Integrated Master of Osteopathy (M.Ost) Degree - Learning Journal

Looking ahead to the final exam - the CCAs

2011-09-20T21:14:00.000+01:00

Presenting a patient summary to a tutor is a skill that I definitely need to develop, ideally presenting a 'continuation' patient to a tutor follows a logical format:
This is <name>, <age> years old, who is a <occupation / lifestyle indicator>, who presented with <original symptoms> at <date of initial presentation>. The diagnosis was <diagnosis> and we have been following a treatment plan of <treatment plan summary with goals>. <Progression>. We are aware of <notable medical history; medication, trauma, systemic, emotional factors>. Today I am planning to <examination and treatment>.

The clinic tutorial today was very much focussed on preparing for the Clinical Competency Assessment. We have our first formative (mock) CCA in 8 weeks!
The main point that the tutors got across were:
See as many patients as possible
Work together - form study groups
Communication - practice presenting information in a concise and logical way
The CCA is looking for three things: that the practitioner is safe, has a logical approach, and uses osteopathic techniques and concepts

With regards to working together and building up our Team Bonding Event, it was suggested that students from close knit teams generally do better, so I suggested that we meet up and have lunch together after Thursday's clinic. Hopefully this will become a regular study group.

First day of 4th year

2011-09-19T21:46:00.004+01:00

The first session of the 4th year was clinic. Now clinic is not new to me, having retaken the third year I've spent a lot of hours there, and it really has become my favourite part of the course. But the new light on the situation is that I am preparing to do this without the support of tutors, and that's a whole new story. That's how I need to start thinking about working with patients, in how I communicate with them, how I look at them, how I make a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan.

Today I had a patient who had made a significant improvement but then had a relapse. I considered that whatever had been predisposing factors in his original presentation, and the cause of his previous symptoms, had not been properly addressed. Hopefully next time I see him I can work more on the bigger picture.

We had a tutorial today about the structure and function of the lumbar disc. What I had forgotten about was that there are pain receptors in vertebral end plate. This is really significant and if we ask more questions of LPB patients about 'what makes the pain worse' in terms of timing, being on or off of weight bearing, and specific painful movements / actions / leverages we can be more accurate with diagnosis. Of course this can be applied to every part of the body, and although we are encouraged to move away from trying to diagnose which tissues are causing symptoms, this is not a reason to give up on tight anatomical and physiological knowledge. It's useful to bear in mind with a patient, when they are telling us about the problem:
What function is lost?
What structure subserves that function?

In the afternoon we had an induction lecture, lots of non-essential information, some good stuff, but the main thing was that it felt good to be a fourth year (after repeating the third). I saw a lot of weary faces that did not have the same enthusiasm I have for being at this stage in the course right now! The SU president mentioned problems with the year book last year. I might offer to get involved with organising it - as I have some contacts in the photo-book market I could take advantage of!

Preparing for the final year

2011-09-12T11:45:00.000+01:00

The light at the end of the tunnel! This week I am preparing to start the 4th and final year of my course at the British School of Osteopathy. I'm really looking forward to life as a post-graduate! I've just been going through the timetable trying to get an idea of when I might be able to work part-time; I think I'll try and find a weekend bar job and do a few massage therapy appointments during the week. Need money!

Starting my Dissertation

2009-10-02T01:02:00.000+01:00

I'm going to be using this previously dormant blog specifically to keep a journal of my research project.

I have the next two years of this integrated Masters Degree in Osteopathy to produce a dissertation, and I have been considering what I might like to research. It has to be something of interest to me or I'll never be motivated to keep up with the workload. As I am something of a geek I've come up with the idea of collecting osteopathy related data from Twitter. It's a bit trendy but fast becoming more mainstream; London is apparently the social media capital of the world according to an article in The Daily Telegraph, and if lots of people are sharing their life experiences with each other on public forums, and that information can be captured and analysed, it strikes me a potentially rich source of data. I'm not the first person to think so of course:

http://shu-lti-ai.blogspot.com/2008/04/using-twitter-as-research-data.html
http://www.thegetsmartblog.com/tag/using-twitter-for-research/
http://beingcheryl.com/2009/02/20/using-twitter-for-market-research/
http://www.twitip.com/twitter-for-research-why-and-how-to-do-it-including-case-studies/

So far my plan is just a very general, vague idea and I need to condense it into a specific research question, but so far I have managed to find several helpful people both in and out of the British School of Osteopathy.

The main challenges I face are going to based around the fact that Twitter is a relatively new phenomenon and so I haven't got much of other people's similar work to evaluate. A critical literature review is an important part of the dissertation, and I'm aiming to appraise 15 published peer-reviewed papers discussing as many combinations of Twitter / social networking / research / qualitative analysis / attitudes and sentiments / Osteopathy as possible.

