Drawing from Memory

The goal for this week's blog was to chose an image of a stranger and draw a picture of the person from my memory. This was much tougher challenge than I had anticipated since I've never been good at drawing, especially drawing faces, and picking a stranger made me wonder what type of person I would be most comfortable drawing. I did look through my classmate's drawings and found them very helpful - I avoid pictures with more than one person and one picture reminded me of a beard growing contest so I chose one of those images.

The proportions in my drawing are completely wrong but I had concentrated on the image of the beard and the top hat with less emphasis on the person's face. Luckily the picture was focused on the person and his beard, so I did not remember the background at all. I should have centered my drawing a little more and the beard doesn't look as thick in my drawing but overall I was able to remember the basics.

I draw the outline of the image quite quickly, knowing that my memory would lose some of the details quickly, and then I went back and added some color and filled in the image a little more. It still looks like a stick figure but overall it's not too bad, considering my serious lack of drawing skills.

I had also decided to use markers to draw the picture instead of using pencil so that I'd be forced to outline the drawing and was not able to go back and second guess myself by erasing some areas and trying to perfect them. This also forced me to concentrate on the details first and accept them as they had already been drawn. I wish the details of the beard were more accurate and the face has very little detail. The suit coat and body part of the drawing has more detail than actually present in the photo, my memory filled in those areas based on men's clothing in general. So I missed several details and added in a few extra ones, overall an accurate depiction as described in our textbook of my short term memory. (Although I felt better about my drawing before I uploaded the pictures and placed them next to one another.)

Memories

Post a reflection on how you have evolved as a learner from high school to graduate school. What strategies or methods did you use to encode and retrieve information from your long-term memory. Did your learning strategies and methods change over the years?

Describe two or more techniques that you would like to incorporate as a graduate student to help you learn effectively.

This question should be an easy one to answer, how do I study, but I'm having a hard time with it. Also posted this week was the question about trying to remember a source and if I ever forget where I learned anything. Right now I'm forgetting how I got through undergrad school. For me, the question depends on which degree, since I have two and they are very different. The first one was history, and in those classes I had to go to class and take notes, review the notes, and the repetition helped me learn how to answer essay questions.

The second undergrad degree was similar to a graphic design degree and those classes forced me to be creative and create something new for the final, I had to prove my knowledge by learning the software and showing my progress through a creative outlet and project. I often needed to clear out my brain so the creativity would work.

Lately I've been taking more classes that are abstract in thought and I've needed to research my answers and form a coherent answer - very similar to my first degree, but the essay questions are more focused so my answers need to be less abstract. Recently I took a class that only used multiple choice questions and I found myself hating the class since they often used trick questions, two answers very much alike but only one of them is absolutely correct, according to the textbook.

Overall, I'd have to say that keeping my information organized has worked the best for me. Reading the material, taking notes by hand, and reviewing the material often helped the repetition and I'd remember that way. I've tried taking notes on my computer but it doesn't work as well for me. I focus on the typing and spelling/grammar, but I'd lose some of the information in the process - or the computer wouldn't work that day and technical frustration is the only thing that was successful.

Complex sentences and visual clues do not work for me. I used to study with the radio on or a football game, but now I get more done when the TV is off. The TV serves as a clock, so if I spent an hour reading something I would notice the time passing because one episode had played and I'd feel like I wasn't getting enough done in the short time I had given myself.

My learning style has changed, but the past few semesters have required a lot of cramming. I learn enough at the time, but overall I was so stressed about the due date that I didn't retain as much information as I had hoped. Having surgery in the middle of one semester did not help at all, it took even more time for my body to recover and after that I still had to get my mind back into focus again. Now I'm trying to get things done before the due date, even though that has not worked this past week.

I have noticed that the Fall semester feels more stressful than the Spring semester due to an absence of a Spring Break, or any time off. The Fall semester feels like a marathon until Thanksgiving, I take a short breath, and then I'm sprinting until the end of the semester since Finals are only a few weeks later and then by Christmas I am ready to sleep for at least a week. Usually I will go out of town for Christmas but this past year I didn't since it was too stressful to plan ahead and once I was done with school I was too exhausted.

Staying in shape would be a better option for me, physically and mentally, better time management helps, and avoiding distractions. Then again, knowing that I'm almost done with my class work (being able to see the finish line) has also helped. It sounds easy and basic, but forcing myself to take baby steps has been a challenge. My classes used to meet in person, so I'd have constant updates and reminders that would keep me on track. Now my classes are online so I have to remember to pace myself and keep track of due dates and how long an assignment will take me to finish.