Diversifying Teaching Styles to Meet the Needs of All Learners When researching about education, one often finds a great deal of literature and information about learning styles. Educators spend countless hours studying their students in order to find out how they learn best. All students have needs when it comes to how they learn and educators must be able to meet those needs in order to promote successful learning in their classrooms. This (paper/article) will focus on teaching strategies and how to vary them so that each learning style preference is addressed, therefore increasing the level of achievement of each student and making learning a successful outcome in the classroom. Strategies, or methods of instruction, include the ways in which the content/information is transformed into new learning for the students. The content can be transformed directly from the teacher to the student through lecture, demonstration, drill and questioning, or more indirectly where the teacher's role is to facilitate learning situations through grouping, discovery, inquiry, role-play and simulations (Freiberg, Driscoll, 1996). Wilen, Ishler, Hutchison, and Kindsvatter (2000) stress that building a positive, supportive learning environment is an important goal for all teachers who want their students to succeed in learning. To maintain student interest and achieve higher results, they encourage teachers to use a variety of methods. They suggest four strategies for "generating an academic climate" in the classroom (p. 30): 1) be task oriented and aware of time. Teachers often find themselves in a situation, which limits the amount of time they can spend on a certain topic. Therefore, it is recommended that teachers try to rema... ... middle of paper ... ..., A. (1996). Universal teaching strategies (2nd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Hyman, R.T. (1974). Ways of teaching (2nd ed.). New York: J.B. Lippincott. Mastropieri, M. A., Scruggs, T. E. (1991). Teaching students ways to remember. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books. Ornstein, A. C. (1995). Teaching theory into practice. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Plauche-Parker, J. (1989). Instructional strategies for teaching the gifted. Needham Heights, MA; Allyn & Bacon, Inc. Tuckman, B. W. (1991). "Derivation and description of and interpersonal construct model of teaching to help student teachers self-actualize." Paper presented an annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago. Wilen, W., Ishler, M., Hutchison, J., Kindsvatter, R. (2000). Dynamics of effective teaching (4th ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman
Researchers agree on the fact that while there is no credible evidence that learning styles exist, neither is there evidence to the contrary (Reiner & Willingham, 2010). Different people have different preferences for learning, a fact that all researchers agree on. These preferences can be affected by an individual’s interests, abilities, and background knowledge (Reiner & Willingham, 2010). Studies show that while students have a preferred style of learning, if material is presented in another method, the learning is equivalent.
I have spent many hours researching, discussing, and experiencing different ways to manage a classroom. Cleveland State University has given me the opportunity to focus a lot of time on developing my own philosophy of teaching and how I will manage my own classroom. I will incorporate my personality into my classroom, while focusing on concepts from theorists Jacob Kounin, Fredrick Jones, Rudolf Dreikurs and Linda Albert, Lee Canter and Marlene Canter, William Glasser, B.F. Skinner, Haim Ginott, and Thomas Gordon. I have taken ideas from each of their models to form my own theory on managing a classroom. I believe in showing students that I care about them and their success as well using basic classroom management techniques to create a positive classroom environment.
Webb, James T. "Nurturing Social Emtional Development of Gifted Children" ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education Reston, VA. Available http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Disgests/ed372554.html June 1994
“Learning styles.” What are learning styles? Various researchers have created different tools that categorize the way people acquire and retain information. Some of these include Gardner’s multiple intelligences, McCarthy’s 4-Mat System, and the Myers-Briggs personality type indicators (Ebeling 2000). Haar, Hall, Schoepp & Smith (2002) define learning styles as “individual differences in the way information is perceived, processed, and communicated.” There are two main points to cover when discussing learning styles. The first part is the specifics of each learning style. The second part is how to teach someone who is a certain style or combination of styles. Another important thing to consider and discuss is how we can use current technology in light of this information to better teach the students of tomorrow. There are many options out there for teachers and those in the education field to adapt their curriculum for any type of learner.
teach a new skill in a part by part method. It doesn't allow much time
There are several key terms that are discussed in this paper. The term “effective teacher” is used frequently in the field of Education. There are varied opinions about the exact definition but for purposes here, an effective teacher is a teacher who displays specific characteristics that are needed in creating the best learning environment for students. “Learning styles” refers to the different ways in which individuals learn. Bostrom (2011, p. 18) supports this definition stating “Theories of learning style simply assume that everyone can learn, but in different ways and levels.” Differentiated instruction describes methods used by tea...