I need to have a think about why people are using Twitter to discuss osteopathy. What is the point being made in this public statement? Are they using Twitter to show off? To seek attention or sympathy? To simply update friends and family on what they are up to? I will need to define the demographic of people that are twitter users, and discuss their motivation for using twitter because that will really put the data into context: Twitter users do not represent the typical general public. I also need to be specific about what information I am looking for and how I will analyse it. It's clearly going to be a qualitative data analysis (I've taken a book out from the library to refresh my memory on research methods). For now my plan is to search for the keyword 'osteopath' using Twitter's basic search tool, and then collect and save that data (I'm not sure how just yet). From the data I will want to extract the UK users, find those who have recently visited an osteopath, and determine sentiment or value attached to the description of that experience.

I think this type of research has value, in that we are collecting information from people who are not particularly responding to a direct question, or to an osteopathic representative. They have given their opinion unprompted and of their own free will. There may be challenges extracting useful data but I think the benefit outweighs the challenges and I am prepared to work my way through them.

This research is the first I have ever undertaken and is clearly in its early stages and may well take a complex and convoluted path to its destination in July 2011. Maybe I will use Twitter as a way to recruit a focus group or questionnaire participants after all, and maybe I'll end up abandoning the idea all together and studying leg length discrepancies. I do hope not.

Summer Holidays

2008-07-17T17:24:00.001+01:00

Today is officially one month since school finished. I've been enjoying taking life easy. I've turned 30 with a week of celebrations. And now I'm ready to start building up to the second year! I'm going to spend next week revising and preparing for my Sports Massage Therapy course. Then after the course reviewing the first year LRPs for a couple of weeks. Then reviewing some second year stuff. This all assuming I don't have any retakes to deal with...

Posted with LifeCast

Easter Eggs

2008-04-01T19:17:00.002+01:00

So far Easter holidays are going well, with about 4 hours of study every day, apart from the weekend. Mainly just SF stuff but I'm going into school tomorrow to do some technique hopefully and work through some LRPs. The exam on the last day was absolutely horrendous and there's no way I want to be struggling through the next term, so I've written a loose study plan for the next 3 weeks and hopefully start next term on track.

That said, I'm not going to have my nose quite to the grindstone, as I've got a weekend in Dublin to look forward to and some friends to catch up with.

Reflective Practice

2008-03-14T09:54:00.002Z

I haven't been setting strict times for reflective practice, which is something I will definately do next term. The aim of reflective practice is to "achieve a better understanding of yourself, your skills, competencies, knowledge and professional practice". I have been spending time thinking about my progress on this course and the experiences I have been having, and there have been some surprises, but I haven't taken the time to really analyse these thought processes and develop them. The most useful thing to do with these thoughts is document them, because as a more formal process you are inclined to be more analytical and follow a process of identification and recognition, evaluation, and to consider the outcomes. The objective is to identify what we have learnt in order to construct new or different approaches to our future practice, or to recognise and validate effective practice to utilise in the future. Some experiences I have had this term are:
Cadaver Study
Formative OSPE
Formative and summative FD essay
Back pain and treatment at the BSO clinic
Moving house and setting up a new study area.

I will come back to this post and fill in a more detailed reflection of these experiences, otherwise I'm missing the potential for self development.

Formative OSPE

2008-02-19T14:12:00.002Z

We had the formative OSPE today, a practice exam in our technique and interactive anatomy classes. It went well but could have gone so much better. Now we are all settled in at home I can spend more time working, less time sorting out banks / bills / furniture / and all that crap. So yes, this is yet another 'I am going to try harder' post. But following on from the PDP, there are some specific goals that I need to be working on, and here they are:
Reviewing my study
Inject a bit of Buzan into my life - Make the most of your mind and speed reading
Establish a timetable detailing available study time, set up study area in new flat

I'll post again on Friday (and make Friday my regular self - review day).

Tony Buzan and Speed Reading

2008-02-10T12:33:00.000Z

I'd seen a Speed Reading book by Tony Buzan in the library. We'd looked at this guy on the Access Course - he apparently invented mind maps. A lot of what he has to say is really interesting, practical skills. I decided to buy myself the book as the library copy had been out a couple of times that I'd wanted to borrow it, so I went to Waterstones on Oxford Street. Tony's books were amongst some very strange 'self help' titles, but I managed not to be distracted by 'Awaken the Giant Within' and 'It's Your Funeral: Inspiring Ideas for a Personal Send-off'. I saw the speed reading book I wanted but actually decided to get a different title: ' Make the Most of Your Mind'. As well as a chapter on speed reading, there are also chapters on effective listening, maximising memory and concentration. As I was getting toward the end of the book it occurred to me that there had been no mention made about using the internet. It was only after I finished it that I realised that the book had been published in 1977! Anyway, I focused on the chapter 'Speed Reading and Effective Reading'. Usefully, the chapter provides a passage of 1300 words which you can time yourself reading before and after learning the techniques. My 'before' score was about 340 words per minute, which is above average. The techniques for more efficient reading include a technique for scanning lines of text in 2 or 3 sections, using less eye movements than you normally would think was necessary. Also to use a reading guide like a ruler or pencil to physically point at the part of the page you are reading. The other techniques for more effective reading include preparing for the topic you are going to read, by asking yourself what you want to know about the topic, familiarising yourself with the subject (maybe reading an encyclopedia article on the subject), and also eye exercises to rest your eyes. My test result at the end was 440 words per minute; apparently with continued training you can get up to 600!!

