Bonus - Martin Johnson

I learned to look at all my courses in more of a big picture sense and as less of a letter grade. Unfortunately all my classes seem to be tailored toward only striving for a grade. I really dislike this and wish there was more room for students to be creative and intrinsically motivated to do well. A letter grade seems to not only suck out all the fun from learning but make students uptight and stressed. 
I think about learning by doing over and over like how one learns how to play baseball. You don't split everything up; you may suck at first but that's part of the learning process. I think of my Spanish class and how I really want to become a good speaker yet all we do is complete worksheets for grade. I've gotten really good at doing worksheets (because this is what we practice) but can barely speak without hitches in the conversation. 


I want to try to learn in my own way and am going to apply what we've learned in class to learning Spanish on my own this summer. I bet I can become a better speaker in a week; more so than what I've gotten in the last 16 weeks here at IU. What I'm going to do is come up with a plan of what, when, and how often I will practice. I'd like this habit to carry over to other interests of mine. I want to stop doing the "worksheets" and start doing only the parts that matter to me.