Learning styles

I've come across a couple of interesting (to me, at any rate) quizzes on learning styles - hat-tip to my blogging friend Richard Fairhead at God-Word-Think: Learning styles:

Why is a Sunday church meeting so screwy to me? I have been looking at learning styles and done a couple of inventories:

Unlike Richard, I don't relate them to Sunday church meetings, because I don't regard those meetings as primarly educational. I don't go to church to learn things, or to be entertained, but to worship. But there are educational gatherings and events, and so it is quite interesting to know this stuff.

• www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html
• www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/

For the first, mine says:

Results for: Steve Hayes ACT X REF 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> SEN X INT 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> VIS X VRB 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- --> SEQ X GLO 11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11 <-- -->

If your score on a scale is 1-3, you are fairly well balanced on the two dimensions of that scale. If your score on a scale is 5-7, you have a moderate preference for one dimension of the scale and will learn more easily in a teaching environment which favors that dimension. If your score on a scale is 9-11, you have a very strong preference for one dimension of the scale. You may have real difficulty learning in an environment which does not support that preference. The scales are: ACTIVE AND REFLECTIVE LEARNERS Active learners tend to retain and understand information best by doing something active with it--discussing or applying it or explaining it to others. Reflective learners prefer to think about it quietly first. "Let's try it out and see how it works" is an active learner's phrase; "Let's think it through first" is the reflective learner's response. Active learners tend to like group work more than reflective learners, who prefer working alone. Sitting through lectures without getting to do anything physical but take notes is hard for both learning types, but particularly hard for active learners. SENSING AND INTUITIVE LEARNERS Sensing learners tend to like learning facts, intuitive learners often prefer discovering possibilities and relationships. Sensors often like solving problems by well-established methods and dislike complications and surprises; intuitors like innovation and dislike repetition. Sensors are more likely than intuitors to resent being tested on material that has not been explicitly covered in class. Sensors tend to be patient with details and good at memorizing facts and doing hands-on (laboratory) work; intuitors may be better at grasping new concepts and are often more comfortable than sensors with abstractions and mathematical formulations. Sensors tend to be more practical and careful than intuitors; intuitors tend to work faster and to be more innovative than sensors. Sensors don't like courses that have no apparent connection to the real world; intuitors don't like "plug-and-chug" courses that involve a lot of memorization and routine calculations. VISUAL AND VERBAL LEARNERS Visual learners remember best what they see--pictures, diagrams, flow charts, time lines, films, and demonstrations. Verbal learners get more out of words--written and spoken explanations. Everyone learns more when information is presented both visually and verbally. SEQUENTIAL AND GLOBAL LEARNERS Sequential learners tend to gain understanding in linear steps, with each step following logically from the previous one. Global learners tend to learn in large jumps, absorbing material almost randomly without seeing connections, and then suddenly "getting it." Sequential learners tend to follow logical stepwise paths in finding solutions; global learners may be able to solve complex problems quickly or put things together in novel ways once they have grasped the big picture, but they may have difficulty explaining how they did it. The ones that seem to be most pronounced in me are the Intuitive and Global styles, which I suppose goes along with being INTP on the Myers-Briggs scale. What gives me most pause for thought about this, though, is that when I've marked student assignments in the past, I probably have had a bias towards the Intuitive/Global students, and tended to give them higher marks than the Sensing and Sequential learners. How much is that my bias, or perhaps a bias that the subject (Missiology) requires? Perhaps I have a sub-conscious feeling that the Sensing and Sequential learners should be learning to make tables or something. And for the other quiz, my result was Memletic Learning Styles Graph:

Taking your political temperature redux

Some time ago I did a couple of political quizzes -- see Notes from underground: Taking your political temperature. I noted that there were two quizzes available -- a well-designed one called Political Compass, and a very badly designed one called Political Spectrum.

Thanks to The Anger of a Quiet Man I recently revisited the Political Spectrum Quiz - Your Political Label quiz, and found that though some questions had been revised, they were still badly worded, and far more biased and tendentious than those on the Political Compass one, or else they were vague and ambiguous.

Take this question, for example:

50. A person's morality is of the most personal nature; therefore government should have no involvement in moral questions or promote moral behaviors.
Disagree strongly
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Agree strongly
How much does this issue matter? A lot A little

This implies that the entire criminal justice system should be abolished. If someone steals from me, I should not call the police, but rather hire a private detective to catch the thief, and bring a private prosecution if the thief is found, to avoid involvement of the government in such "most personal" matters.

And it also implies that the government should not even promote moral behaviours among its own employees -- if civil servants take bribes, for example, that is "of the most personal nature", and therefore nothing to do with the government. Is this a serious question?

