Learning Styles and Strategies - Coursework Example

Guide’s Learning Styles and Strategies: OWN LEARNING STYLE AND THINKING PROCESS From the very beginning of the civilization and advance of his understanding of the natural world as it was, man has tried to come on a certain level of understanding that can explain all the behaviours as well as the explanation to the natural processes. In the conquest, he has moved on from one level to the other with undying appetite of manipulating and changing his surroundings to suit his then present needs and desires. Traditional theories of learning focus on changes in behaviour, knowledge or ability to perform some task (including intellectual task). Knowledge was seen as an entity passed from the teacher to the student consisting primarily of factual information. During the 1970s and 80s, these theories gave way to cognitive theories that focused on mental processes and the understanding of the complex material. In the 90s, these cognitive theories too were challenged by theory emphasising social interaction and the socio cultural context. Many psychologists and educators no longer consider learning to be a process that occurs strictly within an individual. Rather they see learning as something distributed among several individuals or existing within a community of learners. (Shuell, 2001) Psychology is a study of human mind and its applied actions (behaviours). The parents (as it is believed) of psychology are philosophy and biology (Kendra Van Wagner). The study of psychology gives explanation to those questions which were otherwise tangled up inside our minds because of the foggy understanding of our own selves. Psychology has an inbred connection with the learning activity since both depend upon the mind’s response to the critical thought and thinking. Learning styles also developed and became more refined with the human understanding and common sense (which is the product of thought patterns deeply embedded in the human psyche). Travelling on the road of learning styles, there are a number of signboards indicating the then present styles which were followed during that particular time period. First we discuss Behaviourism. This ideology presented the fact that behaviors are learned and unlearned in accordance to certain stimuli and situations (Gallagher Adam), behaviourism has its roots from the down coming of the then though of psychology: structuralism (beginning of 19th century). Watson and Pavlov were considered the fathers of behaviourism with skinner contributing with the operant conditioning based on the thinking that a behavior will be chosen based upon the perceived consequences. The essence of behaviourism was not to consider mental processes and only concentrating upon the external factors for the perceived behaviour. However, if we do not consider the internal process of an organism interacting with the outer behaviour nor do we go near behaviourism and humanist approaches, then we come into the realms of cognitive theory of psychology. It distinguishes itself from other theories merely with exclusion of other listed theories. The main contributors to this approach were Piaget who studied the “development of children’s understanding through observing, listening and talking to them while they solved exercises given to them and We owe to Piaget the present field of cognitive development. Donaldson also contributed toward this though of psychology. Cognitive theory seems to be more like a personalized learning style letting the learner come up with own styles of understanding the problems, i.e. constructivism (cognitive theories). On the other hand humanistic approaches to learning, are more value driven and hence require the authority and leadership on account of the learner to develop basic inclination toward the learning process. Kolb and Maslow were the contributors here, of which Kolb also worked in areas of cognitive learning styles. Diagrammatical Representation Of Some Psychologists Works. Popular ZPD theory of Vygotskys Piaget`s model Kolb’s diagram Thinking styles have a profound yet clearly dominating influence on the learning styles of an individual. As some times is it said that careful what you think, as you will become what you think. This notion is unchanged even today. We can refer vgyotsky`s work in the world war era to prove above notions. Vgotsky`s work was acknowledge much after he was alive to see it. The stalin`s regime in Russia suppressed his works and no direct access was available to read them. It was after a long time when stalin broke that the true essence of vgotsky`s work was established and soon the work was so true to the times, that the work: theory of development was termed as the theory of education and vgotsky as “Mozart of psychology”. Vgotsky established that Vygotsky believed that true education is not the mere learning of specific knowledge and skills. It is the development of children’s learning abilities (Dolya Galina and Palmer Sue, 2004). The essence of Vgotsky`s work was that the teachers guidance can help children achieve the success today, what they will achieve on their own tomorrow. Today`s educational institutes focus on group activity more liberally than on individual work there is more to learn from interpersonal understanding and the inclusion of a competition variable complimented with personal desires and aims to achieve holistic thinking skills which would further compliment the learning process. Piaget started off as a biologist who studied moluscs initially. But he moved from the homeland to study development of children`s understanding through observing, listening and talking to them. There are some key ideas given by Piaget to the psychology field in form of four developmental stages and the processes by which children progress through them. The four stages are: 1. Sensorimotor stage (birth - 2 years old) 2. Preoperational stage (ages 2-7) 3. Concrete operations (ages 7-11) 4. Formal operations (beginning at ages 11-15). These four stages of thinking style development helped an individual to plan the route map for the evolution of learning habits. However, there have been in historical patterns, educational institutions which have followed strict and set patterns of educating the children on the basis of textual knowledge and out of fashion techniques of teaching with little or no space for imaginative thoughts or personalized understanding of the subjects. The practice was more evident with a song by Pink Floyd titled “Another Brick In The Wall” which called for some revolutionary change in our schooling