Hi there, welcome. This is The Filament, a Stanford Learning Lab podcast, we're a podcast that sheds light on the learning experiences and strategies of undergraduate and graduate students at Stanford University. I'm your host for today Carolyn Wilsey, a learning specialist at the Stanford Learning Lab. And I'm joined by Massimo Giordano, a PhD student in Electrical Engineering. Welcome.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's a pleasure. Yes. So this podcast was really your idea. What made you want to create a forum to share learning experiences?
Well, is always great to share my journey and try to help others I know how hard it is sometime to face challenges and remain motivated
So I'm always very happy to share the little that I've learned and just create an environment where it's okay to talk about learning difficulties and having facing struggle and yet this somewhat successful, it's okay. And so that's why I'm always open to, to share my story.
Yeah, thank you for your openness. I wanted to ask you and we spoke a bit before we started recording about your learning differences and diagnoses. And wondering if you would want to share a bit about that. What type of language you prefer when talking about learning differences and diagnoses?
Yeah, so we, you know, I was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was young, believe in elementary school, and since then, has really be characterizing me I do relate to dyslexic is a really big part of my life and has been a challenge in school for sure. But I almost take it personally because I know that I am dyslexic. I know that there is a reason behind what I'm facing a school. And so these given empowers me to face it and and really try to overcome the problem. I don't think that if I had been dynastic, dyslexic back then I would be here today, right? So that gives me a reason to fight.
Yes, thank you for sharing that. What would you say was the turning point for you after being diagnosed? And on your journey towards Stanford? Was there any particular strategy that you learned that really helped you or any particular person in those early years? That just made things easier?
Sure, sure. Well, you know, from when I was diagnosed, and being in being admitted to Stanford, many years have passed. So I think it's good to give some context and as been a variety of methods and a variety of people really gave me the support and the power to arrive here. And I want to start with, with my family, because I think that was a key point because just for context for my lesson is that I grew up in Italy, little town. No one knew about dyslexia and so even the teacher and the professor could not really understand what were my what I was struggling with, right they clearly saw that I was not performing well, in reading and other assignments, let's put it this way. But at the same time, I was very motivated if there was anything to be done in school had on moving boxes are moving faster from the wall. I was always the one wanted to do it. And I was always the one who wanted to engage but then, when I was doing the homework, I was always underperforming that the teacher could not wrap their head at around this column so they could not understand. And luckily, my mom understood that something wasn't. I wasn't performing as expected and she tried to teach me how to read properly at home. And she started yet I couldn't perform well so she brought me to doctor and we did the test. And that was was kind of a journey with finding the right doctor. It took several iteration and then we finally find a really great supporting doctor then he followed me all the way to university, and really helped me many situation even in school to advocate for me. And, and so, for me, coming back to your question, Who are the people that helped me where there's very few that understood that I was extremely motivated and extremely passionate and willing to learn and but something that they couldn't understand was off. Yeah. And they were somewhat accepting the exact sia they couldn't understand fully because there wasn't the knowledge, but they were willing to put the effort in understanding me more, and that always helped. So yeah, so that was a long time ago. And I went through high school. Lots of challenges. I went through a bachelor in science in theoretical physics in Italy. A lot of challenges. Took a master in nanotechnology, between Italy, France and Switzerland grademaster. Huge challenges and I'm happy to share more of those challenges. Just just to see how things sometimes get convoluted, right? Yes,
I think it's really powerful. To talk about challenges, and I appreciate your willingness.
And for me, the big help were my peers all the time.
I'm curious to know, you know, I know you and I have had conversations about advantages of having dyslexia, which is in no way to diminish the challenges that you just named, and how there can be many roadblocks. I'm wondering if you would speak to some of the advantages that you see when you think about aspects of dyslexia? Sure, sure.
For me, dyslexia really is almost like a gift. I really see myself represented. I think myself as a dyslexic mindset. And now Richard Branson even advocate for dyslexic skill set. Dyslexic thinking in LinkedIn. I immediately went and added on mine. So I think that is an advantage. That needs that is very powerful in a research setting in a work setting, but you still have to channel it in your, in your environment. Otherwise is hard to be acknowledged. And I think this was kind of some of the work that we have done here at the Learning Lab. And we can talk more in detail but really, how can can we understand that there is an acknowledgement about the the unique skills that we're bringing to the table. So you know, for me I always try to bring the creative creativity part even very technical. Task, very visual thinking. Yes. And and so I am often coming up with new ideas. And and really the visual aspect allows me to see things that are not necessarily straightforward when you're when you're when you're used to think through numbers and a question because is different than dimension, right? So something that you know, is like seeing a weird object from a certain angle, but when you turn it then it could be completely different and so, the visual aspect often allows me to, to come up with different interpretation or different seeing different pinpoints that other might be missing, you know, what is a constraint might be an advantage in different angle right? And so I always try to focus on that and and try to bring this on the table.