But it gets worse:

22. It is wrong to enforce moral behavior through the law because this infringes upon an individual's freedom.
Disagree strongly
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Agree strongly
How much does this issue matter? A lot A little

What exactly does it mean?

It implies that I shouldn't even bring a private prosecution if someone steals from me, because even if the government is not involved, the law itself will "infringe upon" [sic] the thief's freedom.

I presume that indicating agreement with these in the quiz would show that one was on the libertarian end of the spectrum, but the second question, especially, implies that libertarians are not merely anarchist, but antinomian as well.

Well, perhaps that is what the designers of the quiz intended, but I still think that the quiz is badly designed, biased and tendentious. If you want a better way to compare your political views with those of others, The Political Compass still wins hands down.

Happiness is ...

I've been tagged with another meme, well an award actually, but I'm not sure what it's being awarded for.


It's the "tree of Happiness" award, and I've been tagged by Aquila ka Hecate.

First, the rules of the award:

• Link to the person who gave the award to you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• List six things that make you happy.
• Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
• Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
• Let the person who awarded you know when your entry is up.

Six things that make me happy, or perhaps that have made me happy in the past.

1. Riding a horse over the veld on a cool misty overcast day and having hand licked by my dog
   
2. The kindness of friends, those I love.
3. The kindness of strangers.
4. Mozart's 39th symphony.
5. Good company and conversation.
6. Pascha, and St John Chrysostom's homily on the same.

As for who to tag, well, there's Bruce Alderman, NFM, James Higham, Crushed by Ingsoc, Omnash, and Bishop Alan.

Memories, or not, as the case may be

Thanks to Quaker Pagan Reflections: Memories and Not for this meme...

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now (even if we don't speak often or have never met), please post a comment with a completely made up, fictional memory of you and me.

It can be anything you want - good or bad - but it has to be fake.

When you're finished, post this little paragraph in your blog and see what your friends come up with...

The atheism meme

Hat-tip to Elizaphanian for this one.

Q1. How would you define “atheism”?

Being without God or gods

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

No, my parents were atheist/agnostic.

Q3. How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?

Dunno.

Q4. What scientific endeavor really excites you?

Alternative energy sources

Q5. If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why?

Give them a better sense of intellectual history, especially Christian intellectual history (ditto from Elizaphanian).

Q6. If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?

You can't do it unless you're called, and if you're called you can't do anything else (ditto).

Q7. What’s your favorite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

I don't have any favourite theistic arguments (ditto).

Q8. What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

er... bearing in mind where I'm coming at this from, probably that God=meaning (ditto).

Q9. Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

Since I've never heard of Dennett, I'll pick him. He can't be worse than the other three, though I admit that I might think better of them if it weren't for their admirers ("There is no god, and Sam Harris is his prophet")

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

Anyone who believes in the God that atheists don't believe in.

Tagged!

I was tagged by The Western Confucian.

The rules are:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about himself.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

What was I doing 10 years ago:
Visiting Greece and Bulgaria to do research for my doctoral thesis on "Orthodox mission methods".

Five things on my To Do List today:
1. Write journal article on Orthodox ecclesiology in Africa
2. Write paper on witchcraft & sorcery for ASRSA conference
3. Go to bank to sort out problem with credit card
4. Get lubricant for locks
5. Get fish to eat on Palm Sunday

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• Take a trip driving from Vladivostok to St Petersburg
• Build churches in Mamelodi and Tembisa where we now worship in classrooms
• Build community centres next to the churches for ministry to widows & orphans, job skill training etc

Three of my bad habits:
1. Blogging.
2. Procrastinating
3. Disorganized desk.

Five places I’ve lived:
1. Durban, KZN
2. Windhoek, Namibia
3. Melmoth, KZN
4. Johannesburg
5. Tshwane, Gauteng

Five jobs I’ve had:
1. Bus conductor
2. Bus driver
3. Proof reader
4. Theology teacher
5. Editor of academic texts

Five books I’ve recently read:
1. Beckett, Simon. 2007. The chemistry of death.
2. Rimington, Stella. 2007. Secret asset.
3. Bruen, Ken. 2007. Priest.
4. Baroja, Julio Caro. 1964. The world of the witches.
5. Reichs, Kathy. 2005. Grave secrets.

The five I tagged:

• Digitaldion
• r0g3r
• Tauratinzwe
• Fr Justin
• Fr John d'Alton

10-20-30

I’ve been tagged for the 10-20-30 meme by Matt Stone. It has to do with what you were doing 10, 20, and 30 years ago. My story?

