L/V 10+ Tip of the Day #341 Thoughts on Kay Arthur’s highlighting and KWL charts

MJ. Smith

Another tip of the day (TOTD) series for Logos/Verbum 10. They will be short and often drawn from forum posts. Feel free to ask questions and/or suggest forum posts you'd like to see included. Adding comments about the behavior on mobile and web apps would be appreciated by your fellow forumites. A search for "L/V 10+ Tip of the Day site:community.logos.com" on Google should bring the tips up as should this Reading List within the application.

This tip is inspired by the forum post: Dear Keep Smiling 4 Jesus I need you your assistence - Logos Forums

attributed to Albert Einstein said:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

I also apply this to studying - for many techniques, using the same technique over and over again is a good way to insure that you don't find additional (new to you) information. Yes, there are also methods that form a spiral where each time through you incrementally add to your knowledge. But the question is how to tell whether what you do is a safe circle providing nothing new or an incrementally increasing growth in your knowledge.

The elementary school KWL/KWHL graphic organizer, actually written or simply done mentally, may help you find the answer. It consists of 3 or 4 columns:

1. What I currently know on the topic
2. What I would like to learn about the topic -- remember that what you don't know contains both (a) what you know you don't know and (b) what you don't know that you don't know.
3. How I will learn what you want to learn.
4. After studying, what I learned.

The key question is how the method you intend to use will succeed in teaching what you want/need to learn, what you don't know. If you can't answer that question easily, you may need to choose a different method that will. Otherwise, you aren't studying the Bible, you are spending time on bias confirmation. For alternatives, see Workflows by author with sources (logos.com)

Note: least you think I am knocking any particular approach, understand that I firmly believe that any activity that causes you to listen attentively to the Scripture can be productive.