Role reversal - I'm a patient!

2008-01-17T15:06:00.000Z

I got out of bed on Monday morning with a back ache. On the scale of pain 1-10 where 1 is barely noticable, 10 is where you can't walk, i've been between 3 and 9 for the last few days. When it's really painful I want to cry and I feel sick. Luckily I'm at the BSO and I've had (free) treatment, and to see the silver lining, it's a great oppurtunity for me to see more of the clinic and see things from a patient's perspective. But on the downside I'm hobbling along at less than half speed, it takes about a minute to stand up straight after sitting down for more than 10 minutes, and i'm developing serious sideways curves in my back where i'm adjusting my posture to compensate for the pain. It's sort of perversely interesting and disturbing at the same time.
On a longer scale, cos it's been a couple of months since my last entry, school is going well but I know I'm not using my time effectively and not spending enough time studying. I have blamed this on the fact that I have no study space at home, but as of this weekend I shall have a 6-seater dining table as my desk (thanks to eBay - a 99p bargain!). I know that I'm a shocking procrastinator, but as of next week I'll be knuckling down. I don't want to just scrape by this course. I genuinely believe the PDP is going to make a positive difference to how I tackle studying. I'll post again after the PDP meeting, because a lot of my goals and targets will involve self assessment and the journal is a useful place to record all that.
Hopefully moving house this weekend doesn't ruin my back...

SP1

2007-10-31T08:56:00.001Z

Two months into the first year I've got a bit of perspective on everything.

It's been universally agreed by the Access Course guys that we are very pleased we did it. Although any smugness we had ran out within the first two weeks. In some ways the material we have been given is overwhelming, so many new topics, in great detail, every single week. Barely time to absorb one thing before we move on to another. And no half term or 'reading week' means that there's not really an oppurtunity to reflect on anything, it just keeps going coming. I was pretty worried about how I was going to manage it all, with working part time too, but I followed Marks suggestion about making a schedule. What this did for me was highlight all the spare time I actually have. As a result I am planning library time and chilling time, and getting more study done and enjoying my down time more.

One thing I need to work on is organising my notes. I think I take good notes, but I need to find a way to process them after the lecture. At the moment I have LRPs, handouts, text books and A4 pads all over the place. This is clearly rubbish and something I need to sort out. We have an exam in 10 days and going through a revision planning process should help me organise myself better.

We did our clinic observation last Friday. I was hugely disappointed with the way it was organised. I thought we would be introduced to the 4th years we were paired with. I expected someone to talk to us about the clinic, how it is managed, how the patient / student / tutor process works. I assumed too much! We were dumped in a room with a bunch of people who pretty much ignored us and it was up to us to find someone who had a patient that we could observe. For some of us this took nearly 2 hours, and it was only as I was leaving (in a big huff) that I actually did find someone. Having said all that, I did end up seeing 2 patients getting treated. I recognised the huge gap bewteen my knowledge and the that of the 4th year, and then the even bigger gap between the 4th year and the tutor. I am glad I stayed (but still not impressed with whoever was responsible for sorting it out).

Socially speaking the BSO is a great place to meet cool people. It's nice that I have friends from last year and there's loads of great new guys too, and plenty of oppurtunities for partying.

I'm really looking forward to moving house in a couple of months, I'll have half the bedroom as my study and that will be a huge improvement on my current situation. At the moment I spend all my study time in the Library, which is fine but sometimes I would rather be at home. I'm also really looking forward to the month off that we have at Christmas. My original plan was to work loads of extra hours at Apple but I've scrapped that cos I'll need time to rest and reflect on this first term, to revise and to get ready for 2008, including some celebrating, as well as the big move... Bring it on...

Socially Speaking...

2007-06-23T01:12:00.000+01:00

You cannot underestimate the impact that other people have on you. The best friends you have are the ones you can take the mick out of, argue with, irritate, and still cuddle. I have met some brilliant people on this course! Seriously, this course has been amazing for meeting people that I have clicked with, and only when I go out and meet dry, boring people do I appreciate this. Check out this nutter for an example:
http://sacralfruit.blogspot.com/

End of Access....