10 years ago

Sunday, 26 October 1997

We went to Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Annunciation. They had moved back into the church, and the new ikons by Maria Manetta were beautiful. They seemed to glow with a light of their own.

That was from my journal. The Church of the Annunciation in Pretoria is the biggest Orthodox temple in the Southern Hemisphere, and Maria Manetta was an ikonographer from Greece who had just finished installing new ikons in the dome, and while the church was filled with scaffolding services were held in the hall (hence "moved back into the church".

I was working at the Editorial Department of the University of South Africa, and was also working on my doctorate in Missiology. Our daughter Bridget had just gone to study theology in Greece (10 years later she's still there, working on her masters).

20 years ago

Monday, 26 October 1987
I went to work by car, and read Orthodoxy and the religion of the future, which seemed to regard the charismatic movement as demonic and pagan, as Ann d'Amico does. In the afternoon I left work early and went past Bishop's House, and lent Rich Kraft some of my Foghorn magazines, about Osborne computers. He said Pete & Isobel Beukes were staying with them, and were thinking of coming to work in Pretoria. I went to Makro, where I hoped to be able to buy a cheap microwave oven, but they were all sold out. I bought some envelopes and a tin of coffee instead. We had letters from Theophilus Ngubane and Nora Pearson. Theophilus said that several clergy were leaving Zululand diocese, including the new dean, Father Kow. It sounded quite sad. In the evening I took Bridget to the junior school choir at DSG.

That was my journal entry. Rich Kraft was the Anglican bishop of Pretoria, whom I had known for many years, since he had been university chaplain when I was a student. Pete Beukes was an Anglican priest from Zululand as was Theophilus Ngubane, and Pete's wife Isobel had been a fellow-student with me at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. DSG was St Mary's Diocesan School for Girls in Pretoria, where our daughter Bridget was in Standard III (Grade 5).

I was working in the Editorial Department at the University of South Africa, and we were about to be received into the Orthodox Church (on 8 November).

30 years ago

Wednesday 26 October 1977

Someone phoned from the Archbishop's office in Bishopscourt, saying that Cathy Thomas, of the Daily News, was asking what was happening with the SB and the church in Utrecht. I explained that the papers had published half the story, in relation to the opening of my letter to Lawrence Wood by the Department of the Interior, and so I thought they should have the full story, at least as far as I knew it, to keep the record straight. I also had a letter today from the Secretary for the Interior, saying that my application for the renewal of my passport had not been successful. The letter was dated 7 October, and thus after my letter to Lawrence Wood had been opened by the Department of the Interior, so I can only conclude that if one wants a passport, one does not write to opposition members of parliament. I sent a photostat of the letter from the Secretary for the Interior to Lawrence Wood for his information, but felt that he would not do much, as there is to be a general election at the end of November, and he will not be standing, but will be stepping down for his son Nigel, who will stand for the New Republic Party in his place. I don't think the New Republic Party stands much of a chance in the election. They are too new as a party, and will not have had time to get themselves organised. Wynand Rautenbach is the local leader in Melmoth, and Doris Leitch is also involved, but they did not seem to be at all well organised, and the announcement of the general election had obviously caught them on the wrong foot.

I had recently moved from Utrecht to Melmoth in Zululand, where I was Rector of All Saints Anglican Church, and Director of Training for Ministry in the Anglican Diocese of Zululand. What had happened in Utrecht was that one of our churches had been closed at gunpoint my a Mr Klingenberg of Commondale, who owned the land on which the church stood, apparently at the behest of the Security Police, who had also hired a Mocambiquan refugee to spy on us. Lawrence Wood was an opposition MP for Berea, formerly of the United Party, which had just become the New Republic Party, and was virtually wiped out in the elections, and it disappeared from the political scene soon afterwards.

I tag Dion, David and the Young Fogey.

An Insomniac: How logical are you?

You Are Incredibly Logical

Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic You think rationally, clearly, and quickly. A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

Hat tip to An Insomniac: How logical are you? for this one.

And, as Insomniac notes, "Although, quite how logical it is to feel validated by an Internet quiz set-up by some anonymous person is open to debate..."

The moaning meme

The Freelance Cynic complains that most memes that circulate in the blogosphere are about things that people like -- your favourite book, movie, or whatever. But if you overheard conversations on the bus or in public places, they are usually complaining -- about the weather, politics, other people's habits and so on. One of the major aids to social bonding is moaning, grumbling and so on.

And so the Freelance Cynic has come up with the Moaning Meme.

I'm not doing it here, because:

1. I haven't been tagged
2. I do enough moaning anyway, I don't need more encouragement.

So I mention it just as a social phenomenon.