Yes, exactly. Yes. And I know we have conversations about how to communicate these advantages that you have, and as you said, the uniqueness of what you can contribute to a team. Because the way your brain is designed, you see connections between things in really creative ways that other people just might miss but are completely valid and really useful and moving projects forward. So innovative, so interesting. And in terms of spatial awareness, it was funny, I don't know if I've shared this with you one time when you came for a session. I just moved a picture that I had (do you remember this?). Yeah, I just moved the picture that I had in my office and I thought, Oh, I wonder if Massimo will notice that I moved this picture. And within 10 seconds of coming into the room you noticed that I had changed the picture and you'd only been in my office one time prior. So just
we were talking about zoom before anything. Oh,
that could be which is just incredible to me how quickly you're assessing environments and how much in the environment you're absorbing just really speaks to the spatial and creative intelligence that you have. Yeah, so thank you for sharing about how that works within your field of study, and I'm curious to know what has helped in terms of those conversations, talking about what you're bringing to the team.
Yeah. Focusing on what I am able to bring and the Noby diving, the fear that my challenges are compromising everything. So I became more and more open to tell that hey, I'm dyslexic. I always be somewhat hiding it. But I see the value of just sharing it and and people might not know the implication, but this is a good starting you can always you know when you're right, they're facing a challenge and say how sorry I'm you know, I told you I'm dyslexic. I'm, this is exactly the type of challenges that I have. And that just creating awareness around your in your work space is extremely important. And so the, for me, it was very valuable to focus on on this aspect and, and really start conversation with my peers especially those that I really admire, my colleagues, my peers trying to be banded together, and making sure that they understand that I'm very motivated to help and contribute. Yeah. But then that might be a different way of contributing.
Well, there's really no transition here, but I'm wondering, what's a learning strategy that's working well for you right now?
I always tried to get help from other students. I became less afraid to just ask for help. And you will be surprised to see that there are a lot of students that are very willing to help. And again, by talking to you, that student might be finding also very helpful. They might be finding helpful, too. They might see that they miss something in their own work. Or they might miss that they didn't member that concept as well as they thought they did. Yeah, so for me a school has always been extremely hard to filter down information even just reading a book. You know, there is this textbook. It's not that everything is equally important, but my mind when I read every word is equally important. Yes. Because that's the way a dyslexic phase. You know, I was like okay, I'm gonna read this okay, page one bit too. But somehow students have the tendency to filter this information and book extremely well. They skim through the go through the content list, they quickly understand that okay, these aren't these questions must be answered in that chapter. And no more like must be How could you know those magic right?
So how do you work with that? Your technique is to talk to another student... It sounds like that is the strategy?
Yeah, I always try to engage with other yeah and and so I know you know after pandemic during pandemic and has been extremely hard, more complex because is our is our to engage with other but you know, in for me during my academic journey abroad has been I find it extremely effective to seek help from other students. Yeah, succeeding in school was very important. I did want to learn this concept. Yes. And by learning I had to be in school, but to be in school, I had to pass the exam and so I had to be creative in finding
the solution. Right. Yeah.
I think that is also very valuable to focus on. What the person is really good at. Yes. And, and give a bit of, you know, it's okay. If one of challenges in certain fields, you don't necessarily have to resolve them, you know, it's okay. To just focus on what you're gonna say if if I could go back 10 years and tell myself and give myself an advice is it just focus on what you're really good at? And spend all the energy to get even better at that? Rather than trying to improve your the challenges that I was having? I mean, I learned a lot from that process. But I also sometimes feel very tired by having to always solve all these challenges and feel almost impaired you know, in many things. So it's a balance but is yeah, I learned over
time. No, I really appreciate you sharing that and yeah, how much more effort it can be when a system is not set up to honor diverse learning how challenging that can be and how tiring that can be for the learners who are coming into that system. And I think it just makes me Yeah, think about universal design and how it's wonderful when we have the opportunities to showcase knowledge in the ways that make the most sense to us. And I know you to be a social guy as someone who's very able to communicate and enjoys talking about ideas. So having that as a possible method of being able to deliver knowledge of content.
