the technology you are using is reliable and that you get acquainted with the system before you start coaching. Otherwise, things can go terribly wrong.
Nowadays technology gives you a range of choices:
• Telephone;
• Videophone;
• Skype;
• MSN;
• E-coaching services.
Telephone:
There is a range of telephones you can choose from. Make sure you buy something that feels good to you. If you are good with technology, complicated systems might be the thing for you, but do not give in to the temptation of buying them if you think a simple telephone with a hands-free is right for you. The internet is full with information about telephones and how to use them.
Try not to call using mobiles (cell phones) for coaching sessions as you might have a lot of interference.
Videophone:
You can use this system to interact with your clients seeing them. Both of you will need the same device.
Skype and MSN:
The internet is full of chat systems where you can see, write and talk to clients. Some will allow the recording of the sessions. These systems need to be used with a computer and a headset (or speakers and a microphone, which is not recommended because of the possibility of echo). Both parties need the same program and each of them a user id.
E-coaching services:
There are some companies which have developed IT programs where the coach can communicate with the client through a coaching platform. This system is quite new and offers many new possibilities. Be careful when purchasing the system as people have complained that they are not 100% secure.
Fight the good fight.
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