Learning Styles - Term Paper Example

 Learning is a process that involves the acquirement and improvement of talent, knowledge, understanding, values and wisdom. Learning acquired through books and handbooks can be mastered with experience. Mathematically learning can be described as a differential equation of knowledge in relation to time and the modification in knowledge due to various interrelated factors i.e. constant and variables. Learning begins from birth and as little children learning is as natural as breathing. The first lessons for children are opened to see, listen, taste, touch and every little or big thing fascinates them as they continue to explore and learn. John Holt stated in his book ‘How children learn’, “Gears, twigs, leaves, little children love the world. That is why they are so good at learning about it. For it are love, not tricks and techniques of thought, which lies at the heart of all true, learning. Can we bring ourselves to let children learn and grow through that love?”(Holt, 1964) Carl Rogers said, “I am talking about LEARNING-the insatiable curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb everything he can see or hear or read about gasoline engines in order to improve the efficiency and speed of his cruiser. I am talking about the student who says, “I am discovering, drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of me. I am talking about any learning in which the experience of the learner progresses along this line: ‘No. no, that’s not what I want’;” Wait! This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need; “Ah, here it is! Now I’m grasping and comprehending what I need ad what I want to know!” (Rogers, 1969) Students absorb and process the attained information in different ways. Through sight and sound, replicating, performing, motivating logically and instinctively, analyzing and visualizing. Students are of various types and personalities. Students can be classified into four types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, those who wonder what happened and those who don’t know that anything happened. The students who excel in all aspects of life are set apart by their personality, objectives and abilities. Specifically such students have enthusiasm, purpose, discipline, determination and appreciation of others combined with the willingness to work, serve and learn. Cooperative learning finds the students working effectively in groups. The result is productive learning and if this cooperative learning is planned well the benefits are in-numerable. The students should be allowed to work on topics of their own choice. This manner the student’s social and academic ability would improve. The teacher can group the students based on their ability and learning skill. Therefore every group would have a top student, a middle student and a struggling student. Examination of certain strategies in teaching would enhance better learning. As Felder and Soloman said “when planning and developing instructional material, strive for a balance of teaching styles to match various learning styles”.(Felder & Soloman, 1992). The four basic styles of teaching include formal authority, demonstrator or personal model, facilitor and delegator. Formal authority epitomizes the teacher who adopts a centered approach for the teacher feels responsible for providing and calculating the impartation of knowledge which the student is to obtain and assimilate. Relationship between the teacher and student as well as between the students is not given importance. Teachers who use the formal authority method concentrate more on content of the lesson while the student is expected to receive this content. The teacher enlightens the content and materials in a manner that enables the students to receive the crux of the lesson and appreciate the essence of the whole time spent in learning. Student participation is minimal in the class. The Sage on the stage model is utilized which is efficient and recognizes the wisdom and the experience of the teacher. An efficient teacher has the ability to operate as Sage on the stage as well as a director on the other side. Shift in the teacher position occurs when the student as individuals makes their own decisions. And when questioning and investigation become part of the classroom activities then the teacher becomes a guide. Demonstrator model epitomizes the teacher who adopts a centered approach as in formal authority. But here the teacher exhibits and moulds the expectations of the students based on skill. Once the outcome is reveled the teacher then acts as a guide in assisting the students in the application of knowledge. This manner a student is encouraged to participate and utilize the learning ability. This kind of teacher acts as a role model. How can the teacher act as a role model? The teacher by demonstrating skill and process and then shifting the position in acting as a guide assists the students to develop as well as assist in the application of the attained knowledge. Thus a teacher using the demonstrator model would show the students how to perform at a particular task or how to work through a problem and then make the students to study the problem solution. Thus utilizing this resolution student will be able to solve other related problems. Facilitator finds a student adopting the centered approach and the teacher permits and focuses on activities. Responsibility plays a significant role in the student as the student is enforced to initiate and achieve results. Independent, active and mutual learners succeed in this kind of an environment. Here group activity and collective learning combined with problem solving is initiated. This style of teaching is best situated for students who are contended with independent learning and who can interact with other students. This kind of a teacher will design group activities which impose active learning together with students relations combined with problem