Post#1 – Share a story about your best learning experience. why did you enjoy it?

In my first year of university, I enrolled in a sociology course that changed my view on learning. I was excited reading the syllabus because the topics this class covered were all interesting and I had a little bit of background knowledge on each topic. It brought me comfort knowing that I’d be able to pick up the material quickly. Then I started reading the textbook and felt pretty confident I absorbed the information. I did the textbook quiz because I finished the chapter and was unhappy with the result. I then realized I didn’t know how to properly apply the information I was currently learning, even if the topic of it seemed so easy. This all happened before the first lecture,  I then met the professor. This specific professor taught in a very unique way that I’ll never forget. He took the concepts that I couldn’t even begin to grasp properly in the textbook and put them in a real-life scenario, in the form of a story. While teaching he always had a simplistic PowerPoint with only key ideas that were integrated into the story, because of this I was always aware of what course material was being displayed as examples in the story. This way of learning was very engaging and easy to follow. Derek Muller mentioned in his video that students are often overconfident in what they think they know and when “learning” more on a topic they are comfortable with, they seem to lack the ability to differentiate between facts that support or negate their ideas. I fell victim to this while reading the textbook which happened subconsciously, it wasn’t until It was explained to me using real-life examples that I was able to change my mindset. I thoroughly enjoyed this class because I felt as though I truly took in the information being taught on a deeper level than I ever had previous to this course.