Types of learners
It should be plain that we need to learn our students rather than they learn material.
Hi Hugh, That is an excellent point! The bottom line is that we need to teach the informatiion that we must get across!Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career! Susan
Susan Polick
Dan's post was interesting to me because it made me think of the instructor that tries to be all things to all students with the result being that most of the students are not maximizing their learning experience and inspite of the instructors efforts the outcome is poor. I think that an instructor needs to try and be accommodating, but he must not lose sight of the fact he will never be 100% effective to everyone.
I think it is important to find out how your students learn in order to help them recieve the information you teach, and in order for them not to feel lost in the class.
Profond statement, but i think we learn our students so that we can find the best way for them to learn the material.
Hi Dan, Thanks for an interesting post. I try to use as many delivery styles as possible in a carefully planned manner.
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
I'm sort of confused with this statement.
But here's what I think it means: I think it means our priority should be teaching students how to learn rather than teaching them, specifically the content of the course. Which seems reasonable.
But what the learning styles theory tells us is that students already know how to learn--in a specific way. And I think the, perhaps more responsible, translation of "teach students to learn" is something to the effect of "challenge students to learn differently."
Every student comes into class with some comprehension strategies already in place, I think. I also think that we have to be careful not to treat these learning styles as innate and intransitive. Rather, I wonder if thinking of learning styles as fluid (for example, is it possible for students to be visual learners in one setting and auditory in another?) and strategic would be more beneficial.
In other words, rather than focusing on hitting as many learning styles as possible in a course, would it be more beneficial to design activities which encourage students to move between learning styles in a more fluid way?