solving. Learning situations and classroom activity would be developed wherein the student using the course material as their base, applies the content in their own creative and original ways. Delegator views the teacher as a delegate who allots and places control and responsibility for learning on the students. This kind of teacher would require students to devise and execute learning projects and the teacher would act as the consultant. Here the students can work individually or as a group thus making students to work effectively and manage group situations as well as inter-personal roles. Students either work independently or in groups wherein motivation and focus for the projects play a vital part. A teacher who uses this model will entrust the choice of designing and implementing the project for learning to the students. And the teacher role would be an advice-giving one. To sum up the essence or the crux of teaching, here is what every alphabet states the meaning of teaching. A is for the abundance of questions and yearning, B if for both inward and outward beauty, C is for creative learning, D is for doing it over 'til it's right, E is for the effort you pour into preparing each night, F is for watching how far we can go, G is for seeing us blossom and Grow, H is for reaching for that star so high, I is for imagination, for the courage to try, J is for joy in touching a child's life in a meaningful way, K is for kindness you bring to children each day , L is for the love of teaching we see, M is for the "me" you're helping me to be, N is for never being to busy to pray, O is for overcoming our desire to stray, P is for positives you bring to each, Q is for the quintessential way to teach, R is for your willingness to give us a reason, S is for teaching us to appreciate each season, T is for touching those that sit before you, U is for understanding our fear of all that is so new, V is for the vitality you show each day, W is for every wonderment you bring our way X is for the extra special teacher we see, Y is for our sense of yearning to be, and Z is for the big "yahoo" send from your very own "zoo"! (Kirpal, 2004) Learning has always been a two way process. Having established the various styles of teaching now the focus must shift from the teacher to the student. The learning pattern should be established by a student in their journey and embarkation in the search for knowledge. How the student learns is the focus of learning style. Learning style can be defined as characteristic cognitive, affective and psychological behavior that serves as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with and respond to learning environment. The ELM model describes the learning cycle of every individual through a four stage concept. This theory states that individuals have two major competing dimensions of learning: the concrete/abstract and active/reflective. The concrete/abstract describes how an individual processes experience and information. According to Dewey, “Thinking and learning evolved because they are vital for survival in humans as well as animals. If in nature thinking was stimulated by problems that the learner was vitally interested in solving, the learner was both physically and mentally active and alert and engaged”. (Dewey, 1910). According to Fleming and Mills, there are four categories that reflect the learning experiences of a student. Visual learning occurs when the adopted teaching method wherein the ideas, concepts, data and other information is associated with pictures, images, charts and other symbolic methods. This kind of teaching facilitates the students to focus on meaning, reorganization and group similar ideas. The institute for Advancement of Research in Education at AEL concluded that visual learning improves students academically. Areas such as critical thinking, retention, comprehension and organization are developed. Aural or Auditory learning describes the preference for students who want to learn through hearing. The student learns effectively by listening to the information that is delivered orally. Such students learn rapidly from lectures, group discussions, speaking etc. Yet there are other students who prefer the information to be displayed as words as in text books. This read and writes model emphasizes the learning style as input and output from the text book as well as the reading and writing in all forms. Kinesthetic style of learning occurs when the learning takes place when the student actually performs physical activity. Such students learn to be natural discovers who think before they act. According to Richard Felder and Barbara Soloman, every student is a different kind of learner. An active learner through activity and application tends to learn and understand the information. They prefer group work. In class when there is no time for discussion or activities, such students should compensate such lacks through study. Study in groups wherein every takes a turn to explain the different topics. Working with others too enhances ones horizon for the test. In this manner active learners will retain the lessons learnt. A teacher can assist active learners by discussions, problem solving activities etc. Reflective learners on the other hand prefer to think before action and who prefer to work alone. Again if thinking in class is time consuming and cannot occur due to lesson completion, then reflective learners can compensate the thinking during the study time. By reading and memorizing one learns nothing. By thinking about the information a student can develop their intuition and thinking power to reflect beyond the book. Teachers can assist reflective learners by providing them time to think about the lesson, write summaries and formulate questions. Sensing learners prefer to learn the facts and solve problems by conventional techniques. Such students are practical and good memorizers. The best method adopted by sensors to understand and