2007-06-22T13:54:00.000+01:00

This is pretty much the final weekend of the Access Course. I really can't believe it. I think I was a little bit naive at the beginning as to what it would entail, despite all the talk of 2 hours of study every day, etc. The range of topics, the scariness of Physics, the complications of human anatomy... the effect on my life! But jeez if I hadn't done this access course there is no way that I would have been able to go straight in to the degree, even if I had passed the entrance test. Not just the academic preparation but the having kick up the arse in terms of self organisation (which I still haven't really nailed, although I'm loads better!)

As I read back through by posts I realise I pretty much broke every rule or good intention for study plans that I set myself. I think that's quite disappointing, so at some stage I'll have a proper look at the way I have organised myself and what worked and what didn't.

One major plus is having met so many great people on the course. I really hope that it's the same next year. We're all off to Brussels in a few weeks - which is Way Cool. I can't wait.

My plans for the Summer are to relax at first (my birthday, Brussels and Ibiza in July!) and then review everything we've gone over (perhaps not so much the Physics) and I will be totally focusing on the nerves, muscles and bones - I think we really only scraped the surface.

Now to head into college...

Exam Pressure

2007-05-28T10:46:00.000+01:00

Our study groups are working out really well. I've met up with Mel and Anna recently and it's as much sharing the stress as it is getting any work done. Which is equally valuable.

Daniels subjects are consistently the hardest, although he breaks them all down brilliantly and if you can listen to the lecture audio during the week then it's great. I'm still not spending enough time on everything but I'm generally feeling like I'm long overdue a holiday - we've booked to go to Ibiza at the end of July but it's seeming a bloody long way off right now.

Google Docs

2007-04-27T23:12:00.000+01:00

Are brilliant! We've been using them the last couple of weeks to put together an Uber essay on the Cardio Vascular system. Everyone can log on and edit the same document at the same time, each person's changes are highlighted in a unique colour... I'm going into the 'Transport' essay tomorrow feeling better prepared than for anything we've done. Happy days.

Who Owns Lower Back Pain?

2007-03-22T18:26:00.000Z

Ronan and I went to a Symposium last night. How posh does that sound? At the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington! It was an event about back pain (funnily enough) and the really good thing about it was that it was an opportunity to hear professionals from different healthcare modalities offering their insight on the issues surrounding the treatment of non-specific lower back pain. There were 6 people on the panel, Paul Chek (exercise), Diane Lee (physiotherapist), Robin Kirk (osteopath), Colin Natali (surgeon), Alan Jordan (chiropractor), and Lynne McTaggart (journalist). Some of the statements were really eye opening - such as the chiropractor discussing how posture does not lead to chronic back pain, the journalist talking about universal energy fields, and Paul Chek from the Chek Institute talking about the dragons that breathe universes into being, and suggesting that healthcare practitioners strip off and prove to their patients that they are living examples of optimal health. Unfortunately Robin Kirk, the guy representing osteopaths, didn't make very much of the time he had to discuss osteopathy, which was a shame. He didn't seem to have prepared very well and he skipped through most of his slides. Chatting to my local osteopath (who I was really pleased to see there) it seemed that lots of people felt the same way, and in fact Ronan was talking to a physiotherapist who said she was interested to hear about osteopathy and was disappointed. We felt let down! Later on in the debate part of the evening, our guy did have a few choice comments and he did come across as a smart cookie, but just very laid back. One thing I keep realising is that this is one of the few times I've come across the subject of Osteopathy in a real, actual professional environment. It helped put things into context, seeing it outside the familiarity of the BSO and the classroom. A lot of what was said was common sense, but a couple of issues came up that really intrigued me, one being behavioural therapy. If something has got to change in a person's lifestyle to improve their health, it's not always black and white that making the recommendations is enough. As our osteopath pointed out, a client who has a short course of treatment once a year may consider those treatments successful and be satisfied, but if that client were to take some significant changes to their diet and exercise regime, they could avoid the visits completely, but they need more than a few adjustments and soft tissue massage to get to that point. There are several issues around that. The other thing that became clear to me is that I can really only see myself practising osteopathy as part of a multidisciplinary healthcare practice. Different patients will respond to different types of treatment, and it makes sense that in some cases prescribing concurrent treatment from multiple complimentary practitioners could do wonders? As long as there isn't a clash of egos. It was well worth the £25.

In the world of my normal studies I'm making steady progress with my presentation, and I am really grateful I'm not putting it up this week! And thats not because I'm lazy. I am taking this seriously as I haven't a lot of practise at this sort of thing and it's a skill I would like to develop. I plan to develop into a highly charismatic, witty and charming internationally renowned speaker at posh conferences and symposia around the world! It would help me at work too.