Yeah, and you're right. And I think we even talked about that. I always because I'm thinking very visual. I always draw my concepts. And I always make some slides to show exactly what I'm thinking because that's a way I'm just replicating how I have it in my mind, and for me, it's helpful for my thinking process also drawing it and because for 10, I use my drawing as a base to new drawings, you know, I can say stack complexity and sometimes in school he happened that I you know, even when learning from other students, my colleagues, oh, okay, is planning to do this architecture, this work. Okay, let me sketch it so that I fully understand it. And so I'm understanding that I've fully got it hundred percent and then we can build from that.
I'm wondering if you could share with us, what's your favorite app or website to help with academic projects? What's working for you?
Sure. So well, I use text to speech extensively. I read a lot of audiobooks. So Audible has been since a while now part of my daily life. I will say for me, it's always been very hard to keep up with emails. And you know, like, I never again how I know I have unread emails in the now I need to answer which email you know which one is important which one is useless as most of the emails and so I recently now it's been a few months that I found this Superhuman app is called Superhuman, funny name, which just put you in the right mindset to an apps to go through all the emails and really assign a task to all of them go to throw it away, or you reply immediately or you postpone it. So the idea that for every email, you do something right. And for me, what is important is being able to put out of my mind, something so not because dyslexic is very small working memory, having a lot of things to keep in mind to slow us down significantly. So let's make an example. Okay, there is this talk to go to on a certain day. Okay, this up quickly. Allow you go through them to put that email that event into the calendar. Yeah. Or to let's say, oh, I need this email information. For you know, this exactly, you know, we add our email a few months ago. To meet today. Well, I said, Okay, remind me today. So this morning, I received that email back and it was extremely helpful because okay, this is the address and this is the time that we meet and so on. So those are extremely helpful because if I if our emails that I need in the future, yeah. They will come back to me in the future is easy for me to say, Okay, I will need this that day, and it will come back. Yeah. And so yeah, it was me going down to zero email so that I'm not distracted. Because again, it's very hard for me to navigate through information. So that helps. I still get very lost into no text messages. WhatsApp messages, Telegram messages, I really don't know how people keep up with those. me neither. Yeah, I wish there will be a Superhuman for those as well. Because yeah, again, I get I get lost, right. There are like 50 conversation. Some are conversation that are done. Some are to answer. I don't know which one if I started going through, I guess very distracted, similar problems.
So this could be the launch of Superhuman part two. Web developers and VC folks take note.
And yeah, and I think yeah, those are Yeah, and text and speech recognition for their great plugins for the browser that works very well. That you know, helps you when you're writing an email. This is a long email. You know, you can just talk right you know, I think that the biggest how, as been to you know, I know that I'm very bad in emails, but I'm really good in talking in person and I just go more used to say, hey, let's just go over this in person, you know, let's set up a call and let's meet and it's just easier so I think I'm the only one that still called calling people instead of sending that but
keeping it old school. Yeah, I remember you share this technique with me and I was so struck by it because I think it really works to your strengths or speaks to your strengths, as you were saying before, being someone who really enjoys talking in person and who's able to connect in that way that you would just say if you're getting a whole chain of emails from someone like hey, let's meet when can you meet and then streamlining the process? Because I think, you know, one thing that's come out of conversations that I've had with many students with learning differences and learning disabilities is that it's just so darn tiring. Absolutely. Right. And so you're finding these different strategies to work with your strengths and then to take this exhaustion that can come and put it on the shelf more and more.
I would add that over time, I got used to when I noticed that something is taking a bit longer than normal, right, and I can feel it in my workflow. It can just be sometimes I'm just going back and forward between two documents just to that I'm comparing. And I remember thinking this is taking this is frustrating because I go to one document. Now I don't remember which of the 1000 tabs are open the previous document right, or wherever in my computer desktops is the person. So every time I was spending a few seconds, just thinking, and so then another good app is Workona cause you to organize your tabs in the Chrome extension. So that now I have tabs for my research for my classes, tabs form, just you know, daily things or planning holidays or whatever. Another example is shortcut. So in the MacBook I believe in any computer you can say if I'm typing this is going to replace with something sometimes. And I have several like my personal zoom link, I just like zoom link, and they'll probably automatically pop up zoom link, the actual hit link. And in fact almost all my people are working on they always say Oh, can you send the Zoom link of course, because
I really appreciate that you have found the magic shortcut.