remember the lesson is when they try to connect everything with the real world. When in class and everything is abstract and theoretical then the student can request the teacher to provide examples pertaining to the concepts and theories. A teacher can also assist a sensing student to establish connections between the prescribed lessons and the real world as well as providing concepts and practical applications. Intuitive learners prefer to investigate the possibilities and innovations. Intuitors are capable of grasping new concepts and they work faster. When in class that deals with memorization and rote substitution in formulas this may lead to boredom. Instead such students can request the teacher for interpretations or theories that can be linked with the facts of the lesson. Further the teacher can provide time for reading questions thoroughly and verify the results. The best way visual learners remember is by what they see i.e. pictures, diagrams etc. Visual learners can prepare a concept map by listing key points or drawing arrow lines between concepts to show the connections. Or they could color code their notes with highlighters to augment better learning. Verbal learners are capable to learning through words that are spoken and through explanation. By writing outlines of the lesson in their own words or by classmates explaining, thus enables a verbal learn to learn. Sequential learners tend to learn through a particular pattern where every step is followed by the next step in sequence. When in class and the teacher skips teaching the in between lessons then such students can request the teacher to move sequentially. Or when a sequential student is studying then with the help of references one can study the lesson in the logical manner. To strengthen a student global thinking skills a student can relate lesson topics to known facts and thus a deeper knowledge of the lesson is acquired. How can a teacher help sequential learners? By breaking the lesson material into smaller coherent parts and provide an overview before entering the detailed part of the lesson. Global learners absorb material rapidly, solve complex problems but they perform without connections and though they solve problems they are unable to explain the procedure. Global learners before studying can skim through the lessons to have an overview and then relate the subject to things one knows. These connections can be done with the help of the teacher of by references. Such learners with faith and determination would be able to achieve higher academics. Learning to concentrate in class and during studying requires practice. One is aware of their individual study environment. Without concentration learning is hampered. Ability to concentrate on the specified lesson will depend upon how interested the student is and how effective the adopted study methods are. Interests will change with the different course materials. Because of such shifts and depending upon ones interest levels at the specified time of study, adaptation of study techniques should be adopted to strengthen concentration. For example let’s illustrate the concentration pattern by a student during a study period of over 2 ½ hours. To begin the student should spend time conditioning ones mind to study. After say 35minutes of strong concentration, say the student’s attention begins to weaken. This time take a break, five to ten minutes and then the concentration would be better. Again the student after studying for about fifty minutes the concentration begins to be affected. At this stage the student may be tired or the willingness to study is lost. This part entails the student to decide whether to end studying or to take a break and then begin studying again. A method of learning can be to first consider the first few paragraphs of the chapter as a group. Then read only the first sentence of each paragraph to get an idea of the subject. After which one returns to the fist paragraph and starts to read it in detailed. This manner would augment ones motivation and understanding of the reading. A student can challenge their comprehension and to improve their understanding they can try talking to and questioning themselves. A student must be persistent and must continue in reciting until they have succeeded in concentrating effectively. Every student must commit oneself to whether they should study or not, if so what subject to study and how long one study would the subject. Thus learning is epitomized as a pattern that entails the teaching method, the learning style, the pattern of learning adopted by the student combined with the power of concentration. References Shelton, Ken. Personal Excellence. Jaico Publishing House. Mumbai. Kirpal, Viney. You Moved My Life. New Dawn Press Inc. 2004. Branden, Nathaniel. The Power of Self-Esteem. Westland Books Pvt Ltd. 1992. Hodson, Kindle Ma Victoria, and Willis, Ms Mariaemma. Discover your child’s learning style: children learn in unique ways. Here’s the key to every child’s learning success. Prima Publishing. California, 1999. Learning about learning. Learning style. 31 August 2007. http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/learningaboutlearning/differences/research/rslearningstyles.asp Rogers, Carl.R. A Way Of Being. Houghton Mifflin Company.1980 Rogers, Carl. R. Freedom To Learn. Charles E. Merril Publishing Company. 1969. Felder, Richard M, and Soloman, Barbara A. Learning Styles and Strategies. http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm Holt, John. How Children Learn. Pitman Publishing Company. New York. 1964. Dewey, John. How We Think. D.C.Heath & Co. 1910. Fleming, N.D. & Mills, C. Helping Students understand how they learn: The teaching Professor. 1992. Vol 7, No.4. Magma Publications, USA. Felder, Richard M. and Barbara, Soloman A. Index of Learning Styles. 24 January 2006. Levinson, Harold N. Total Concentration:How to Understand. Evans and Company Inc. New York.1990 Read More