Hi Ayberk,
What are the ways you go about getting to know the characteristics of your students? Do you talk with them, have them fill out a form, etc.? Thank you in advance for sharing this information with us.
Gary
Understanding learner characteristics helps the instructor develop his educational plan according to his target audience. This helps people actually make sense of what is being taught and helps create justification for the subject in their minds.
Once an instructor understands his students' characteristics, he can bring relevant examples and approach the topic from a point that will make the most sense to his students.
Hi William,
How do you go about collecting the information that you need to develop the different delivery styles in your class to meet the varied learning preferences that your students have?
Gary
The understanding of learner characteristics enables the instructor to address in planning the need to recognize where each student stands in the list of learning styles, and tailor the plan to accommodate as much as possible, each of these styles to maximize the learning process and minimize undesirable behaviors.
Hi Joseph,
Good discussion on the why knowing the characteristics of students is so important. I really like your example of showing students how relevancy and application can be made. You are involving a multitude different learning preferences as well as the senses. I am sure your students don't forget this activity and it sets the stage for is going to come in the course. Great idea.
Gary
The ability to understand learning characterictics is the bond between the facilitator and student. An establishment of a model and a participant. Moreover, understanding provides and assurance of sucess in the field of academia.
Dr. Meers, I believe that understanding student learning characteristics is as diverse as the students themselves.
It is an ongoing and evolving process which will make for a positive outcome when reviewed regularly. After years of teaching electrical systems, I decided to create a new lab from a student perspective. They are often told about poor connections and what they can do...How they create High resistance in a circuit, but they really aren't shown what they actually are or how to identify them...the student response is always they connector looks ok to me so...we teach them to measure for high resistanc or voltage drop...I took a wire harness and removed a bundle of wire ends...the female termials and then created an exercise where they insert a know good male termial into each connection one at a time and identify which ones are good connections and which ones are poor connection by feel...this way we overcome the differences in guessing or understanding as you witness the look on their faces when the light goes on and they reply...so thats what a bad connection/high resistance feels like...It was an electrioal epiphany. Our environment has learners as described in the first lesson whho have school issues, personal problems, money issues, holiday anxiety the list goes on...The groups and mix change like the seasons and we must listen...When the natural tendency is to talk...When the students witness this committment to them the learning is an easier process to ignite...and watch as it grows...
By understanding learner characteristics you can apply that information towards your lesson plan. By covering the different learner characteristics you should be able to impart more information to a broader student base.
Hi Sabrina,
Great profile of career college students and what we need to do in order to help them to be effective and efficient learners.
Gary
Working with adults is as much of a science as it is an art. Unlike students in their early 20s, the more mature learner has amassed a repertoire of skills & wisdom commensurate with age. Most often, students in their 50s bring a much different skill set to the classroom than those in their 40s or even 30s. Adults return to school for very different reasons than those who move immediately from the secondary school environment. Adults want to learn. The adult learner is more interested in application that is interdisciplinary in nature and can incorporate the proficiencies they have brought with them. Adults are intrinsically motivated and seek out independence through many avenues including education.
Essentially we move the ancient teaching style of Socrates into the cyber age when we seek to guide our adult learners. There has to be application. Study for study’s sake has no place for adult learners. They must take with them at the very least a morsel that will add to their life, be it personal, professional, or even spiritually.
Delta Airlines has an innovative Learning division that centers its teaching in action. The idea is to engage the learner in the activity because of the benefits for his/her job. In our classrooms, we usually provide scenarios and activities that our students may see or hope to see in the future. Thus, it is our purpose to coach the student and be sure that s/he appreciates the implications and outcomes of the learning activities so that the motivation within will guide the student to a more advanced level.
Hi Andre,
Great example of being responsive to a student's need but without compromising the standards of the course. You helped make her successful as a result of her knowing that you were there to provide support as she needed it.
Gary
Learners are so very diverse in their experiences, their cultural heritage, their age and their expectations for learning. Of course, it helps any instructor to understand the characters of the students in their classes. For example, knowing that a student is an immigrant from Mexico who speaks very little English will definitely help the instructor to accommodate those student needs by possibly modifying the learning material or by providing additional ESL/ELL support to that learner. Oftentimes, students are not very good about articulating their needs to an instructor. I once had a learning disabled student in my course. Her very first assignment was late. She never asked me for additional time to complete the work but I knew that it was evident that she needed extensions. Therefore knowing her characteristics helped me to provide extensions for all her assignments ahead of time. I notified her that I had changed the due date for her assignments based on her specific needs. Of course as teachers, we need to recognize that one size does not fit everyone.
By being familiar with the ways in which the various students in your class learn most effectively, the instructor is then better able to tailor the planning and delivery of the topic/material to make it interesting and easy to understand for everyone in the group.
Hi Robyn,
Good point about how you have changed your style from when you first started teaching. Instructors that strive for improvement in their abilities and deliveries are those that grow with the field. I am sure we all have had college professors that were frozen in time in terms of their knowledge, notes and delivery. What a long semester it was having their course.
Gary
There are so many different learning styles out there. We are always teaching and reteaching the concepts with new approaches for all learning styles.I teach totally different than 23 years ago. I am constantly redoing my style.
Student learn in different ways. In the students future they may be in a supervisory role and will need to train. Discuss the different ways of learn as part of the class
Hi Duane,
Right you are. This is so important when working with non-traditional learners. They need to be allowed to bring in their life experiences as a foundation upon which they can build. This helps to get them settled into the course and builds up their self confidence which is needed for success.
Gary
Continual improvement for the situation seems to be the main rule.
I think non-traditional learners are resistant but when you engage them with what they know and add the (new) to it, it helps to bring down those barriers to change.
This is extremely necessary to understand the importance of diversity and what it offers to the classroom. In fact it is absolutely important in today's marketplace. The diversity of human beings offers richness in so many ways. I would in fact group different people together and encourage dialogue amongst them around a common topic. The different characteristics are what we really need in any classroom.
