How Do You Learn?

As an education major I've had many opportunities to take personality and learning style tests. One that I've taken a time or two can be found here. A couple days ago my sister-in-law took the test and posted the results to her blog and then asked her readers to do the same. I figured it had been awhile since taking this particular test and I couldn't remember my results exactly anyhow, so I took it again.


Owen wanted in on the action too.

It's amazing how different we are in terms of interpersonal and linguistics, huh? Yet we function very well together. I guess it's true what people say about opposites.

One I've noticed about my learning style over the years is that it is constantly changing. For example, my interpersonal learning is quickly dwindling (I'm actually surprised that it came out so high today -- probably because I had a three-hour social situation today and it tends to be higher after having positive social encounter -- for me, at least). I used to be quite the social butterfly, but I'm noticing that the older I get, the more I prefer to be by myself reading a book or doing some other individual activity. Some of my activities even cross over, like crafting, but nine times out of ten I'll choose to do them on my own (I work faster that way; other people cause distractions).

Another thing that surprises me about today's results are my mathematics level. Usually it is much higher, around the mid-forties. I suppose this could easily be attributed to my current school situation. I'm taking a math methods course (where we learn methods for effectively teaching math as opposed to the lousy ways 99% of us were taught in school) and I'm not exactly loving it. I really like the content; it is quite interesting, but the teacher and assignments...not so much. It's definitely put a bad taste in my mouth that will hopefully fade quickly.

Overall, this is one of the biggest reasons for choosing to not send my kids to public school (actually, thinking about...all my reasons for this are BIG reasons). It seems no matter what research comes out, or how well teachers are taught, they all revert to the same ol' rote teaching methods that work for a few students but are definitely not the best ways of teaching and fail to meet the needs of most children. In fact, most private schools are equally as horrible, but instead, the parents get to pay for the lousy education! That's just my two cents on that matter. Isn't it great that we live in a free country where we can choose where we send our kids to school?! I'm sure glad I get to make that choice, at least!