I have spent a great deal of my career teaching. Would it surprise you to learn that I am a terrible student? (or not be surprising at all?). I can't seem to pay attention in a classroom. I get too chatty, distracted, or I get too bored. I'm sociable, but learn best by self-study, which I learned in my freshman year of college. I even set a goal of staying awake through an entire lecture hall presentation. I met that goal only once or twice.

It even came to the point where one of my professors singled me out in a lecture hall of about 250 students, I still couldn't stay awake. The professor complained about his dislike of those sleeping in class, and I didn't hear him because I was asleep. Then, he shouted, "Like that guy right there!". I awoke, and he demanded that I come up to the front of the classroom. I was like, "Um, no" because he didn't know my name, and I knew I would say, "I'm sorry, Professor Enchanting" if he let me near the microphone. Too bad he didn't know my name, he would have found it amusing when he saw that I received the 1st or 2nd highest score on the his midterm.

Despite the good grade, it was still a significant flaw, and I'm not proud of it, but that story was pretty funny. I frequently heard it retold, as someone said, "Hey some kid got called out for sleeping in class in a huge lecture hall" and then I would laugh and say, "That was me!" (okay, I was a little proud of that one)

First step, identified my challenges. I frequently found a topic too simple or already knew it, and then I lost my engagement. And I'll admit that I had the problem of getting distracted by a cute girl and forgetting where I was. In the best of cases, I found a topic too engaging and lost myself thinking about it. Regardless of the distraction, I noted a common theme that I typically drifted somewhere between too easy and too complicated.

So you ask, how did I score so high on the midterm? Well, that one is a lousy example because I didn't study. I'm a pretty good test taker, and it was also a bit of luck. In most cases, it came down to productive cramming. I'll give one funny example: in my dorm one night, I had insomnia due to too much caffeine preparing for Spanish class. To induce sleep, I picked up my supplementary calculus book (Calc 2) and figured it was a guaranteed sleeping pill, just like the lectures. I looked at the textbook and wondered if I had wasted $120 for it, as it had remained unopened for the first month of school. I randomly opened it and got stuck on an example problem that I didn't understand. It bothered me that I could memorize the solution but didn't understand it. I began questioning my math ability, so I started working through other book problems and internalizing them. Finally, this particular problem "clicked," and I had a Eureka moment. At that point, I realized I had completed every example in the book and that it was 7 am and almost time to leave for a chem lab, followed by my Spanish exam. I was exhausted, but I got an A.

More importantly, I didn't need to study again for calc 2. I scored perfect or better on the next three calculus exams despite sleeping in class. In a funny twist, the final exam had the EXACT problem that I had obsessed over. I wrote the 3-page answer from memory, earning 50 out of 100 points. I finished the respective semesters with a 3.8 and a 4.0 (I got an A/B in an elective. Damned bell curve!).

I grew aware of my inability to learn in a typical environment. Particularly, I focused on the common boundaries that people face when learning. I learned to identify where I got lost and then taught myself those parts in a cram session. In time, I found it was often the place others got lost, and I subsequently became a pretty good tutor. Plus, I found that I learned best when teaching and grew an aptitude for pedagogy, especially identifying the exact point where people "get lost." I could often tell by their facial expression.

The bottom line is that the best way for me to learn is to isolate and force myself through things. Then internalize the knowledge by answering questions.

With that said, I am challenging myself with learning some new topics. One of them is re-learning Python; another is learning DesignBuilder. I am looking for people to join me in the latter.

It doesn't require much effort on your end, and I am still settling on the best format (depending on the response). Right now, I am looking for people who want to follow along as I teach myself DesignBuilder. We will talk about why I opted to invest my time in DesignBuilder when there are so many choices. The next thing you will learn is how I introduce myself to new software. Another is how I use my OCD to my advantage. Beyond that, we can decipher the explore the software package together, get your questions answered, and maybe grow a network.

What do you think? Click here to enroll. There's no commitment and no fee.