See you soon kids. xx

Happy Days

2007-03-17T19:49:00.000Z

There's not long to go now, and I actually think carrying on as I am, with the little improvements I'm always making to the way I work and organise, right now I can happily say that I feel really comfortable with this course. Cutting down on drinking and improving my diet has made a really noticable difference to my concentration and productivity and I'm feeling really good in general (apart from a tummy ache today). I'm working tomorrow but I'm going to go through some notes on the tube on the way to and from work. Monday is a day off and I have nothing to do but work, I'm going to get loads done. I can't wait to be a Osteopath.

New job, less time to study

2007-03-08T09:00:00.000Z

My life has been quite hectic the last couple of weeks. The reality is that Osteopathy is not the only thing in my life and I consistently fail to give it the time and attention it requires, scraping through to get the marks required instead of dedicating myself to this new knowledge. And I feel a bit stupid saying once again in this journal that this is a new start and from now on I'm going to blah blah blah. This blog has got so damn whiny! It's just a case of doing it and getting it done isn't it? I have a full day off today - but it's my Dad's birthday, we're going out. So til he gets here I'm going to work my ass off. I actually enjoy all this studying when I get in gear so today is going to be a good one. There are a number of essays / assignments / presentations / exams that are due so I'll get all my papers together, prioritise them and spend some time on each today. I think I may re-read Tony Buzan's book too, I'm on the tube most days now and those free London papers are shite. If there were free London papers on Osteopathy...

What happened?

2007-02-07T09:25:00.000Z

I've really screwed up. But all is not lost, I can still pull back from the brink. Ok, it's not that dramatic, but 35% in the Musculoskeletal Essay is appalling. Even if it's somehow a pass. I didn't have a clue what to write, I didn't study properly, I finally realised that with some exceptions I haven't been studying properly for ages. I have been doing lots of overtime, I have been investigating alternative therapies, (Reiki and Alexander Technique), I have been partying in London and Brighton, I have had job interviews, I have not been studying for 2 hours every day. I'm easily distracted and lacking focus. I am going to sort it out, starting today. I will blog again soon hopefully with some progress.

Would you believe it!

2007-01-20T22:10:00.000Z

Here I am sticking to my New Years Resolution, writing a blog entry straight after college, with all my intentions regarding planning my next week of study and reviewing what we did this weekend. Before I get distracted, I better get all this down. Cos it is Saturday night, and I'm still probably gonna go to a party, cos I'm such a party animal. In fact I just had a text about going to Soho... So quick, get on with it!
Starting this weekend: Microbiology on Friday night. Really, a bit of a non-event; a Power Point presentation and fill-in-the-blanks question sheet. Although I really like the lecturer and his friendly, positive and encouraging style, I'm not really believing that much of this is going to stick in my head. Today, energy exam, well it was a test. I made some silly mistakes that I should have avoided. I felt there wasn't enough time, but saying that I think I got over 80% so something went well enough. Lets talk about that. I took the syllabus and used it to create a revision sheet, a word document that expanded on each heading from the syllabus with the relevant details, formula or explanation. I spent bits of time on it during the week and read the results through a couple of times, with other people and on my own. My attention span has been shocking this week and I have put some effort into meditation as a way to develop my concentration and for my own personal development. In fact chatting to Celia O'Brien and others at college today, I was really happy to find that some other people have quite a strong spiritual aspect to them and agree that this is an important part of health and healing. I might go into this more another time but at the moment I haven't quite got to the point were I can discuss it clearly. On a lighter note our very own Harry Potter showed us how to levitate people today. It's really mad, I mean Peter's card tricks are mind boggling enough but actually lifting someone to the ceiling with only your fingers really spins you out. I'm sure there's a logical scientific explanation but I'm not interesting in finding it just now, I'm more than happy to believe that we can focus our minds, and do magic

Okay, the week ahead is going to be a massive focus on the muscular skeletal system. So on the basis of my recent success, I am going to repeat the process of summarising the syllabus, relating it to my notes and writing new stuff. I'm going to bounce this off of other people during the week and hopefully produce a fantastic pass-grade essay next Saturday. More updates through the week, possibly. I'm off have a shower and head to Soho. By the way, did you notice my excellent use of the semi-colon?

New subjects

2007-01-14T22:03:00.000Z

This weekend we started looking at microbiolgy, in particular the nasty little pathogens that cause disease. And on Saturday we started on the musclo part of the musculoskeletal system. As I said in my last post, my aim now is to plan this weeks study. So this weekend I have gone through and reviewed my new notes, reorganised all my previous notes and I'm going to spend this week preparing for the major Energy exam on Saturday. Unfortunately depsite my best efforts I haven't got a fixed rota for this week, and I am definately working on Monday. The remaining days I will be reviewing my Energy notes, rewriting the ones that don't make sense and doing some further research on the internet. With physics problems, I have found that the more you practice, the easier it becomes. Hopefully I'll have the time and the motivation to do loads this week and sail through the exam on Saturday.

