Learning by Building

I never really understood the mechanics of English until I learned a foreign language. As somebody with English-speaking parents and English-speaking friends, I learned to conjugate verbs like most children by mimicing the sounds and being corrected when I mispoke. My mother would say, "No, Jessica. It's I drew, not I drawed." I never understood why it was "I drew" instead of "I drawed", I just corrected the word in my mind and learned that it "sounded" better so therefore I should say it that way.

I learned English like every other public school child. I learned to underline verbs, circle proper nouns and highlight nouns. It seemed simple enough in practice, but I was never very good at identifying the difference between a noun and verb, an adverb and an adjective, etc. When I was fourteen I decided I wanted to learn a foreign language. It wasn't until my Spanish teacher pointed out that "leer", "dibujar", and "vivir" were verbs that I truly understood what a verb was and that we conjugated in the English language without thinking and because "it sounded right".

Ironically, I never really understood the mechnics of English until I learned Spanish. I can now identify nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc. quite easily. I know I learned the subjunctive at one time in English, but I didn't understand what it was or how it worked until I learned Spanish. I wanted to explain this all to you so could understand that I am the type of person who learns from building on top of rules and foundations.

I never really was very good at arithmetic or algebra, but I did quite well in calculus. So it's no surprise that now that I have my first year of law school behind me, I've learned more in my Copyright and Trademarks class about Contracts and Property than I ever could have learned in the actual courses. I had to learn Contracts and Property to understand Copyrights, but now that I understand Copyrights - I feel I have an even better understanding of Property and Contracts. The puzzle pieces are finally starting to line up and I understand why we learned about adhesion contracts in Contracts and licenses in Property.

An example of this is when a user installs a new program on his or her computer. The user does not own anything, but rather has a license to use the software. Most of the time when installing the software, the user has to agree to the Terms of Use or a contract by clicking a check box or simply a button that say "I agree", these are called Click Wrap Licenses and they create contracts between the software company and the product user. The software is licensed for use under Copyright Law and the Click Wrap License (contract) was created to force users to adhere to Copyright Law. Are you seeing how they build now?

I also know I'm a visual learner. I have to see the whole picture before I can really understand how each piece fits together underneath the whole. For this reason I often create flow charts and diagrams to help me see where each piece fits. I think that's why learning Copyright Law has solidified my understanding of Property and Contracts, it's forced me to re-evaluate the information I learned last year and put it under a new heading. Thus, I've created a broader overall diagram to study what I learned last year and what I'm learning this year and how those concepts all fit together.

I think my ideal class would be encompassed by the teacher the first day handing out an entire outline or flow chart of what we are going to learn. Then taking each piece of the outline and explaining it in detail and showing how it fits within the individual diagrams or outline. To some students, this approach would be very overwhelming. But I really think this approach would be ideal for me. Since no professor will probably ever revert to this method I have a few suggestions for visual, bigger picture learners.

1. Refer to the Table of Contents of your book when learning material to see how the material you are learning fits within the entire context of the subject.
2. Most of the CrunchTime Emanual books have flow charts in the front pages. I used the Civil Procedure one to understand the Erie Doctrine and Jurisdictional questions. It was a life saver!
3. MS Word has a free diagramming tool built in. Open MS Word, go to Insert --> Smart Art --> Hierarchy --> Select your Style and start creating! 
1. PC Version: MS Office Bundle Student Version $59.95
2. Mac Version: MS Office Bundle Student Version $149.95
• I would check with my school's computer store, I bought mine for $25 each at my campus computer store. Often these sorts of promotions are only available through your school computer store. Check with them first!
4. You can use a professional software to create a diagram. 
1. If you're using a PC, I recommend MS Visio (Student Version: $55.95 for qualifying student.)
2. If you're using a Mac I recommend OmniGraffle Pro (Student Version $119.95.)
5. For oultining and creating simple diagrams I also recommend a simpel notebook style program. 
1. For a PC, I recommend MS OneNote (bundled with the student package of MS Office)
2. For a Mac, I recommend Circus Ponies' NoteBook or OmniOutliner Pro 3. (Student Version NoteBook $29.95 , OmniOutliner Pro $49.95.) 
• I actually test drove both OmniOutliner and NoeBook and decided to purchase NoteBook because I thought it offerred more features for the price and I liked the "notebook" feel. If you are stuck between the two, I recommend downloading a free trial of both and test driving them.