RE: Learning Styles (was Benchmarking Technical Documentation)

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

"How-to" vs "theory"
I need both. For me there's a difference between 
"know-the-sequence" and "understand what/why I'm doing".

My experience -- especially with software and 
computers -- is that what I don't understand 
absolutely WILL rise up and bite me. Every friggin' 
piece of sequential instruction that I've ever 
used has either failed me the first time, or 
has failed me on re-visit, where the situation 
has changed subtly, but the sequential instructions 
... haven't.

If I know what a program or an installation or a 
driver set, etc., is expecting, and why things 
are supposed to happen in a certain order, then I 
have at least a tiny hope of figuring out why it 
isn't working THIS time, and what else I might try.

If all I ever learned was the rote set of sequential 
instructions for the "clean" or ideal situation, then 
when I run into a re-install or re-work-without-tossing-
all-my-data-please situation, I'm stuck, and dialling 
the $125-per-call "Help" line with credit-card in hand.

/kevin

>-----Original Message-----
>From: leanne -dot- sanderson -at- us -dot- abb -dot- com [mailto:leanne -dot- sanderson -at- us -dot- abb -dot- com]

>If you're an analytical learning/thinker it makes a big 
>difference.  I am what
>they call a "global" learner, I want the big picture, the 
>bottom line.  But if
>you are a "sequential/analitical" learner, how things work is 
>equally important.
[snip]

>If you are a trainer, you'll see this all the time.  The analitic's ask
>technical and theoretical questions, while the rest of the 
>group rolls their
>eyes and waits for the "how-to" information to begin.  You 
>have to keep these
>people in mind because they honestly have trouble moving on 
>without what they
>consider to be important information.

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