Others are you know, my Stanford ID it was always taking forever. For me to go and search my Stanford ID write any as often. So again, stem for daily problems, the number that they it takes me once I noticed that this is slowing me down, it may take me, you know, 30 seconds to go and replace it. But then it makes my life my life much easier. Yeah. Any other time later? Yeah, I use those a ton. And I advise anyone to really try to start thinking of your workflow and where you are spending time you know, another example of being a foreign person that is not English native speaker. I never know how to spell words. So I'm writing an email and now I'm like, let's say through I have no idea how to write through still today. Sure. And so I'm always go trying through thought they all sound spelling similar and never remember. I have to go and Google write a word that has through in it so that then Google can suggest me which one it is. And that is extremely long, right?
You have a lot of hacks though. Yeah.
And sometimes, you know, always okay, how can I avoid doing this? Yeah. Is a plugin for a dictionary or if it's a shortcut is, you know, there are so many resources out there. There is always a resource that can help you in something and really just be getting in the habit of exploring and trying really makes a difference.
I really appreciate that. Yeah. So you're always on the lookout for how can I streamline my process, and the one that works for me individually? What specific skills or practices did you take away from the LLIT program? So we have this Learning Lab Ignition Term, which is how Massimo and I met. What stands out to you in terms of specific skills or practices that came out of that quarter?
Having someone that can resonate with you and may highlight the good parts that then one can go and keep that in mind for when addressing the same conversation in a more difficult setting. So that was extremely helpful. We went through a few techniques that I still remember when you told me just put a Post-It saying one thing at a time I'm noticing that inefficiently multitasking that I would just say distracting myself in many things. One thing at one
time. I love a Post-It. that's one of my favorite strategies
too. So that was that was very helpful and very helpful as well, as I was mentioning earlier, really trying to get awareness of your role in a team. That was probably the most trying to focus on. And I know is always our life at Stanford is always too goes too fast. It's really hard to keep up with everything. But taking some time to focus on this aspect. I think it has a bigger repercussion in the future because we're often focused on again the world quarterly deliverable, you know, the new class, you know, the class ends, the quarter ends, all the classes are ended, kind of all the work that you put there vanishes. Kind of hopefully you learn something new, like homeworks and stuff but in research in this more systematic way of approaching school, this work as a long lasting effect, right. So I think giving yourself some time to reflect on this aspect of the learning disability or any challenges that one my sees, is important. It's important to take some time to address those because then later on, will help you significantly so for me, that was important.
Yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing that an inventory really what you're bringing into the learning space, and the way that that can really help your team. Yeah, I think with negativity bias and the way that our culture can be sometimes it's so easy to see the things that aren't kind of going the way that we might like and that can be so painful and I think it can be so isolating for students to feel like oh, this didn't go well and it's because of XYZ but really taking the time setting aside putting in the calendar, you know, for 10 minutes tonight. I'm just going to inventory what's going right.
Yeah. Remember where you were, you suggested to you know, write once a week one day, something positive that happened. You know, something you know where I was successful, what I did well you know, it helps in terms of going over those sometimes and say, okay, you know it sometimes when is it with lower, you know, steam and just challenged, challenged by various things just going over those and say, Oh, no, I actually, I actually do impact and actually, I'm having, I'm being helpful and I'm participating. And it's okay to participate differently. Yeah, everyone does differently. Sometimes. I think we feel the social pressure that we have to at least participate in a certain way. But if you just focusing on on what you can uniquely contribute is important, and that's a good starting point, you know, one starts from there and you can expand to more general contribution.
Yes, I really appreciate that. Like, what am I bringing to the space that no one else has? That's exciting.
You know, learning can have any form and shape and success is again any form and shape as well. So really try to identify what those are for you and go for that and it's okay if you know really trying to absorb anything, any knowledge, even if that is unconventional or knowledge or say right, because then Then it remains so I would strongly encourage anyone that is feels a bit slowed down, by challenges in school to, you know, it's okay. And what we learn the conventional learning is a small percentage of the skill set that we need to be successful in life. And sometimes in a school setting we think this is the only thing that we need. Yeah. And changing this mindset is extremely important.
Yes. Very well said. Thank you for highlighting the true benefits of neurodiversity, and being so generous in describing your experiences with dyslexia and strategies that worked well for you. I'm really grateful.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so that's today's podcast. Thank you for being with us. During our conversation, we had echoes of the book, The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain, as well as entrepreneur Marie Forleo's tagline that the world needs that special gift that only you have. So please feel free to check out those resources, folks, and websites. And for more information about the Stanford Learning Lab please visit us online at learninglab.stanford.edu