system. The video of the song shows the barbaric treatment of every student under same set of rules just like walking with the help of a tight rope fixed between the point where we are presently and to the point where we intend to go (in life). With the help of results obtained from the questionnaire I was able to come out with my own personal learning style which reflects the key variables that affect my learning conditions and hence compliment the learning styles and process. The findings indicated that I am an Abstract Random thinker, which according to the details give in the questionnaire back point to the thinking style which adopts feelings and emotions as a framework/structure on which the whole of the sculpture of learning process stands erect. Reflection on the feelings, information, ideas is an important activity for an abstract random thinker as it helps to organise the mismatched feelings/ideas and information for that matter. Graphical representation is also a key method through which the information can be stored in a never forgetting manner in the mind (a logical manner or so). Multiple intelligence questionnaire was aimed at answering 40 questions on a scale of 0 to 5. and then calculating individual intelligence type based on the scored of certain group of questions. However, being pretty sure of what kind of thinker I am was really helpful in determining the course of action that I required to take in order to make the learning process more interactive and fun to go around with I was confident that the multiple intelligence questionnaire will also be helpful in refining my thoughts regarding my own self. The question were selected keeping in mind the varied styles of learning and hence making it easy to choose my own particular intelligence area from the pool of various styles. The result came out to be musical in respect of my abilities of picking upp the rhythms and individual instruments from a complex music note. The musical intelligence means that I enjoy llearning environments that are illuminated with the essence of music in the background which also compliments my imagination and thinking skills. I found out that being an abstract random thinker and a musical intelligence individual has surfaced the deep inbred thought pattern which helped with my learning and concentration powers. And knowing more personally about them was also helpful in establishing the cornerstones of my future learning styles. Because I am now more accustomed to learning while in effect of music and lots of visual graphical information helps me to follow the course pretty easily and confidently. I agree with the findings and now I am more confident about the structure that learning process can offer me as an individual and as being of a particular category. LASSI: (Learning and study strategy inventory) it is a 10 scale assessment of student`s awareness of learning and study strategy related to skill, basically giving them the points describing their weak points and strong points. PERSONAL MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGY Motivational strategy has been An important topic of research in order to improve the business efficiency and the increment in the potential of the executives and leaders in order to achieve fates that have been untouched from long times. One theory that is very fundamental in understanding the subject of motivation has been presented by Abraham Maslow, “hierarchy of needs”. It represents the basic needs that drive us to make efforts in order to achieve something that is not in our sphere of influence. Everybody has particular life experiences because not two persons share a same financial, spiritual and awareness level throughout their life. And it is this difference in experiences of life that makes the majority of our point of views and attitudes. Attitude is very important for deciding the course of life that people choose. Sometimes due to lack of proper attitude, the potential of a person`s abilities is not used and hence goes wasted. In following paragraphs, we will discuss the importance of attitude and the consequences of a particular attitude type.. As we go through life, we observe that problems and failures are an inevitable yet important part of our growing up experiences. They are important in terms of their contribution towards maturity and character building of an individual. However, with so much advancement in psychology of human mind, we can comfortably announce the problems we encounter as “perceptions of our own mind”. Every problem we encounter in our lives has a solution hidden in that problem itself, we just have to apply our mind on a higher level of thinking than on which the problem originally was. The mere fact that we are encountering a problem infers that a hidden law of nature is not satisfied in our actions and that solving the problem will require thinking from a fresh point of view. Talking about the problem itself, the size of problem depends directly on the preceding actions being taken, the environmental conditions, experience level of an individual. Though the above factors have a marking effect on problem solving ability, it becomes more and more important to have a positive attitude toward the problem.. This positive attitude is the result of the level of motivation that we can achieve. Motivation is a personal yet at the same time a general phenomenon. Every person can have his/her own personal motives i.e. reasons to get motivated. Success and failure both are motivating but only differ on the level to which they motivate an individual. A motivation technique applied by an individual basically is the result of years spent on development of common sense and the upbringing that the individual experienced. Hence the parental factor comes into play during the initial years of an individual in which he/she draws conclusions about life according to the people present around (the parents). The qualities (i.e. values, attitude, independent thinking & communication skills) inculcated from parents as well as schooling constitute the majority of motivational ability of a child. Also, the environment and experience plays a critical role in shaping the mould for the easy formability of problem solving concepts. For instance, children of engineer father will follow analytical thinking with more comfort than, say, those of a servant. Now to account for my own process that I have identified for motivating myself I would like to recall a simple fact of life that a newborn chick has to struggle to break the eggshell itself for coming out. The essence of the