Refocus

2007-01-12T11:59:00.000Z

I've had official feedback on my Learning Journal from Mark. This is a summary:

Occasionally reread the diary critically, and from the perspective of others
Use the diary to monitor self study skills
Use the diary to tie ongoing thoughts and themes together
Reflect on success and and using it to improve other areas
Consider measuring progress and acheivements to date

It all makes sense and to be honest I think I had forgotten the actual aims of having this Learning Journal. Here are my aims as stated in the first post:

Plan, organise, execute and record study time independently and effectively
Set own written learning goals and priorities according to individual needs, monitoring progress against own criteria and taking remedial action where appropriate
Reflect critically and realisitically on my own progress

On the first point, I haven't been using this to plan my studies. Studying so far has not really gone to plan; it is more motivated by deadlines, which I know is not very clever. But I've discussed a new shift pattern with work which means that I don't work Sundays or Mondays. I think the 2 days immediately following college are the best time to study. I'll use the tube journey to and from work read books and notes. This is how I will carry on the next few weeks and at some point I will review the whole thing. Also, following college on Saturday, I am going to write a blog entry reviewing what we've studied, and with my plan for the week. On the second point, I will establish some short term and long term goals, and incorporating the third point, be suitably harsh on myself for when I don't meet my targets.

Ok, so that's a nice New Years Resolution style piece of writing. I'll just have to make sure it sticks.

Cell Structure, Study Group & Midnight Inspiration

2006-12-07T09:23:00.000Z

I had a full day off on Tuesday and spent several hours studying cell structure to a level I am happy with. I know that I need to get the same level for joints (structure and function), tissues, and the spine, as well as whatever it was we did on Saturday afternoon with Daniel. I really cannot get my head around what we were doing and need to talk to him about it at our next lesson. I haven't yet started the next English Assignment which I had hoped to do by now, so overall I am feeling a bit behind with everything. I have tomorrow morning off, and there will be some time on Sunday morning, and then next Wednesday and Thursday I am off all day. So by then I hope to be back on track. So far this post is a going a bit 'woe is me' and velcro forehead so I'll stop wingeing on and talk about our Study Group (caps for emphasis).
We pushed our way painfully through some physics and didn't really get that far. I think working in a study group is a bit of an art form and we need more practice and clearer goals. I think we focus well on what we are doing and don't get too distracted. Considering we met in a coffee shop opposite Embankment tube station that's quite an acheivement, although it might be worth looking at other venues for next time. There were 3 of us and maybe a group of 4 or 5 might be better in terms of a bigger pool of shared knowledge. We had a crack at a couple of hours of working together through some issues and it might not have been hugely productive, but definately worth the effort. And the drink at the pub after as a reward is an important psychological tool in terms of incentive and reward! Honestly, Tony Buzan says so. (Although he doesn't specifically mention alcohol).

In almost the very last part of Tony's book "Making the most of Your Mind" he lists some useful learning resources. I got a bit suspicious that he didn't say anything about the Internet (either good or bad), and then I discovered that the book was written in 1977 and my edition was dated 1988!! On one hand, the fact that I did not notice until the end of the book is a good sign that the rest of the book is not 'dated' or obviously old fashioned, and I have had some levels of success in using Tony's techniques. On the other hand though, with regards to the parts of the book that discuss the 'latest research' on mental abilities, I will have to look for some updates.

The midnight inspiration I mentioned was quite odd - the night we struggled with some of the physics questions I had trouble getting off to sleep, which is unusual. One of the problems was floating through my mind and without trying too hard, it seemed to simplify itself and I was able to understand how to work it out. I got quite excited (apparently this is what happened to Einstein!!) and went downstairs and worked through the problem. The issue that we had was that we knew what the answer should be, but we didn't understand how we got there. I'll attempt to explain it:

There are two moments (M1 and M2) that are in equilibrium. We know the distance of each from the pivot, and we know that the total force is 800N. We don't know how much force is in each moment, and that's what we need to calculate.
We know that Force 1 (F1) is acting at a distance 60cm (d1) from the pivot, and that Force 2 (F2) is acting at 40cm (d2) from the pivot.
We know that the relationship of the force to the distance is inversely proportional; that is to say that the greater the distance, the smaller the force required to produce the same moment.
Following on from that, if d1 is 1.5 times larger than d2, and they are in equilibrium, then F1 must be 1.5 times smaller than F2. The ratio of F1 to F2 is 1:1.5 which can be simplified using whole numbers and written as 2:3. (This can be written another way: if the ratio of the distances is 3:2, then ratio of the forces must be 2:3, because it is inversely proportional.)
If the ratio of the force F1:F2 is 2:3, then we are saying that F1 is 2 fifths of the force and F2 is 3 fifths of the force, because adding both sides of the ratio gives us the total value.
In this little pie chart, the ratio of green to red is 2:3

800 divided by 5 is 160, so 2 fifths of 800 is 2 x 160 which equals 320 (F1), and 3 fifths of 800 is 3 x 160 which equals 480 (F2)

I feel a sense of acheivement and satisfaction of making sense of this to myself. Until someone proves me wrong.

