Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences:
This week I as I was going through Howard Gardner's
theory of Multiple Intelligences, I realized that although I had read it and
answered questions on it during my college years, its full implication has only
now come to me. This realization has helped me understand that each of us
learn in our individual styles and this varies according to the subject as well
as the medium.
The article Learning Styles and Strategies by Richard M. Felder
and Barbara A. Soloman
(URL: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm) discusses in detail how a person can be active
or reflective, sensing or intuitive, visual or verbal and sequential or global
as a learner. The fact that each of us can sometimes be any of these and more
at a time is also highlighted throughout the article. This is so true! We all
are sometimes active learners and sometimes reflective and so on.
How Russell Moon helped me identify my learning styles:
This
brings me to the insightful discussions we had this week with our Guest
Moderator, Russell Moon, on this very important issue of differing learning
styles of our students and how to address it with technology connections. All
of us had different ideas on the matter and all of this put together gave us a
wide array of methods we can successfully apply in our classes to address the different
learning styles and multiple intelligences of our students. Gordana, Lorena,
Zulyar, Virginia and the others came up with some wonderful ways to making
technology work in our classroom scenarios. Russell commented on the different
ideas and gave some of his own. This enriching experience will further help me
in putting into practice all that I have learned through this course.
What I
enjoyed most was finding out my own learning style. We were challenged to this
task by Russell and the results were so surprising. I found that I am more
reflective than active as a learner by nature, sensing but also intuitive,
definitely more visual, strongly sequential and mildly global.
Diversity in Learning Styles:
A new
dimension to the topic being discussed was added by the article Student Learning Styles and Their
Implications for Teaching by S.M. Montgomery and L.N. Groat, CRLT Occasional
Papers (URL: http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no10.pdf). It delved on the importance of understanding
the diversity in our student body. Age, nationality, culture, ethnicity as well
as gender were the major factors which brought in diversity in our classrooms.
These contribute in making the learning styles of individual students even more
diverse. Having experienced this firsthand, I fully appreciate the value of
this thought.
Thus, my
conclusion is that, just like learning and knowledge, individual learning
styles are dynamic in nature. This is true for all of us and it is naïve to
expect that they can be any different for our students. It is therefore
imperative for teachers to find the right balance in class and adapt their
teaching styles with the dominant learning styles of the students. Finding this
balance is where technology can most help us.
Final Project Report:
This week
we were asked to submit our Final Project Report or Final Plan Report on the
technology we had applied or would apply to solve a particular class issue.
What I liked very much was that we had already been initiated into the process
since last week and hence it was not a daunting task any more. As I had
prepared the Draft report last week, I could finish the task on time. Gordana
and Zulyar’s feedback and comments were of immense help. I could identify the
problems easily and made the necessary changes. This whole process of reviewing
others drafts and getting their suggestions was an enriching experience for me.
Image Courtesy:
1.http://www.alpinechildrensservices.asn.au/conference/images/quote.png
3.http://14434396.r.lightningbase-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/learning-style-image.jpg
4.https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQLPiRA7EfJNtjKepiUFA9RQNZ2UlCGTyIigqp7oVROuB9p1qYEUw
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