Page 224 - Foundations of Learning, 4th Edition (Revised)

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Your Active Listening Skills

View the same clip that our five students watched (which is available on the FOL online resources:
www.pcrest2.com/fol). Do not actually write out your response to the clip. Re-read the sample student
responses and answer the following questions.
Which student response most closely matches your own response to the clip? _____________________
Now review the information in Table 8.1 Criteria that Affect the Quality of Listening. Which criteria is your
greatest strength? Why? Which criteria is your weakest? How might you work to improve that weakness?

Fred’s response: Oh man, I’m with Responsive Rene. When he wrote about missing stuff
because he was thinking about other things that had already been said, I thought“Bingo.”That
is something that happens to me a lot (even while I watched the Sagan clip).
My strongest area is in motivation. I like learning new things and appreciate when
someone has something new or different to share. Unfortunately, those new
and different ideas they share trigger other thoughts and I sort of zone-out on
what they’re saying while I’m thinking. So I guess this means I need to work
on concentration. I think the best way for me to do that would be to just make
a short note when I find myself wanting to track off in my own direction. I can
always do that later, afterwards. This will let me keep focused on what the speaker
is saying without feeling like I’m going to lose cool “what if” ideas unless I follow
them right then.

218 Foundations of Learning