The last few months have been humbling as my rate of learning has increased.<\/p>\n
I am mentoring a young leader who introduced me to Obsidian in early 2023. I was intimidated at first but as I played with it, I grew to appreciate the ability to connect thoughts and ideas. I have a long way to go to manipulate the program and maximize its usefulness, but it is changing the way I think, write, and interact with ideas. I found myself wishing that I had this tool when I was younger. That’s the humbling part.<\/p>\n
However, I realized just how useful this tool will be for my DLGP when I read and interacted with Mortimer Adler\u2019s How to Read a Book<\/em>, Sonke Ahren\u2019s How to Take Smart Notes, <\/em>and The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking <\/em>by Paul and Elder. All of these books stirred up the same sense of wishing that I felt when I first used Obsidian. Where were these earlier in my life?<\/p>\n All that to say, my rate of learning has increased significantly. I find it invigorating because I love to learn. However, I also find it humbling because I wish I had learned it earlier.<\/p>\n First, I want to become a much more demanding reader. Even though I wrote synoptical reviews for my master\u2019s degree, I didn\u2019t take the kind of effective approach that Adler provides in his book. I realized I could have been much better equipped. However, now that I have read it, I have been practicing both inspectional and analytical reading. It\u2019s already making a noticeable difference in my speed, comprehension, and ability to articulate the ideas found in the books I\u2019ve been reading. Inspectional reading will help me to get a good enough grasp on the books and will help me to know where I should focus. I would like to grow to the point of being able to efficiently grasp the content of the book, articulate the main arguments in my own words, how I might assess each author, and how they relate to one another.<\/p>\n Secondly, I want to be able to build a \u201cslip box\u201d in Obsidian that can capture ideas and help me progress in my thinking as I write throughout this course. I have taken notes in the past, in notebooks and online, but have not built a robust system that helps me progress in my thinking. Most of my notes have been quotes, thoughts, stories and outlines that are disconnected from each other. I also keep a daily online journal in which I jot down a lot of thoughts. I plan to use Obsidian to practice the discipline of using fleeting notes, literary notes, and permanent notes so that I progress in thinking rather than just storing information. My goal will be to capture 3-5 notes per day five days per week.<\/p>\n Finally, Paul and Elder\u2019s book will help me to write in a way that reflects better critical thought. I have written many sermons, but academic writing requires a different skill set and voice. I believe that the \u201cElements of thought\u201d, and \u201cQuestions using the elements of thought\u201d will be helpful as I write academically. I plan to use these as I reflect on my writing and will seek feedback from my peers and project faculty.<\/p>\n Learning new things has been humbling but learning is also invigorating as I can begin to see how it transforms me and will also serve others well. Now, I need to buckle up my seatbelt and hang on, we\u2019re going faster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last few months have been humbling as my rate of learning has increased. I am mentoring a young leader who introduced me to Obsidian in early 2023. I was intimidated at first but as I played with it, I grew to appreciate the ability to connect thoughts and ideas. I have a long way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"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":[2970,2969,660],"class_list":["post-34709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arens","tag-dlgp3","tag-adler","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34709","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\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34709"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34777,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34709\/revisions\/34777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}