My Learning Profile: Improving the Body of Knowledge - Essay Example

My Learning Profile: Improving the Body of Knowledge Learning is a process and it is usually geared towards improving the body of knowledge about a particular subject area or issue we are interested in. Basically, learning is comprised of different stages which we must familiarize ourselves with in order to gain the much needed knowledge. As such, in this prompt I am going to reflect on my learning profile. In this paper, I will specifically discuss the major changes that I have witnessed from my learning experience. I will also discuss the measures that I can implement in order to improve my learning experience in a bid to generate the much needed knowledge. With the rapid expansion of education, an increasing number of people are concerned about how to gain knowledge perfectly. Although some people claim that the most important factor is based on the teacher, I however, strongly believe that understanding the threshold concept and the troublesome knowledge would be more significant. This forms the basic conceptual framework for understanding topics related to mathematics. As a freshman in UW undergraduate program, I have decided to major in applied mathematics for my next four years. I have some experience which has helped me to understand the threshold concept. Starting with my interest in mathematics, it boomed exponentially in my junior year of my high school life when I took the Calculus ABC class. For example, my teacher Sam Calavitta taught us to visualize instead of memorizing during the third period of the first day in school. Soon after, he said that he would like to give us the trig quiz which asked about the answer of Sin 11π over 6. He also mentioned that we should try to answer each question in three seconds. More importantly, he presented all questions in PowerPoint form which meant that once you missed one question, then all of your following answers would be considered wrong since they would not be matching the order. At the beginning of this class, I thought it was kind of destroying my GPA. However, I was thinking about the lesson he taught me not to memorize, but visualize. I started to visualize, thinking the answers in the rectangular coordinate system. Therefore, for the function of Sin, it would be a positive answer if it is in the first and second quadrant. With this knowledge, it is easy to get the other trig functions. It is like I have crossed the threshold concept since then. Before, I was stuck by the trig quiz and the trig questions in the exam. However, once I get the operation of Trig, I easily understand everything. While he set the rule like if you get an A in the final, then, all the tests you would have previously taken would be bound to an A. Thanks to this rule, my GPA is no longer that bad in math section. To me as a learner, I thought it is more important to understand the threshold concept first than just let it go. I have realized that as a learner, it is more important to understand a concept rather than memorizing it. In theory and in practice, it is easy to apply a concept from your own knowledge to a particular situation that may be real. Understanding a concept is advantageous in that it will help you to visualize it whenever you encounter a scenario that requires its application. To that effect, I have significantly developed a positive interest in mathematics. Although my intended major is applied mathematics, I also enjoy physics a lot. To me, there is numerous troublesome knowledge in physics. One of them is like the term “Work.” When I learnt physics, I found that it was difficult for me to understand the term “Work”. Personally, I did not understand why people sometimes worked and sometimes did not. For instance, if I walked from the Mechanical Engineering Building to Safeway, I considered that I have not worked. When, I walked back to the place I originally started the process, in that case, I considered myself that I have performed some work. However, when I combined the two processes together, I would have done zero work. It sounds ridiculous because I was actually doing work while my teacher said I was not. I almost dropped my physics B class until I learnt the word “Displacement.” I suddenly understood the whole concept. In physics, work is equal to the force multiplied by displacement. So, if I consider the time period when I just walked to the Safeway, I would not have worked but if I put a period in between and start a new situation, which would be walking back to MEB, then I would have worked. Nevertheless, if I consider these two different time periods as a whole, I did zero work since the displacement is zero. In that case, work is no longer the troublesome knowledge for me. Yet, things are not always going the way that I expect, there are still lots of troublesome knowledge in the field of Physics that I have lost. Therefore, for me as a learner, I realized that such barriers always exist no matter in English or Physics. What I need to overcome is that I should never give up and try to work the threshold concept and the troublesome knowledge out so that things would never go out of my control. To a larger extent, I have come to understand that somehow, there is a correlation between the threshold concept and troublesome knowledge. These two are related in that they are designed to solve a mathematical or scientific problem. Without their knowledge, it may be quite difficult to solve a certain problem related to the envisaged problem. Over and above, it can be noted that the learning process is aided by the teacher though the student plays a significant role. Acquiring knowledge in a particular subject requires deep understanding about that area and this can be achieved through visualizing certain concepts such as the threshold concept and troublesome knowledge rather than memorizing them. This has significantly helped me as a learner to generate in-depth knowledge about the areas of interest in my studies. Read More