Failures in learning & front and (center?)

Early post? Yup indeed. I'm going to be driving go karts and shooting peeps with lazers later tonight and so yeah. Early.

Let's start with numbers. These all come from Promoting Active Learning by Meyers and Jones.

-While teachers are lecturing students aren't attending to what's being said 40% of the time.
-In the first 10 minutes, students retain 70% of the info
-In the last 10 minutes, students retain 20% of the info

Well damn. That sucks. So what do we do? Mix it up.

I was talking to Mel and she's an extremist on this one. She thinks 'unschooling' might be effective. The premise [Alt + Shift] is that people are far better at learning things that they find interesting. Unschooling takes this to the extreme sand says "OK, we'll have some resources, but you figure out what you want to learn and how. Then do it." That's really intense. The idea sounds wonderful, but I'm more than a little skeptical about the pragmatic side of this sort of thing. How many people are truly motivated enough to push themselves hard? As hard as school pushes them? I think I could do it. But I'm not completely sure. And I tend to think highly of me in this regard. Learning on your own is hard. It's also often unbalanced. I think I might spend a disproportionate amount of time lifehacking and stuff or playing Smash. Oh wait. I do. All right so that's not the issue. The real question is one of content. Are certain topics really crucial to have mastered at a certain point in time? If they are, unschooling does not seem like the way to go.

That all being said, I guess this is my goal for the summer. I'm sure I'll whine about it when I'm in the middle of it. I have a lot I want to learn. By myself. Because I'm excited. I hope it works. /me crosses fingers

Interesting note about teachers paying attention. Evidently, teachers tend to neglect their dominant hand's side of the room. So if you want to be the center of the teachers attention, front and non-dominant or front and center are fine. But be wary of the front with weak hand.
Stikkits seem promising; I'm starting by using them to replace del.icio.us among other things...