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(Tom Buck's Personal Profile)
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About My Family:
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...let me tell you a little about
myself...
Although I was born in Escanaba, Michigan
during March of 1961, I grew up in Duluth, Minnesota.
Where I currently reside with my wife and son in an
area called Chester Park.
Work for me includes teaching, research,
and antiques. With a Ph.D. in education, I am an instructor
and Department Chair of Computer Science at Marshall
School. I am also conducting an on-going research
project on learning styles and distance learning.
In addition, as a part-time conservator for a regional
art museum, I do preservation and restoration work on
antique Japanese art objects.
My primary interest, apart from my son,
Samuel,
and Andrea, my wife, is old Japanese
swords, which I have been studying and collecting
since 1975.
Among other things, Andrea, Sam and I
enjoy reading to each other, cycling the Munger
Trail, cross-country skiing
in Hartley Field, traveling, chaperoning Marshall's
prom, and learning Hebrew.
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A RELATIVE HISTORY OF
MY LEARNING STYLES AND COGNITIVE ABILITIES
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Early in my college experience I faced a severe illness
resulting in a large cranial abscess which placed extreme
pressure on my left frontal lobe. Not only did it jeopardize
my life, but it also directly affected my short-term memory
and speech centers. After the abscess was removed, I had
to literally relearn how to communicate and learn through
speech therapy, adopting new cognitive strategies, and adapting
to meet new challenges.
Although it has been nearly thirty years since my "recovery,"
I am still occasionally frustrated by haunting remnants
of these "restrictions." When I am tired it becomes
more difficult to remember or associate names with ideas,
places, or people; I become more divergent in my thought
process, as well as impatient with or easily distracted
by visual disorder. It's not that the knowledge is absent,
there just seems to be a temporary disconnect.
As part of my cognitive recovery, I needed to adopt several
learning compensation strategies.
I was also given a fascinating battery of learning style and
cognitive ability exams, assessments and inventories (these
included: the Wechsler Adult Intelligence
Scale -R; the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator;
the Gregorc Style Delineator; the Oltman,
Raskin and Witkin's Embedded Figures Test; and,
the Swassing/Barbe Modality Index). In fact,
the greatest challenge for me was a shift from being a mixed
Audio/Kinesthetic leaner to primarily a Visual learner. When
I read the SBMI Visual Modality description
it's like looking at a mental Polaroid of my psyche. I have
posted the above listed assessment and inventory results below. |
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Learning
Compensation Strategies*
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Strategy
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Components
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Study and Performance
Strategies
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- Note taking
- Test-taking preparation
- Time management
- Monitoring daily, weekly, and monthly assignments and
activities
- Using weekly and monthly organizers, chunking assignments
into workable parts
- Written expression
- Reading
- Mathematical processing
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Cognitive/Learning
Strategies
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- Memory strategies such as mnemonics, rehearsal, association
and visualization
- Chunking information into smaller units for mastery
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Compensation Supports
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- Use of computers & word processing
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*These were adopted in part from "Whitmore,
J. (1980). Giftedness, conflict, and underachievement. Boston:
Allyn and Bacon."
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Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R)*
- verbal IQ = 120
- performance IQ = 139
- full-scale IQ = 133
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*This exam was taken
in 1982, since then there have been significant changes
and reversions of the WAIS, including the creation of
the WAIS-R IN (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised
as a Neuropsychological Instrument), which may have
been more appropriate considering my condition.
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On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I was type
cast as an
INTJ - "Introversion, iNtuition Thinking, Judging".
The characteristics frequently associated with INTJ
are:
"Usually have original minds
and great drive for their own ideas and purposes.
In fields that appeal to them, they have a fine
power to organize a job and carry it through with
or without help. Skeptical, critical, independent,
determined, sometimes stubborn. Must learn to yield
less important points to win the most important."
