Learning Visually

How do you learn new concepts best? I’m both a visual learner and a visual explainer. When it comes to learning something new, I’m a first-rate doodler. My brain engages more quickly when I can pick up a pen and draw circles, lines, squares, and all manner of arrows on a piece of paper.

The opposite is true too. When I try to explain something, I have a hard time conveying the topic with mere words. I’m compelled to draw it out. Mike, in a similar way, is compelled to code it out, as a way of explaining the concept.

It should come as no surprise then that our courses include lots of code examples and a bunch of diagrams! We don’t hesitate to use squares, arrows, buttons, highlights, and whatever else it takes to help explain new concepts visually.

So we’re especially delighted when we hear from our alumni that these diagrams and sketches help them really understand new Ruby and Rails concepts:

“For the visual thinkers out there, all the diagrams in your courses are total awesome-sauce!” — Pol Murchu Stafford

“I have always learned best with a visual approach, and your diagrams showing the relationships between the models, views, controllers, actions, etc. were extremely helpful. Thanks for providing such a great course!” — Cody Joy

“The awesome visual diagrams were absolutely critical in my understanding of all the trips back and forth to the browser-router communication and the MVC principles.” — Sergio Barrera

“Wonderful animations and conceptual diagrams. I wish I had done this course BEFORE starting Ruby on Rails development. Loved it!” — Dr. Ed Wallitt

If you learn new concepts best by way of diagrams and animations, come join us in the Studio for a course! You can also check out the first few modules (and first few diagrams) of every course for free: Ruby Programming, Rails Level I , Rails Level II, and our latest course on how to design with Ruby Blocks & Iterators.

Speaking of courses, we’re busy working on our next one and I have a queue of diagrams to sketch out with the new colored pens that just arrived in the mail. Blue circles for the win!