You can teach several different ways. Visual or hands on works for most students.
Understanding the learners characteristics helps in many ways. With the different learning styles, you can see how a student learns, same thing with characteristics, if students have similiar characteristics, then you can teach to that style, while also reaching other students. I think it is so important to get to know your students and their characteristics and learning styles which will aide in student learning.
Being able to relate to your adult learner allows them to see you as a person; therefore it helps to build a report of trust. This then helps to create a tranquil learning environment, while still maintaining the student instructor boundaries.
By realizing that each individual will learn differently, some will be visual and some will be able to comprehend and grasp material readily without applying much effort. But being able to have each student learn utilizing both visual and lecture simutaniously can benefit both types of students. Basically a show, tell, do approach.
There are so many diffrent types of learning styles. In my feild I need to be able to be flexable for all of my students one student may get the info by listening then others are hands on. I have to be flexable in the way I present my meterial. This way the student gets all the needed info.
Crystal,
What a valuable service you are providing your students. I have the same situation and I work hard to get them some basic study skills so they can have early success in the course. Without these skills the specific course content will not be gained nor comprehended.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I try to make ongoing informal assessments of my learners during every interaction. In my community college setting, learners tend to lack confidence and many are first-generation. As a result, they often do not possess the study skills or reading techniques necessary to complete assignments. I start by teaching them how to read the texbook and make the most of their study time. I know it sounds elementary, but it never ceases to amaze me how many of my students agonize for hours over a reading assignment that should have taken them 20-30 minutes. So I teach them how to be proactive in the reading process. When they adopt the techniques, they become more confident and look forward to reading new material because they feel less intimidated by the assignment.
Stacey,
You have a great background for where you are teaching now. You know how to adapt your instruction to meet the individual learning needs that exist in your classes. This is so valuable to your students even if some of them don't realize it.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
It helps the instructor to plan and design the class for needs of the learner. By designing the class based on the learner,the student will have better success. The instructor can design activities in which the learner can use their life experiences to apply to their learning process.
I used to work with students with exceptionalities, and I had to understand how each of them learned and retained information. They all learned and retained info different, so I needed to accomodate my teaching style to their learning style.
Jason,
Good point about the value focusing on student retention. Faculty as you know are the connection between retention and student success because they spend so much time with them. So the more they know about how to keep students engaged the greater the engagement is going to be.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
Everyone learns in different ways. In other words, everyone can be taught. We have to identify certain characteristics to better understand our students. Some are book smart, but have trouble with hands on, while others do better hands on but have trouble with reading and exams. We have to be able to push the top students and pull the bottom students so they can all meet their goals effectively.
As an instructor we need to understand the differenct characteristics of our students. In education we desire each student to be successful in their field of choice. It can become frustrating to students if the instructor only teach to one type of student. A potential successful student can fail simply due to teachers lack of knowledge about different types of learning behaviors or characteristics.
It is important to know your students so you can present the material in a way that will be understood. You might need to take a lecture and modify it to appeal to visual learners or hands on learners. You just cannot have a canned lesson that is given the exact same way to every single class.
this, I think, is one of the truest keys to "in-class" retention...the points raised in the module help to refresh the "empathy factor" - which can help faculty to reach students where they are...as a manager of faculty, I suspect reminding my faculty of the importance of empathizing with our students (based, in part, on an ongoing assessment of learning characteristics) will be a strong tool in helping us to meet our retention goals...
This gives the instructor and understanding of how student are able to relate to the material and builds confidence in the adult student looking to change there career.
Ashley,
I agree. In teaching as you know no two classes are alike. So we get to be creative, have new students and enjoy sharing our content over and over again while getting paid for it. This is a win win situation.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I agree, I like being creative when developing new ways to help students learn, it is indeed one of the fun parts of teaching!
Knowing how students learn shows us(instructors) how to prepare for classes. You do not want to prepare a lecture for class when the students are more hands on learning.
By understanding the student's characteristics, the instructor can better modify the lesson to suit their background. The closer we match the course with the student's background and characteristics, the easier it is for a student to remember the subject matter.
