I've taken the personal thinking style quiz twice now and both times my dominant thinking style was Abstract Sequential. A somewhat close second was Concrete Random, which is interesting since these are at opposite ends of the spectrum. One has only to look at the words themselves and see this. Abstract refers to the ability to think of ideas and concepts beyond what can be gleaned concretely from the five senses. Sequential suggests an orderly step by step progression of ideas as opposed to a random, impulsive, or scattered approach.
After doing a bit of reading on the two styles I think there is definitely some validity to both of these learning styles, and I think that it describes me pretty well with a few exceptions. Here are some highlights based on what I've experienced so far at DBC and life in general.
I have often noted this paradox about my life, even before DBC. I frequently find that I can be incredibly impulsive about my decisions in life, even if they are major decisions, and yet sometimes I agonize over the tiniest, inconsequential decision. Up and move to South Carolina to teach 7th grade English in an impoverished area? Sure! Why not? Pork tacos or pecan crusted walleye? Ummm...give me a few minutes...
In the context of DBC I find this playing out sometimes when I pair. Occasionally I get very quiet, because I am analyzing how we should solve a particular problem or mulling over a suggestion from my pair. On the flip side, sometimes I just decide to give it a shot and see what happens, even if I'm skeptic that the solution will work.
This is a big one for me. My need to work alone dates back to gradeschool. I think I internally groaned just about every time I had to work with other people on a project because I was always that hard-working student who shouldered the load. And I think I was kind of ok with that because I wanted to do well, and I also wanted to be better than everyone else. Sometimes I would get angry if someone was not doing their part and sometimes they weren't doing their part because I was doing it for them, and both parties were ok with that trade.
When I got to college I found that I had to learn how to work with others in a different way because I was no longer the smartest kid in the room. I also had to learn to temper my competitiveness as well. As an athlete, I grew up being hyper-competitive...like flip the monopoly board competitive...and I'm still learning how to cope with that now that I'm retired from competitive sports.
This is an ongoing struggle for me at DBC. I know that everyone brings different experiences to the table and different knowledge bases, so working with a team can be incredibly fruitful since you always learn a trick or two from everyone you work with. I have to fight the tendency to work in isolation, and I noticed this a lot in the first week. I was really struggling but I did not want to post to the DBC site on google plus because in some strange way it would make me look weak in my mind. As time has gone on I have learned to just push my vulnerabilities aside and put myself out there because chances are very great that someone else is also struggling with the same thing.
I still have a tendency to want to have the best project or the best website because I'm competitive and a perfectionist. I don't think that this is inherently a bad thing, I just have to be continually aware of it so that it does not control my learning outcomes and my sense of self-worth.
Not all the characteristics of these two thinking styles are mutually exclusive. They have some striking similiarites as well that I think are very relevant to my life.
Both thinking styles despise repetition and rigid environments. I think first and foremost, despising repetition in a field that equally despises repetition and encourages laziness is a good thing. I'm always finding ways to reuse code that I have already written, or refactor code to simplify things.
My dislike of all things formal and rigid is actually a large part of why I left my career as a teacher. I think my position was exacerbated by working in a large district, but I often found it nearly impossible to get anything done because there was so much red-tape and so many rules and regulations to block me. In general, anything that involves beauracracy enrages me, and I can totally see why in CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters he envisioned the devil's minions as beauracrats. For example, trying to register a vehicle that I bought in South Carolina at the Michigan Secretary of State required no less than 3 days of my time and a Herculean effort on my behalf. Why?...South Carolina is an electronic title state and Michigan is a paper title state and they refuse to cooperate. I've never wanted to drop-kick a kitten more in my life.
The final highlight I wanted to make stuck out to me for perhaps the first time in an alarming way during my time so far at DBC. According to Gregorc's Learning Styles, Abstract Sequential learners have a hard time when little time is given to explore a subject thoroughly. This has definitely been true with my time on the curriculum so far. I have struggled with the feeling that we are moving too fast and covering too much ground in Phase 0. To me it feels a mile wide and an inch deep, and I'm more of a mile deep, inch wide kind of guy. It definitely puts me out of my comfort zone because I do everything 100% and so far I feel like I'm just exploring a lot of basics to get a foundatin in programming. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely has me on my toes.
With al that in mind, I know going forward that I need to work diligently to be more patient in group projects and be more open to working with others. I also know that I tend to be less productive when I don't have a routine imposed upon me, and that I need to be more deliberate in giving myself a routine when none is provided for me. I have been working to take care of myself better mentally by carving out time to relax, eat, run, and generally de-stress so that I don't experience some of my usual pitfalls of impatience and frustration. I'm looking forward to being on site at DBC because I know these areas will really grow in a much more structured and social environment.
Coming Soon!
Copyright Jordan M. Schreuder 2014