Swaying To The Top

"When the Bass brothers financed the first Biosphere, that earth in a
bubble out in Arizona, the trees all failed in an interesting way. All the
trees in the biosphere were droopy and lacked the strength to stand
upright. They grew, but were too weak to stand. They studied the problem
and found the answer. No wind. The Biosphere bubble lacked any wind so the
trees had nothing to make them sway. It was the swaying, pushing against
an invisible yet very palpable force, that gave them the strength to grow
upright, stand reaching up to the sky."
- reader of David Byrne's online journal

This is such a beautiful metaphor, and quoted on so many christian
websites, that I was afraid it would turn out not to be true. Not so. From
a transcript of PBS's Scientific American Frontiers:

ALAN ALDA You know what else I noticed that you don't seem to have- out in
this big open space, anyway- is wind.

BERND ZABEL That's correct.

ALAN ALDA That's a big element that's missing, isn't it?

BERND ZABEL Which causes a problem for these trees. When you look here,
these acacia trees, they have very funny forms. And what we found out
later on, that if a tree grows, to harden the tree it needs wind action.
Every time when a tree moves, it builds actually outside what is called a
stress wood.

ALAN ALDA So that strengthens the tree?

BERND ZABEL So it strengthens the tree. In our case here, the tree is
growing without any wind, without any disturbance, and it actually becomes
so top heavy that they break off.
- PBS Scientific American Frontiers

What's Your Learning Style?

I had the interesting experience today of filling out the Kolb Learning
Style Inventory, homework for my university teaching course. You answer 12
questions, and it gives you a readout on where you are along four learning
style dimensions. These are Active Experimentation, Active
Experimentation, Reflective observation, and Concrete experience. From
there they show how different combinations of strengths in these areas
make up different overall learning styles.

I only half buy this stuff (mindful of the Barnum effect and the often
unearned authority of things that have numbers attached to them), but it
has been a valuable experience calculating my own score and seeing what it
can say about me - as well as the alternatives to the way I learn. I turn
out to be a highly Converging learner, because of my Active
Experimentation and Abstract Conceptualization. Especially the latter was
really high, the result of ranking highly statements such as "When I learn
I like ideas and theories" and "When I am learning I am a logical person".
(big surprise)

Somewhat disturbingly, this learning style is thought to work best in
highly technical professions like economics, engineering and computer
science. The learning style of the scientist and mathematician is more
Assimilating (Reflective observation and Abstract Conceptualization) Could
knowing this help me to become more comfortable and affective as a
scientist, by developing my more Assimilitating side?

I recommend you give this a try if you have the chance. I feel that not
only will it help me to teach people with other learning styles and
appreciate their different strengths, it's made me think about what I can
do to take advantage of these other types of learning. Interestingly, some
foreign and awkward skills I am working at these days, like socializing at
parties and lifting weights properly, are probably really working those
underdeveloped learning styles. Kolb provides a semi-helpful table of
advice for what to try to improve on each style:

For Diverging (Reflective observation and Concrete experience)
* Being sensitive to people's feelings
* Being sensitive to values
* Listening with an open mind
* Gathering information
* Imagining the implications of ambiguous situations

For Assimilating (Reflective observation and Abstract Conceptualization)
* Organizing information
* Testing theories and ideas
* Building conceptual models
* Designing experiments
* Analyzing quantitative data

For Converging (Active Experimentation-Abstract Conceptualization)
* Creating new ways of thinking and doing
* Experimenting with new ideas
* Choosing the best solution
* Setting goals
* Making decisions

For Accomodating (Concrete experience and Active Experimentation)
* Committing yourself to objectives
* Seeking new opportunities
* Influencing and leading others
* Becoming personally involved
* Dealing with people