Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Methods used to get the most out of learning style to be successful learners

 As suspected, based on the Learning Style Inventory Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), I learn more through visual and tactile preference.

Since I was a child, I am more intrigue in learning through visual aids in front of me. I get excited whenever my parents were putting drawings in our small black board at home; my father set-up a black board at home as his way of teaching us at home. I can retain more information that way and I can still vividly recall some of the learning experience I have had during my kindergarten class; those clay moulding still sticks in me.

Fast forward to my apprenticeship in a power plant, I prefer and learn more if am to write down all the specific data, set points, alarms and logic diagram in a small notebook, and then browsing it every now and then for reference, eventually memorising it by heart. I still have those commissioning records from about 15 years ago written in a small pocketbook.

Most of the time, I can easily explain certain scenarios involving my job as a power plant controller by using visual aids, drawings, and piping and instrument diagrams (P&ID) to my colleagues and managers. I can easily visualise what’s on the field through process flow diagrams and learn from actual tracing those process flow diagrams in the field rather than someone explaining it to me verbally.

In my technical background in power plant, where a lot of technical aspects should be learned and heaps of parameters need to be known by heart, I find it helpful to use highlight items for easy referencing. This technique works also in the Piping and Instrument Diagrams (P&ID) wherein common practise in the field is to highlight valves and instrumentation that needs to be isolated or closed for maintenance to proceed with their troubleshooting. As a common practise in my field as well is to double check all relevant isolation before and after maintenance to avoid incidents and accidents.

In an engineering background, colour coding is a legislation as part of a code in designs and specifications. As an Engineer, we are trained to follow certain sets of colour coding in all aspects of civil, electrical, mechanical, architecture, and instrumentation. (AS1100)

I am equally interested to read books or magazines if the visual representation or cover are of good design; colourful and vibrant, this really gets my attention. I am aware as well that I am good in solving puzzles, it challenges me in a way that I will really put a lot of attention on it, or even spend a lot of my time cracking it. Board games attracts me as well, particularly chess. There are a lot of moves that is almost not the same as previous games of chess, but all moves are pre-destined already.

In this day, with all the advancement we have made in the field of education, there are really a lot of facets that will help us improve our learning curves. With the generation of internet, YouTube, and the influx of knowledge-based influencers, we can almost always learn from them by simply accessing social medias and find things that interests you. One clicks of a button, and you are all set to explore your imagination.

 

Reference

AS 1100.101-1992 Technical drawing - General principles (saiglobal.com)

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A Son Never Forgets

Before moving to Australia in 2014, I spent a decade working in the Middle East, from 2004 to 2014. I held the position of Lead Power Contro...