I heart Physics

2006-11-30T23:39:00.000Z

Well that would be a massive exaggeration, but I am a lot happier about it than I was yesterday. I've finally got my head around the fact that there are 2 essential parts to learning the principles of physics: memorising (and understanding) of the formulas, laws and concepts, and secondly; a whole lot of practice. I planned to do about 6 hours of study yesterday (with nice organised breaks and so on). I actually found that I sat down to study at 7, and started actually studying at 10. This is because I decided to meditate, to clear and focus my mind, and I also faffed around with email and surfing and general putting off of anything scary. Once I started studying I realised that I was really struggling with at least 50% of the content of the practice papers. I just kept at it and kept at it and some things really started to click in to place. I started the day signed into MSN with my status message I HATE PHYSICS and changed that mid afternoon... it was really satisfying to get to that point. It was going so well that I ended up working on the Physics papers until 8.30pm, at which point I stopped and called Dr. Phil. He's a friend from school, and he's grown up to be an astrophysicist, currently working in California as a research fellow. He gets to analyse data from the Hubble telescope, and he looks at distant galaxies using the light that is bent by the gravity of the galaxy in front of it - a process called gravitational lensing. So, he is the perfect person to ask about the forces acting on the moon, stopping it falling into the earth as a result of the Earths gravity, or flying off on a tangent. Not that I understood his answer properly. But soon I will, and it was very nice to catch up with him.

I didn't do any actual study today, (well I did more than enough yesterday). I did listen to some of the lecture audio in the car on the way to Worthing to meet Emma, but that was plenty. Lecture audio doesn't help when so much of the lecturing was done on the white board... Anyway Emma has a 17 month old son, Jimmy, and we took him to the Fun Junction play centre and had lunch at Pizza Hut. I managed 9 slices at the buffet (and haven't eaten since). Anyway, seeing as how this post is so wordy, here's a pic of Jimmy.

When we were at the play centre, I was thinking about how it took us both the same length of time to go down the spiral slide into the ball pool, because the force of gravity acting on our mass... ok, I admit it, I didn't.

Lectures, Lions and Learning Techniques

2006-11-28T13:00:00.000Z

Hey there bone fans! First off here's the most recent lecture audio, go ahead and download the files below to hear what Daniel had to say about grannies and cat food, and tissues and cells on Saturday 18th November 2006. Control click or right click and 'Save As' to download. A word of warning though - I haven't edited out the gaps while we were working in groups, so you will need to fast-forward through some sections.

Cells and Tissues (9.4 MB)
Joints and Tissues (12.2 MB)
Gravity and Moments (13.9 MB)
Forces on the Spine (20.2 MB)

In other studying news, well again a lot has happened this week to stop me from studying, including the return of my Dad from Kenya, (click for his amazing pictures), a job interview at the Apple Store in Regent Street, some 12 hour shifts at Sky, and the return of Emma from the Dominican Republic. But I have bought and have been reading "Make the Most of Your Mind" by Tony Buzan (free chocolate with every book bought from Borders was a good incentive), and it's really interesting. At first glance it looks like a cheesy self-help book, but there are some really interesting issues. In terms of the way I'm committing information to memory I could really improve. The book suggests that you should be revisiting information the same day, a day later, a week later and a month later if you expect to commit information to long-term memory. The other thing that is a recurring theme is that when you decide that you can't do something, you don't even try. That applies to almost everything, so I'll be looking out for negative attitudes in myself and trying to counter them.

My studying plan for tomorrow, my day off, is to work for about 6 hours from 7am with a gym break in between. I've got some new techniques to put into practice courtesy of Tony Buzan, so I will blog about them at the end of the day. Bye for now...

Physics in real life

2006-11-12T19:45:00.000Z

Having spent some more time with Newton's Laws of Motion, I came across a couple of additional laws which make a lot of sense:

1. Any object at rest will be in the wrong place.
2. Any object in motion will be heading in the wrong direction.

Made me smile after several hours of frowning

Podcasting? Stuff that...

2006-11-12T14:27:00.000Z

It's way too tricky and totally unecessary just for our class to access. It's not as if this is aimed at a global audience anyway. So, clicky clicky for Daniels lectures from Saturday 11th November 2006 (afternoon only, sorry). Right click and 'Save As' to download.

