By: Megan Prats

3/3/2015

The other day, a student of mine said that she felt, “overwhelmed,” with her learning. Her comment did not surprise me as the 2learn® Method throws the student into the infinite realm of knowledge from the first lesson, which is an environment that, because of its immense size, can be overwhelming. However, because learning is truly infinite, compartmentalizing learning unrealistically will do the student an injustice as she seeks to apply her learning outside of the lessons. So instead of presenting the material to the student in a boxed way so that she doesn’t feel overwhelmed, present it to her organically and if she feels overwhelmed with it, help her organize it.

Organization is key in order for the student to be able to pull the right substance, or fact, for the appropriate questions. For instance, my student was working on verbs in Spanish in the past tense and was getting the conjugations for the preterite and imperfect confused. For instance, she’d say that a verb would be in the preterite but conjugate it in the imperfect. Because she didn’t have the fact organized, the answer did not communicate that which she wanted it to. In addition, she was applying the rules for the preterite vs. imperfect to ser and estar and confusing her tenses. Because the information was not organized appropriately in her brain, she could not solve problems accurately. Thus, I gave her a homework assignment to organize the information.

For the homework, my student was to take each main topic that we covered and summarize it. Thus, she prepared an “outline” of all of the main concepts that we learned to the present date. Putting the fact into its appropriate category takes information from freely flowing through the student’s mind and puts it in a specific section of the infinite realm of knowledge. When the student does this, she no longer feels so overwhelmed as the information that she can consider to solve the problem is “limited”. These spaces in the student’s mind are like wallless containers as even though separation exists in the infinite realm of knowledge, all of it is connected in some way, shape, or fashion.

So, if you are in a lesson and you see that the student is justifying her answers based on unrelated fact, it is probably time to organize the student’s brain. Thus, in accordance with the customized curriculum, provide the student an activity that has the student organize her thoughts for herself. Thus, it can be an outline like I provided my student, or it can be a recording, or a video, etc. It is imperative that the student organize the information for herself as this is an important skill for the student to develop. If the student struggles in this process, you can assist her by maybe giving her some main topics to start off with. Then allow the student to fill in the details.

Organization promotes efficiency as if the student knows where to retrieve the appropriate fact in her mind, she can find it quickly. When the student’s mind is cluttered with information, the student has to wander through it to find what she needs. Also, organization helps the student improve her accuracy in problem-solving. Therefore, good problem-solving as the 2learn® Method delivers is enhanced when the student’s mind is organized. Thus, when you start to see clutter in the student’s brain, its time for you to organize it.

© Megan Prats 2015