Just checked out this thread and found it awesome...
I personally use my own approach while learning and practicing scales. I associate a certain color of rainbow to each scale (ionian - red, lydian - orange etc) and tie scales with related chords (Xmaj7 comes from ionian and lydian, X7 from mixo, Xm dim7 from locrian, Xm7 from frygian, dorian, aeolian). Pretty cool for memorizing the emotional shade and harmonic relationship for each scale:)