-Description from Form G Self-Scorable
(Revised)
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On the Gregorc Style Delineator
I was type cast as
Concrete Random (CR) Dominant
The characteristics frequently associated
with CR are:
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Dominant CR learners are able
to:
- Use insight to skip details and find the big picture
- Use intuition to uncover lies and deception
- Stand independently of others thoughts, work and deed
- To risk being different
- Create new ideas, approaches and products
- Conform to established rules and procedures if they
are personally acceptable
- Function well in unstructured, open-ended activities
- Thrive in conditions that offer choice, chance, challenge
and change
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Dominant CR learners dislike:
- Prescribed, step-by-step cookbook procedures
- Communal teamwork
- Details, routine procedures, politically-correct activities,
and plans that lack excitement
- Being reprimanded by people they consider to be incompetent,
hypocritical or stuck-in-their ways
- Having their intuitive flashes and insights demeaned
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Dominant CR learners
expect:
- Concrete examples and abstract ideas to help launch
unconventional thoughts and products
- Open minded teachers who serve both as knowledgeable
instructors and guides for their independent work
- Established basic requirements and provisions for freedom
to experiment beyond them
- Activities that promote and reward their curiosity,
inventiveness, competitiveness and need to explore
- Stimulus-rich environments that include interesting
people and multiple resources available on-call
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Dominant CR learners
fear:
- Being mediocre, average, and unnoticed; Being unable
to shine; Losing in competition
- Being trapped by fixed routines that restrict freedom
- Being involved in meaningless activities
- Being governed by restrictive and controlling individuals
and group
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Dominant CR learners
want:
- Recognition, appreciation, respect and accolades
- Ethical, just, genuine, flexible and tolerant teachers
- Activities that fit their ways of dealing with the
ever-changing world that they experience
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Dominant CR learners
prefer the following media:
- Mini-lectures
- Discussions
- Games
- Simulations
- Independent study
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| Adapted
from:
http://www.smuhsd.k12.ca.us/chs/instructionaltoolkit/learning_styles/learning_modalitiesgregorc_mind_styles2.html |
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On the Oltman, Raskin and Witkin's
Embedded Figures Test (EFT) I was type cast
as
Field Independent (FI)
The characteristics frequently associated
with FI are:
- Analytical
- Generates structure
- Internally directed
- Inattentive to social cues
- Philosophical
- Cognitive
- Individualistic
- Distant in social relations
- Intrapersonal
- Reserved
- Aloof
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- Experimental
- Generates own hypotheses
- Conceptually oriented
- Acquires information to fit conceptual scheme
- Represents concepts through analysis
- Less affected by format/structure
- Impersonal orientation
- Insensitive to social undercurrents
- Ignores external stress
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On the Swassing/Barbe Modality Index
(SBMI) I was type cast with
Visual Modality (VM) as my greatest differential
The characteristics frequently associated
with VM are:
| LEARNING
STYLES |
Learns
by seeing; watching demonstrations |
| READING |
Likes description;
sometimes stops reading to stare into space and imagine
scene; intense concentration |
| SPELLING |
Recognizes words by
sight; relies on configuration of words |
| HANDWRITING |
Tends to be good, particularly
when young; spacing and size are good; appearance
is important |
| MEMORY |
Remembers faces, forgets
names; writes things down, takes notes |
| IMAGERY |
Vivid imagination;
thinks in pictures, visualizes in detail |
| DISTRACTIBILITY |
Generally unaware of
sounds; distracted by visual disorder or movement |
| PROBLEM SOLVING |
Deliberate; plans in
advance; organizes thoughts by writing them; lists
problems |
| RESPONSE TO PERIODS
OF INACTIVITY |
Stares; doodles; finds
something to watch |
| RESPONSE TO NEW
SITUATIONS |
Looks around; examines
structure |
| EMOTIONALITY |
Somewhat repressed;
stares when angry; cries easily, beams when happy;
facial expression is a good index of emotion |
| COMMUNICATION |
Quiet; does not talk
at length; becomes impatient when extensive listening
is required; may use words clumsily; describes without
embellishment; uses words such as see, look, etc. |
| GENERAL
APPEARANCE |
Neat, meticulous,
likes order; may choose not to vary appearance
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| RESPONSE TO THE
ARTS |
Not particularly responsive
to music; prefers the visual arts; tends not to voice
appreciation of art of any kind, but can be deeply
affected by visual displays; focuses on details and
components rather than the work as a whole |
Used with permission of Zaner-Bloser, Inc.
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