In looking back over my formal education, I have always been a good student. I have, however, not always enjoyed the learning process. I adapted well to the demands traditional school placed upon me and developed systems of reading, note-taking and writing that earned approval from teachers. I placed intense pressure on myself to prove my value through student performance. This included reading everything assigned, taking notes in an organized outline format, memorizing, and writing and rewriting essays until they seemed nearly perfect. Now, thirty years beyond my last seminary class, I enter the educational experience at a much different place. Enthusiastic about incorporating new information in and through my current context, as well as stepping outside my context to appreciate the input of other people around the globe, I look forward to adopting new practices and trying new tools.<\/p>\n
I am especially intrigued with the note-taking approach presented by S\u00f6nke Ahrens in How to Take Smart Notes, <\/em>which is based on Niklas Luhmann\u2019s reading and note-taking routine.\u00a0 I love new ideas and having a place to store insights and information in a way that results in the creation of additional concepts poses an attractive challenge. I have already started my slip-box! My dilemma now is whether to stay with pen, note cards, and a tangible box, or to move to online storage. I can see the advantage of using a program such as Obsidian. In his presentation at the 2018 New Crafts conference, Ahrens noted the value of searching key words in an online notes program, and conversely, mentioned the difficulty of remembering all topics in the hand-created system. One may not be able to use Luhmann\u2019s approach to its full potential if focusing solely on hand-written notes, though Luhmann, himself, seemed to do quite well. I will contemplate this trade-off and decide on a note-taking, idea-generating system that works well for me.<\/p>\n Regarding my reading and writing skills, I enjoy both practices, especially when I have large blocks of time in which to work. I prefer to read every word and digest the material fully. Given as we will not have abundant time to explore each book on our reading list for the DLGP 707 course, I look forward to improving my ability to use various reading approaches for specific resources. How to Read a Book<\/em>, by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, offers helpful options to use in acquiring needed information. Specifically, I plan to improve my skills in analytical and syntopical reading.<\/p>\n Having not written academically for many years, I am in need of fine-tuning and orienting to current writing formats. I plan to improve my skills through newly gathered insights from reading material, peers, and faculty, as well as through practice! I desire my writing to flow out of the broad context of my life.<\/p>\n I enter this semester eager to learn and ready to improve my reading, note-taking, and essay writing abilities. I am thankful for our DLGP01 community and look forward to all we will learn, with God\u2019s guidance. Let the second-year journey begin!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In looking back over my formal education, I have always been a good student. I have, however, not always enjoyed the learning process. I adapted well to the demands traditional school placed upon me and developed systems of reading, note-taking and writing that earned approval from teachers. I placed intense pressure on myself to prove […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28655"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28660,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28655\/revisions\/28660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}