Gravity and Moments (13.9 MB)
Cells (part 1) (7.4 MB)
Cells (part 2) (10.6 MB)

As it’s Sunday and I’ve recovered from last nights fun (missed the Lord Mayors fireworks, did a spontaneous pub crawl from Blackfriars to Piccadilly, met some school friends, had dinner, had the most expensive beer ever, then lots of lovely vodka at Revolution), I’m now going to start on some Chemistry, and then some Physics as I only scored 9 on the test :-(

Podcasting

2006-10-20T14:57:00.000+01:00

I've spent most of the afternoon with the free guide that came with Tortora. It's really good! But looking at pictures is nothing compared to the real thing. I think from now on I'm going to spend dedicated time with the bones at college.

Anyway, having managed to convert WAV audio files to MP3 audio files, and then worked out how to do it without tripling the file size, I'm almost ready to start podcasting! I know how to load the MP3 files to my website, that's not hard, they're here. The hard part is publishing them to an aggregator (which is software that collects podcasts and other types of feeds). I'm getting errors so I'll have to look into it another time. Especially as it's not strictly studying...

Lame

2006-10-19T09:56:00.000+01:00

I've got loads to catch up with. I've just done 3 days in a row with Sky, 12hr shifts all three days and so no study since last Saturday! Eeeek!
So here's todays plan - go to town to get the chores out of the way, and a haircut. Get back, crack on with a 6 hour study marathon, broken into 3 x 2hr sets. To be realistic and to cope with my poor attention span I'm execting to push for 20 minute bursts of focused study.... I'll post again at the end of it and review this plan

This weeks progress

2006-10-06T14:35:00.000+01:00

I've forgotten to use this a couple of times so I've made "Journal" a new part of my 2Do list. Which today included a lot of other things as well. I've managed to get through most of them, so I feel satisfied from that... Studying wise I completed my Maths homework and mostly finished my English essay. Didn't spend very long looking at the skeleton this week but I'm happy that I know all the major bones in the body as requested for this weeks lesson.
Today I spent some money on sorting out my stationary - my flimsy foolscap folder was suffering so I bought a stronger version that should withstand being lugged around the underground. And a red pen to help make some of my notes clearer, and an A4 sketch book to help with my drawing of bones.
A whole new area of study I have discovered is grabbing available people to investigate how their shoulder / cervical vertebrae / various body parts look, function and feel. That's a lot of fun :-)
I also went to a yoga class, and as far as I am concerned, that counts as study too.
Between college tonight and tomorrow, partying saturday night, working a 12 hours shift, I don't expect to be able to devote any private time until next Monday. But by then I will intend to have planned exactly what I hope to get done in that time.

Late Night Maths

2006-10-02T21:39:00.000+01:00

I've done a 12 hour shift today but although it's late I'm going to do half an hour of Maths homework. It's better than nothing...

1st Week Progress

2006-09-28T13:06:00.000+01:00

I have learned the major bones of the human skeleton!

And I am very pleased with myself. Although I keep grabbing my mates and running head to toe through all their bones, they are being very patient with me, probably biding their time til I'm qualified and fixing all their aches and pains.

We've started learning

2006-09-25T11:04:00.000+01:00

So last weekend we had more proper learning sessions - Friday was Maths, we went through rounding to decimal places and significant figures, and started looking at Standard Form Indexing. Saturday was Energy in the morning, looking at some basic physics, and The Skeleton in the afternoon. I was actually surprised at how much of the information stuck.
I worked at 10 hour shift at Sky on Sunday so no studying done then, and so today with a whole day free I expect to get through quite a lot. I have already realised that unless I set specific goals for my study time then I'm going to be aimlessly shuffling through notes and websites (wikipedia is looking great for finding my way around the human skeleton). So what I am going to do is go back through my notes, read through them and form a to-do list of specific goals. When I have done that I'll set time based targets for those goals. I've 2 hours maximum free this afternoon, 2 hours tomorrow morning, 2 hours tomorrow afternoon, I'm working at Sky Wednesday, then I can get 2 hours Thursday morning and another 2 Thurs afternoon, and Friday morning if necessary. That might be overkill this first week but at least I setting out the time. My next post in this journal will be to review how this is going, and what I've done.

An Introduction

2006-09-19T00:09:00.000+01:00

As part of my Access to Osteopathy course, I am keeping a Learning Journal. This is for 3 reasons:

Plan, organise, execute and record study time independently and effectively
Set own written learning goals and priorities according to individual needs, monitoring progress against own criteria and taking remedial action where appropriate
Reflect critically and realisitically on my own progress

Having been advised that the format of the journal and the structure/ approach can be developed to suit my needs, I've gone for a blog