Kottler, J.A., Zehm, S. J., & Kottler, E. (2005). On being a teacher: The human
The term “learning styles” speaks to the understanding that every student learns differently. Technically, an individual’s learning style refers to the preferential way in which the student absorbs, processes, comprehends and retains information. For example, when learning how to build a clock, some students understand the process by following verbal instructions, while others have to physically manipulate the clock themselves. This notion of individualized learning styles has gained widespread recognition in education theory and classroom management strategy. Individual learning styles depend on cognitive, emotional and environmental factors, as well as one’s prior experience. In other words: everyone’s different. It is important for educators to understand the differences in their students’ learning styles, so that they can implement best practice strategies into their daily activities, curriculum and assessments. ("Learning Styles | Teach.com | Teach.com,"
Learning styles is a pattern of performance that every student uses in the process of learning whereby it is a well-known fact that different students have different learning styles. The bigger the number of students in a classroom implies that more attention should be given on the students’ differences. Teachers or instructors should not ignore the students’ differences particularly in the sense of their preferred perceptual learning style. Furthermore, difference races and educational background wo...
Knowing that students progress at different rates necessitates learning strategies designed to inspire and encourage erudition in each student. As an educator, my duty is to modify my instructional methods to meet the needs of individual students whether they learn at a slower pace or are gifted students. By diligently observing my students and discovering their individual learning styles, I strive to create individual learning plans in the pursuit of facilitating learning for every student. My goal is for my students to reach their highest
“A learning style is a way of learning and refers to the way that you learn new information” (2). Most people have one preferred learning style and perform to a lesser standard when learning in a different style than what they’re used to. Nowadays, children are told to take a quiz in school to determine what their preferred learning style is, but after a few years, not many of these children remember what their preferred learning style is, or even if they do, they don’t apply it to their learning.
Everyone is made uniquely, each with their own intelligence, gifts and personalities so it is not inconceivable that everyone would also possess their own style of learning. Students learning styles are the “characteristic ways of taking in and processing information” (Felder & Brent, 1). “The most popular learning styles are visual learners, auditory learners and kinesthetic learners” (Gilakjani 1) A visual learning student would learn through seeing with various types of visuals such as pictures, tables, graphs and charts. A powerpoint or drawing on a chalk board may work best for a visual learner. An auditory learning student may be a student who learns best through listening and prefers verbal or written materials. A classroom setting based on lecture would be ideal for an auditory or verbal learner. The third basic learning style, kinesthetic learning, would be for the student who learns by doing or as they perform. Through role play and hands on activities such as doing a science experiment or baking a cake, a kinesthetic student would learn best. It is apparent that the three learning styles are very different from one another. It is important to note that it does not matter how one learns but that one is aware of, and understands how they learn in order to be successful.
Learning styles are defined as educational conditions under which a student is most likely to learn (Stewart & Felicetti, 1992). Therefore, learning styles do not really concern with what learners learn, but how they prefer to learn. Different types of learning styles are studied and practices in order to help reach out to children that have different learning style preferences. The wider the
In this course I experienced an important change in my beliefs about teaching; I came to understand that there are many different theories and methods that can be tailored to suit the teacher and the needs of the student. The readings, especially those from Lyons, G., Ford, M., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2011), Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R., & Le Cornu, R. (2007), and Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, M., Sinclair, C., Nanlohy, P. (2010), have helped me to understand this in particular. In composing my essay about teaching methods and other themes, my learning was solidified, my knowledge deepened by my research and my writing skills honed.