Learning and Teaching Styles
Wk. 2 Learning and Teaching Styles
“In almost every actual well-designed study, Mr. Pashler and his colleagues write in their paper, ‘Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence,’ the pattern is similar: For a given lesson, one instructional technique turns out to be optimal for all groups of students, even though students with certain learning styles may not love that technique.” (2009) I wanted to start this paper with this quote since it did involve some sort of evidence that teaching in one style still works. Students can and do succeed and have received equal scores as their peers whose learning styles matched the teachers methods of teaching. I do believe however that students may not catch on as fast and lose interest easier when being taught material. This is why I would still use different methods of teaching versus just one. As a visual learner, I understand how difficult it can be to orally receive directions for an assignment or other activity. I thrive on written directions and learning materials that need to be read or are graphed. I often had to ask the teacher numerous times to repeat the directions because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. This put me behind and my grades occasionally suffered as a result.
As a past teacher who worked in a school that believed in teaching using the multiple intelligences method, I found great joy in seeing my students succeed. As teachers, we were required to hand in our lesson plans weekly to the principal. Our lesson plans had to involve each of the intelligences. This was my first real job as a teacher and I did not completely understand why we were required to do this and not use our own personal methods. Looking back, I am so grateful that I learned and saw first hand the consequences of teaching using the multiple intelligences. I enjoyed seeing my student’s motivation rise as their type of learning was focused on for a particular lesson.
When I go back to teaching, I will with no doubt in
“In almost every actual well-designed study, Mr. Pashler and his colleagues write in their paper, ‘Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence,’ the pattern is similar: For a given lesson, one instructional technique turns out to be optimal for all groups of students, even though students with certain learning styles may not love that technique.” (2009) I wanted to start this paper with this quote since it did involve some sort of evidence that teaching in one style still works. Students can and do succeed and have received equal scores as their peers whose learning styles matched the teachers methods of teaching. I do believe however that students may not catch on as fast and lose interest easier when being taught material. This is why I would still use different methods of teaching versus just one. As a visual learner, I understand how difficult it can be to orally receive directions for an assignment or other activity. I thrive on written directions and learning materials that need to be read or are graphed. I often had to ask the teacher numerous times to repeat the directions because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. This put me behind and my grades occasionally suffered as a result.
As a past teacher who worked in a school that believed in teaching using the multiple intelligences method, I found great joy in seeing my students succeed. As teachers, we were required to hand in our lesson plans weekly to the principal. Our lesson plans had to involve each of the intelligences. This was my first real job as a teacher and I did not completely understand why we were required to do this and not use our own personal methods. Looking back, I am so grateful that I learned and saw first hand the consequences of teaching using the multiple intelligences. I enjoyed seeing my student’s motivation rise as their type of learning was focused on for a particular lesson.
When I go back to teaching, I will with no doubt in
References: chronicle.com/article/Matching-Teaching-Style-to/49497/ www.sube.com/.../integrating_learning_styles_and_skills_in_e... www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html www.tefl.net/esl-lesson-plans/multiple-intelligences.htm Gardner, Howard. 1993. Multiple intelligences. The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books.