For me, at least, it is really hard to set goals. Usually I just do stuff without having goals in mind, and I can see how that is detrimental to effective learning. I write things down in an effort to get them done, but for some reason things very rarely go according to plan.
I have found it easier to take responsibility for my own learning, even when it seems like an impossible idea. It was a really hard decision to make in high school when I was taking concurrent enrollment and distance ed courses. The second semester of my senior year my facilitator had me sign up for 21 credits worth of college classes, in addition to two high school classes I still needed to graduate. I managed to get "A's" in both the high school classes, but the college classes were a bit more trouble. I failed two out of the seven and that was definitely not my brightest moment. I ended up talking to both the professors to see if there was anything I could do to fix the mistakes I had made during the course of the classes. There wasn't, but I was able to take responsibility for my actions and my grades (I had friends who had their parents talking to teachers when their grades weren't high enough). It was hard to take responsibility for my classes, but it was something my parents always taught me to do. That's probably what made it a little bit easier.
I have a hard time viewing things as challenges rather than actual problems. I can eventually sort things out, but it takes time and patience that I don't always have. Time I've got, patience is a little harder to come by.
As far as confidence is goes i have very little. I have a lot when it comes to writing a decent English paper, but very little when it comes to anything else I happen to be doing. I've been told I learn quickly and I'm fairly easy to teach, but I don't have a lot of confidence when it comes to applying the knowledge I gain. It's something I've been working on for years, and I have improved in leaps and bounds. I'm just not quite there...yet.
I have managed to make technology work for me when it comes to learning and accomplishing projects. I guess that's one thing I am sort of confident about. I know how to use a computer, and I usually know how to find whatever I'm looking for in a search engine. That's one of the things my parents have spent a lot of time teaching me, how to find solutions to problems and answers to questions. Technology has been a big part of that for a very long time. I remember spending hours creating PowerPoint presentations and surfing Microsoft Encarta just to see what else I could do and what I could learn. Managing technology turned into a game and it's one I still play frequently. Maybe a little too frequently.
I'm not the best teacher. I can learn, I can experiment, but I have a hard time sharing what I know with others. I have this tendency to get easily frustrated with people when they ask me about things I know. I find myself thinking that if I know something, then they should know it too. I know that's not the way things work and it frustrates me a great deal when I know what I'm doing and someone else steps in to ask why or what. Like so many other things I struggle with, I have improved a great deal in recent years. I still lack some of the patience required to constantly explain my knowledge to others (that's the reason I'm not an English Ed major), but I expect that with practice all things will improve. Including my lack of confidence in my abilities and my lack of patience with others.
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