Orthodox Christian blogs

Matt Stone in Australia asked about Orthodox Christian blogs, and asked for people to compile a list. Sally Coleman in England took it up (I was going to say "The UK", but after the Scottish elections I'm not sure how much longer it will last).

Here's the meme:

Can anyone recommend some good Orthodox Christian blogs? I have been searching around and come up with a couple, but I'm looking for more to broaden my horizons.

What I thought might be a cool idea, in the interests of ecumenism, is to create a meme to help aggregate some of the best Orthodox blogs together.

To participate, simply copy the list you'll find below into a post on your own blog, add 3-5 blogs to the bottom of the list and note the country of origin. Preference should be given to Orthodox bloggers that demonstrate an ecumenical spirit, that is, who engage with folk beyond their own immediate tradition. Encourage others to do the same. Oh, and the aim is get as a wide cross section as possible, so I am looking for a variety of traditions - Coptic, Greek, Russian - from a variety of countries and not just your own.

The list could get long but that's basically the point of the exercise. When you’ve done all the above, leave a trackback or comment below, or link to this post, so I can keep track of who ends up being recommended.

Matt & Sally's list is:
Notes from Underground
Strannik
Orthodox Monk
Ancient Faith Radio
Glory to God for All Things

Though two of them don't really seem to be blogs.

I'll repeat my comment to Matt: My nominations would the the same as 4 out of 5 of my nominations for the "Thinking Blogger Award" at Notes from underground: Thinking blogger award, and I see you already have one of them.

But here they are again:

• The Scrivener - Sympathy for the befuddled, the bookish & the believing
• Glory to God for all things - Life, journey of faith, Orthodox Christianity and religion in culture.
  
• Notes from a commonplace book - Common-place Book: n. a book in which common-places, or notable or striking passages are noted; a book in which things especially to be remembered or referred to are recorded.
• +Seraphim's Journal - an amazing collections of thoughts and jottings inspired by literature, art, places and friends, by an Orthodox bishop

Matt asks for a trackback, but I've found it difficult to get trackbacks to Typepad blogs to work, but I'll try to link to it here and here. But if those don't work, this should.

Anyway, if you know of any good Orthodox Christian blogs not listed above, please let Matt know.

Thinking blogger award

A deacon by the grace of God has tagged me for a Thinking Blogger Award which means that I have to tag five other blogs that make me think. One difficulty is that many of my blogging friends have already been tagged for this, so I'll have to think quite hard to find someone who hasn't been tagged already.

First, the Rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think;
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme;
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

Now, the Blogs (in random order):

• Circle of pneuma - Reflections on life, spiritual growth, spiritual dialogue, spirited action on today's pressing issues, and challenging complacent conformist consumerist forms of Christianity.
• The Scrivener - Sympathy for the befuddled, the bookish & the believing
• Glory to God for all things - Life, journey of faith, Orthodox Christianity and religion in culture.
  
• Notes from a commonplace book - Common-place Book: n. a book in which common-places, or notable or striking passages are noted; a book in which things especially to be remembered or referred to are recorded.
• +Seraphim's Journal - an amazing collections of thoughts and jottings inspired by literature, art, places and friends, by an Orthodox bishop
  

Like the originator of the meme, I find MyBlogLog useful for keeping contact with blogs that make me think, so I also challenge those I've nominated to join MyBlogLog if they haven't already done so! You can see how it works in the "Recent Readers" widget in the sidebar on the right.

Hippies

This is the kind of thing I usually post in my LiveJournal, but since I haven't been able to think of much to say here recently, I thought I'd post it here as well.

, you're now logged in!

Below you'll find your test result. After, continue on to your
homescreen to discover what we're about.

continue to OkCupid homescreen >

Faerie-Child You are 40% experimental, 31% feral, 54% spiritual, and 10% square!

Well done! You're a faerie-child. You always stand out from the crowd by the way you dress, but unlike the Feral, not by the way you smell (unless it's the smell of sandalwood, jasmine, and ylang ylang). You're not particularly into free love and mind-expanding substances, but you are a free spirit, who believes that there really are magick and miracles in the world. The hippie world needs you because you bring a little magic into their lives. If you believe that opposites attract, you probably find yourself around Ferals. If you are more inclined to enjoy the company of those with similar attitudes, then other Faerie-children, as well as the Alternate, Neopagan, and Mystic are for you. The other categories are Raver, Treehugger, Ful-blown Hippie and of course, the Non-hippie

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on experimental You scored higher than 99% on feral You scored higher than 99% on spiritual You scored higher than 99% on non-hippie

Link: The what kind of hippie are you Test written by pragmaticdreams on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test