Take the learning styles inventory to find out
what kind of learner you are and reflect on your results. (http://www.literacyworks.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html)
Identify a favorite teacher in
elementary or secondary school. Describe three practices or techniques that this
teacher used to meet your own learning needs that were significant in helping
you learn. Do these practices/techniques correspond with your results to the
learning inventory? How can you be sure you are meeting the many different
learning styles you will have in your classroom one day?
My
top three intelligences from the inventory were body movement/kinesthetic,
logic/math, and self/intrapersonal. I definitely agree with the first two. I
have always been the type of person that needs to move around constantly. Doing
any kind of hands-on activity in school was always helpful to my learning.
Since elementary school, math has always been my best and favorite subject! I
was blessed to have great math teachers that helped me discover a love for math
early on. I was not expecting self to be in my top three intelligences because
I think I grew out of always needing to keep and be with myself. All of these
relate to how I learn. I was a kinesthetic and visual learner throughout
elementary school and I still am now.
My
favorite teacher in secondary school (7th, 8th, and 10thgrade)
was Mrs. Daniel. She taught me pre-algebra, algebra I, and algebra II. One
technique she used was she played classical music while we took our test. She
believed that listening to the music calmed us while taking test. Also while we
took test, she would always give us a peppermint or jolly rancher because she
believed the candy could help us remember. I don’t know if I necessarily
believe the same things and I don’t think these go along with my learning
styles, but I loved that she did this because it is really hard for me to sit
in silence.
A
second technique she used was letting us have brain breaks. She would give us
like a minute to get up and stretch and even talk once or twice during her
class period. This was beneficial to my learning style because I was the one
that was wiggling all through class just because I needed to be moving at all
times. Even though we were older she knew that my particular class needed it.
Another technique she used was letting us chose to work in groups of work by
ourselves for certain tasks. This does relate to my learning styles, because I
did like to work by myself when I was in high school. Now, I do not mind
working in groups, but I think it was nice to have the choice.
When
I have my own classroom, I think it would beneficial to let the students tell
what they believe their learning style is or let them take a small inventory,
if it is an upper grade. If they are not able to do this, as a teacher, you
have to make sure you are using differentiated instruction throughout all
subjects. It is very important for a teacher to reach out to every learning
style in the classroom.
We have two of the same intelligences. Cool! I've also had teacher give our class gum when we were preparing for our graduation exams. You're also right about finding out what the students believe their learning style really is. They may be wrong and have been trying to learn the wrong way.
ReplyDeleteI had a math teacher that did some of the same things. He loved to sing and play music, so we would listen to his music during class. The summer before my senior year he attended a conference and he said it was very hard to sit still for a really long time so when we started back school, he allowed us to stand up and stretch every 20 or so minutes. :) I agree with you and him, sitting still is so hard. I have seen on Pinterest where some classrooms have the large exercise balls for students to sit on, and I think that would be cool if it didn't cause a distraction for the students. In his class, the way we did tests were neat, too. We had a chance of group tests, you can work in a group or not. If you wanted to, you wrote your name on a sheet of paper and passed it forward and he would draw two names and you were a group. I think this is neat because you have a choice and you don't have to agree with your partner, but at the same time you kind of have confirmation about what your method or equation. Maybe that wasn't too confusing. :)
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