story is that ACTION is the fundamental requisite for success. Considering that the chick decides to stay idle and wait for someone from outside to break up the eggshell, then it might get stuck there for so long so as to die. Hence it can be argued that it is the attitude of an individual that makes him/her more motivated or less. The ability to see brighter sides of life can motivate us to live happily even acknowledging our setbacks and rejections. Everyone learns best when they are engaged and interested and they can see a purpose. Interest is generated from the knowledge that we have in an area of working. Hence it becomes more important to have a prior knowledge of the subject in order to interpret the result into useful conclusion about the way in which the work is continuing. Let us now consider Maslow`s hierarchy model: Maslows hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the four lower levels are grouped together as being associated with physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs. Deficiency needs must be met first. Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth needs drives personal growth. The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are satisfied. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level. For instance, a businessman (at the esteem level) who is diagnosed with cancer will spend a great deal of time concentrating on his health (physiological needs), but will continue to value his work performance (esteem needs) and will likely return to work during periods of remission. Maslow`s hierarchy of needs model goes upward but can start at any level depending upon the individual’s wealth and family background. For instance, many kings have gone straight into self-actualization level of need. Because their other needs were fulfilled very early in life because of all the luxury available at their disposal. Similarly some individuals spend a lot of time on one level due to poverty and lack of self needs and awareness as the case may be. The Maslow`s hierarchy model is serving as the ground on which different theories are build for advancement of motivation as a subject. Motivation is one of the primary causes of the level of success that an individual CAN achieve. Thus, it is logical to conclude that in order to maximize a student’s potential, and in turn the educational experience, a student must be motivated. With the knowledge that motivation must precede success, it is clear that those in charge of educational planning should attempt to maximize motivation level. LEARNING JOURNAL (reflective journal on taught sessions) Week 13 (session 2) Traditional approaches to learning I have started to pen down entries of sessions in the reflective journal today. However I should have started the reflective journal last week, but due to illness I was not able to attend the last week’s sessions. I am worried about the fact that I could not attend the lecture and it made me feel very guilty since I seldom take leave. I am not quite sure what I am supposed to do for the missed lecture. I should get in touch with fellow students to take notes of that lecture. I really like making notes in the learning session. It has been a few weeks at university, and I think I have started to enjoy the student life here. The culture at the campus is very student friendly and inspires one to achieve goals. I have acquainted myself with the staff at the library which is very helpful and understanding. Today’s lecture was very interesting, we learned about learning as a product and as a process. And the analogy of learning as a product really helped me to clearly understand the reason for which it was related at the first place. It says that, as we underpin different types of emotions with different products based on the knowledge and the experience we have with them, in same way we are influenced by the different styles and strategies of learning. We also looked at the psychology behind learning and the theorists behind the subject. We were asked to discuss the five statements in groups. And I recognise that I work well with lots of feedback because good quantity of feedback gives me large number of thoughts to ponder upon and hence the opportunity to choose the appropriate thought of all; and as a result I think I should be more independent with my thinking. Other most intriguing thing I noticed in today’s lecture was the idea to take into consideration that “Anxieties and fear of learners need to be understood”, this point sometimes is not addressed to in the teaching profession and it marks the limits up to which a teacher and a student can understand each other. But it is not feasible with a large group study where individual attention is difficult. To sum up the session I would say that today’s lecture was about the “boundary conditions” within which the learning process flourishes with most glory. Week 14 (session 3) I could relate today’s lecture with life’s irony that no two individuals are the same, physically as well as in their mental processes. Even living in the same conditions, two people behave differently to impulses and react uniquely to same situations. Our lecture was about “Individual differences” in learning and learning preferences. The first being a PowerPoint presentation and I was making notes straight into my handout. We sat in group and Det gave us a hand out on seating plans. We were asked to differentiate between different seating arrangements and choose which one we think was most effective seating plan, and we all discussed each seating arrangement and came to a decision afterwards. I found the seating plan exercise interesting, and that made me think why, when you are at secondary school, you are seated with the least ability for interaction with other students in order to make you concentrate?. The exercise called for understanding other’s preferences more than ours in order to come towards a conclusion which would be satisfactory to everyone. Stress was laid upon the student-teacher healthy relation and the act of balancing it on a fulcrum of appropriate learning style opted. I really enjoyed the session and I left the lecture feeling very positive about the course. Week 15 (session 4) The thinking style evolution session made me well conversant with regard to different types of thinking paradigms. Our basic aim in this session was to come up with our individual thinking styles, i.e. what kind of a thinker I am? When I imagine about the ancient times, the deep thinking seemed to be the basis of learning styles. But in recent times, fast learning and lateral