Think about your experience and history as a learner. What story can you tell? Write about your disconnections with learning (the things that cause you grief, create barriers, impede your progress as a learner). Then, write about the tensions and excitements associate with learning. Use specific examples when possible to illustrate your meaning.

It has been my experience that I learn best when I am doing somehting instead of being told something. As my vark inventory indicated, I am not a very auditory learner. I mostly am visual and kinesthetic in my learning and if I write something I remember it well. I think this is because I'm actively doing something and not just because I'm writing (I think Mrs. McComas said the same thing). I have always had to do things for myself. I remember as a child I always and I mean excessively asked "why" all of the time. Even though someone would tell me "why" I would always have to find it out for myself (I don't know, I was a pretty weird kid at times). I have a story to illustrate this kind of learning pattern that I have carried into my adult life:

When I was a kid, I used to play around with liquid stuff (you know, Clorox, different cleaning supplies, drinks, and pretty much anything we had around the house). Now, my parents were great parents and I was a *pretty* good kid. I would never drink these things (I wasn't stupid--just weird) and my parents knew that I was smart enough not to drink these things so they just let me pour stuff into cups and glasses and I would mix stuff together to see if I could get something to bubble or turn a funny color--you know, sort of a homemade chemistry set. Most of the time, my mom would be right next to me or in the next room. Anyway, she usually knew what I was doing.

One day I was mixing a couple of things together in those little dixie cups in the bathroom. I think I tried to mix Drano and Clorox. My mom yelled in the bathroom and said, "Heather, what are you doing in there?" I told her that I was "playin'" and so she came in there like any mother would to see what I was doing. She was always reading the labels on these products so she would have a good idea about what would be safe and what would not be safe to mix. Well, it just so happened that somehow she knew that mixing Drano with Clorox Bleach may cause a toxic gas of some sort (DON"T TRY THIS AT HOME KIDS!!) that could make you really sick. So she saw that I was going to mix these and told me not to. "WHY?", I asked. She replied with, "Because those can't go together. The'll make you sick if you breathe them"(or something like that). When I was sure she had left, I mixed them anyway. About ten minutes later, I had one mother of a headache and I felt like my nose was on fire and it wouldn't stop running. My eyes watered like I was crying and it made me physically sick to my stomach (the smell). Nothing serious came out of that, although that ended my at-home chemistry experiments for good. I think it may have been worth it--I had to find out for myself.

The point is this: I am a very independent person. I have to do things on my own and I have always felt the need to explore things for myself. I am an ACTIVE LEARNER. This is how I learn, by basically being taught something by teachers, my family, and the people around me, but it's the going out and applying what I have been taught or exploring what I have been taught on my own. It just works for me--always has, always will.

For me, the things that impede upon my learning are things like memorizing vocabulary words--you can't do anything with this, it's rather worthless because you don't know a concept until you actually do something with it (use it meaningfully). Also, I don't like to be told to do anything. Like I said before, I'm pretty independent, so I like to formulate my own little projects that can help me to learn. I think that in the past (and recently too), when I have been told that I have to do a certain assignment (particualrly if it's something I couldn't care less about like, history) I view this as adversive and just a big waste of my time. However, I feel that if teachers and professors allowed students to bring ideas to the table for possible assignments(which is what many of my professors do), then students may actually begin to like the learning process. One thing's for sure, they would feel more a part of their own learning processes and feel more responsible for what they have learned. They would also enjoy learning more than before.

I get excitement from the fact that I can actually say I am an active learner. To me, an active learner knows what they know and they know it well. These are the people you ask a question to and they can not only tell you about it, but they can relate it to other things and give you examples of it. They can tell you their experiences that often relate to the topic at hand. I'm excited to know that I can do this with certain things and certain topics.

I also like it when I hear someone talking about something maybe a little technical or overhear a somewhat intellectual conversation and I actually know what they are talking about. I never say anything (don't want to come off as a know-it-all) but I'm quietly thinking to myself, "Hey, I know what that is. I read about that and then said/did/used that with someone/something." There's something very self-serving about knowing, and knowing that you know.

Heather