Creating adaptive learners
I do think that it's important to provide material in different formats so that students can learn to pick up information in formats that are not their preferred type. If all info is given in a student's preferred format, he or she will never learn to be an adaptive learner.
However, I sometimes think that educators feel the need to tailor their delivery formats to their students. And sometimes I think they only expect students to learn in the students' preferred format.
Since I work at a "career college" that trains students to enter a specific field (and actually get a job with their degree--unlike the liberal arts education I received :) ), I wonder if we do our students a disservice by tailoring delivery formats towards one specific "optimized" format--perhaps tactile in many instances.
When our students get a job, they won't be able to tell their employer "That's not my preferred learning method. Could you present that in a visual format?" They'll be asked (commanded) to learn in whatever format their employer deems the most cost effective.
Therefore, teaching them to learn in any format (versus tailoring the format to them) is incredibly important.
Thoughts?
Hi Jennifer- Thanks for your post to the forum. I agree that our students will need to adapt to any learning format when they are working. Our job though, is to teach our students as effectively as we can. We are pushing them to absorb massive ammounts of content in a short period of time and the most effective way to do that is to teach to all the learning styles. My experience with teaching adult students is that by the time they are adults and have been in the workplace, they have learned to adapt. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
I think you have a great point. We do to a certain extent need to be sure we cover all the learning styles since there are probably many in our classrooms, but according to the industry the student will be entering, the student needs to be able to work in any format required of him/her. They need to learn to learn in any format to be successful in the workplace. I think we focus too much on tailoring to the student rather than focusing on teaching the student the information needed in the industry.
HI Terry - We all encounter this problem occasionally. Of course we try tutoring/remediation, but sometimes it just becomes clear that the student is just not going to make it in that field. generally we try to counsel a student to switch to another of our programs that they are better suited for. Often this works well. Best wishes- Susan
Jonathan,
You echo my sentiments exactly. Having spent 20+ years in the IT industry (specifically programming) I sometimes see that there are students that just don't learn the way that they will need to in order to be successful in the industry.
I struggle with do I change my style to accommodate the student's learning style or let them struggle now rather than going into the field and failing.
Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Terry