thinking has moved up the priority scale. I think that the deep learning should be the basis of primary education, so that when the students come to college they should be ready for faster work culture and surface learning styles. The thinking session changed my attitude towards styles in learning. At first, I was not very keen on learning through different styles and identifying the style that suited me really helped in clearing the path ahead. It was a kind of personal journey into the learning world. I am musical thinker. Now I will make use of music more often to concentrate because now I know for sure that it will help me externally to create atmosphere of study and learning. I feel that in order to keep the basics of a subject in our mid for a long time, we should encourage deep learning at a higher rate than normally to suit our time management needs. After this session I am thinking of some elementary changes that will take place in the Surrounding which might help achieve greater potential. Like using my favorite stationary (I love new, more user friendly and at the same time trendy notebooks and all types of stationary) In organizing the documents and different marking schemes also assist the aim. However being an abstract random thinker, I like divergent thinking the most because it is not specified to some limits and there is an artistic and aesthetic side to it too. That really attracts me towards areas of learning like arts, paintings sculpture design etc. Week 16 (session 5) we had a session on The Basic approaches towards study. The session started with beautiful and thought provoking words from famous master of philosophy from the east, Confucius. I was deeply moved by the last lines that “involve me and I will understand”. And I think that these are as true now as they were then. It means that ideas and understanding follow actions and activity. To drive home the point, we can say that our thinking should constitute ten percent and the rest ninety percent should be the actions generated because of that thinking. The Meta learning approach covered the role of experience in determining learning style and strategy. I personally felt that this session had its usefulness in way of connecting the study emotionally to the students. We first of all studied our experiences of past and present life, which were like the glass windows through which we see the outer world. They had to be clear. Hence, it was the first main step in learning strategies. I think that it was very useful that we discussed what factors affect the learning styles and strategies and in what ways. For the overall learning process, I learnt that emotions and feelings that we hold while studying affect our thinking directly, hence, reducing or increasing our concentration. I was introduced to LASSI, which was a basic tool to judge the positive points of an individual. This basic tool as I learnt is used in nearly every institution in order to get information about our strategies and attitudes towards learning and hence improving them. I personally feel that if our personal goals are pretty strong, then we can do without this tool as our motivational strength can drive us forward. And through this session I also could appreciate the power of self-learning. Week 17 (session 6-7) The crux of the whole course was included in this session on learning styles and processes. Every aspect of learning was discussed in this session. There are many aspects to learning in my opinion based on personal experiences and feelings toward study. Out of all the learning models, I personally liked visual/verbal model since it matched well with my thinking style of abstract random one. Because I think I can grasp basic knowledge by visual diagrams, graphs and illustrations more easily than from the as written form. This session was important to me in terms that it taught me various learning attitudes that I was not aware of before attending this session. Each learning attitude was one after the other ascending on the thinking level ladder. However, at the beginning of the session I wrote down my basic algorithm to a successful learning curve. This learning curve has its roots in “knowledge” i.e. the database of information. The broader database we have, the better the odds will be in our side. Whenever we encounter some areas of knowledge already known to us, our mind automatically starts working on this subject faster as compared to the other unknown areas of knowledge. The environment that I feel productive working in is that which constitutes group work and tasks designed to work in a team. This I think is a great opportunity for us to learn from out team members about their style of learning things and how to implement the thinking into action. Finally we discussed the motivational styles, and above all of them was the clichéd Maslow`s needs hierarchy. However I was exposed to some other motivational styles, but I contented myself to the concept that we have to believe in what we are doing in order to remain motivated throughout the working time. Week 18 (session 8) Today’s session was very helpful in building the framework of aims and objective that I need to achieve in the near future and the time for which I am enrolled at the university i.e. in academics. The C-R-E-A-M strategy is really helpful. And the most beautiful thing about this strategy is that one factor under its influence leads to the fulfillment of the other one. Therefore, it results in self sustainability in terms of undertaking the process of learning styles. I personally felt that the self evaluation task was really called for and I expect discussions on such topics in future courses. The 5 point styles is very easy to understand and apply as well because the terms represent the straight forward idea of their definition itself. And it serves as a very handy tool for managing our goals and reviewing them from time to time in a very logical and illustrated yet in a very simple way. The last session summed up all the previous sessions in a nut shell and presented it in a very reader friendly way. References Cognitive theories, www.learningandteaching.com, cited on 17 January, 2008http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/cognitive.htm Dolya Galina and Palmer Sue, LEV VYGOTSKY, TES Primary Forum, 2004, Gallagher Adam, FREEDOM FROM DECISION, The Psychology of B.F. Skinner, cited on 10 January, 2008 Wagner Kendra V., What is Psychology? , About.com, 10 January, 2008, Slade Chris & Pybus Liza, Assessment for Deep Learning, Nottingham Trent University. Cited on 17 January 2008 Read More