Melissa Cummins' Learning Strategies Diary

June 15, 2007

My husband and I bought a house two weeks ago. Since then, I have finished the school year, attended all the 8th grade end-of-year activities, taken 45 6th graders on a weeklong trip to the mountains of North Carolina, and attended class. Today I am sitting down to survey the house, finally. During the last 2 hours, I have made 3 lists. A “to buy” list, a “to fix” list, and a “to do” list. My next task is to break down each list into the specific stores to shop in, the supplies we will need for fixing the house, and the days I will accomplish the “to do” list tasks. I am currently the queen of the organizational planning learning strategy.
This is an inherited strategy from my mom, who kept lists of everything in our house. The lists worked for her and now they are working for me. My lists are not color coded or, frankly, very well organized, but they do keep me focused during my short breaks to help me maximize my time. The key for now will be to not lose the lists ☺

June 16, 2007 (am)

My husband and I are reviewing our “to buy” list today. My parents are coming into town next week and we don’t have a stove, a grill, or a microwave. This will be a problem when we have to eat cereal and sandwiches for a week with my parents. Instead of hitting every store in town, we are using advance organization to look at the available models on the internet. We can skim a variety of websites and preview the available models. We will then call up local stores to determine the availability of the different models. We are managing all this information using note-taking.

June 16, 2007 (pm)

We are now the proud owners of a stove and a grill. Well, we will be the owners of a stove when it is delivered on Tuesday. The comparison shopping paid off in terms of the price of the stoves. However, we ran into a small problem when we went to finalize the prices. Gas stoves have additional charges for installation due to the danger of the gas lines. The fees ranged from $169-$400 for installation. We had to add this information to our notes to determine the real best price. Even our advanced planning did not prepare us for all the details of purchasing appliances. Fortunately our notes allowed us to quickly adjust for the price of installation.

June 17, 2007

Moving from a 450 square foot condo into a real house has left a few empty rooms. Today I convinced my husband to go shopping for armchairs for our living room. Selective attention was our best friend as we ran around Northern Virginia furniture stores for 6 hours. We don’t leave the District often, especially to venture to the far suburbs. However, our best bet for comparison shopping for furniture we can afford is in the ‘burbs. We were able to maximize our time by focusing only on leather armchairs.
We also knew that we wanted chairs with the same overall shape as our couch. So, we could quickly glance over the leather armchairs and narrow down our choice even further. In some stores, we did not even bother to sit in any of the chairs because none of the options matched our idea. Our selective attention allowed us to find two excellent chairs that will match our couch.
Now that we are home, we are using imagery to choose from our top two options. We have made phantom chairs by cutting out newspaper to match the size of the base of the chairs. We are moving them around the living room to determine which chairs will fit the best. It has become clear that the armchairs from Belfort are the best fit. I will be making the trip back to the store tomorrow to make our order!

June 19, 2007

My lists are shrinking now that we have picked up the blinds for the upstairs bedrooms. My parents are coming tomorrow night and they will be pleased that their every move will not be visible to our neighbors! As usual, the packaging ensured us that the installation would be a breeze. Of course, the lack of installation instructions made it a bit more difficult! We used the resourcing strategy to search the internet for instructions. We were saved when we found a site with installation instructions for our specific make and model of blinds. Hurray for technology!
Armed with the instructions, my husband and I used cooperation to install the blinds. He pre-drilled the holes while I followed with the brackets. The blinds snapped into place fairly easily. My husband then opened the next package while I adjusted the blinds to ensure that they worked properly. The installation went smoothly from that point.

June 21, 2007

Our stove was just delivered. The new stove replaced a stove that was only two years old. We were surprised that such a new appliance could leak gas. Time for another learning strategy: questioning for clarification. I peppered the poor technician with questions about gas stoves. What can we do to extend the life expectancy of our stove? Why would a new stove leak? How can we check for leaks on our new stove? I asked him to check twice for leaks. I was never nervous in our condo because I didn’t realize that new stoves can leak gas. Now I will probably be a bit overly cautious.

Reflecting back over my week, I see that learning strategies are everywhere. The events of the week definitely tested my abilities to pre-plan and then execute that plan. Our house is coming together and my list is down to three things. More importantly, the learning strategies allowed me to whittle down my list efficiently and gave me some time to enjoy my break.