Our first task for this MOOC is to talk about a successful and unsuccessful learning experience and highlight the conditions that contributed to their outcomes.
Frankly speaking, a learning experience is just that: an experience. What we do with that learning can lead to success or to failure. Not wanting to philosophize, but even when we find ourselves in a situation that favors very little our preferred learning styles, there is something we can take away from it.
For instance, I remember when I get a fat round zero in a 3rd-year Maths test. I attended one of the leading secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago, Queen's Royal College. This school took pride in its academic tradition of grooming skilled and civic-minded professionals.
One of the ways this was implemented was to group students into four classes according to their academic performance. I formed part of the class considered "the brightest", so a zero was unimaginable and shameful for a student of my caliber.
Initially the mark shook me, but it instilled in me the understanding that a mark or grade is not a legacy written in permanent ink. I had a chance to learn how I could learn better.
In very broad terms, I am a social and linguistic learner: building rapport is my shtick and languages are my forté. Learning memories inevitably takes me back to my scouting days and my church life, where music, teamwork and creativity came in one big package.
