gear_up.md

Reflection to Reading and Video

• What efforts do you make to manage your learning process? Are those efforts successful? What challenges have inhibited your ability to manage your learning process effectively? The efforts that I make to manage my learning process are to maximize my exposure to a topic that I am trying to learn and then break that topic down in to smaller more manageable pieces. I then take those smaller pieces and try to gain an understanding of them by conducting research and practicing the techniques that are shown. The challenges I run in to, especially when learning something new, is trusting the credibility of the sources that I find online, Teaching myself something new is not my preffered method of learning, I prefer to learn from someone that is a subject matter expert in a face to face setting.
• How do Sierra's and Coate's material relate to your current process for learning? Both Sierra and Coate bring up very important points. Sierra states that one of the best ways to build mastery in a topic is by breaking that topic down in to smaller more manageable pieces. This is something that I try to practice when learning something new. However, at the same time, what Coate brought up in the article is that one's emotional and mental state of mind have an effect on someone's ability to learn. When I try to practice breaking a topic down in to smaller pieces, if I'm having a rough day mentally, it feels like I have to work at least twice as hard to begin understanding anything.
• What role does your emotional state of mind play in your learning? How do your successes and failures at learning affect your emotional state? My emotional state of mind plays a large role in my ability to learn. This is especially true after my time in service as I know suffer from PTSD. DUe to this, I am sometimes forced to use a larger amount of coginitive resources to bring myself back, or keep myself in a state of mind that is conducive to my learning or general state of mind. This can at times be offset when I am successful at learning something new though, the feeling of accomplishment brings a sense of excitement that drives me to push harder and further. The failures however, they can at times have different effects. One effect that they have is the feeling of hopelessness or despair, another feeling that can come of is a feeling of determination. My goal is to have my failures give me a feeling of determination to get better.
• How will you prepare yourself to be at your best with your learning process while at Turing? The way that I will prepare myself to be at my best while at Turing is by taking the following steps. I need to maintain and when necessary, improve my emotional state of mind. I plan on doing this by staying in communication with my family. I am moving myself from New York to Colorado and my wife and kids are staying in New York. I will need to make time to facetime my family every day as they are my central support group. I will also create and maintain connections with the students and staff at Turing. THis will be beneficial by creating a community of individuals that are able to relate to eachother, and by creating an environment of understanding and where we as a group share our knowledge and help eachother.