People is unique product. Differences in background, education, experience, intention make peoples different. You, me, my friends, your colleagues, everyone have different idea, life style, working style, learning style, and teaching style. The followings are my own reflections of learning and teaching based on my experience, moreover, they can be changed along the life.
First Learning Style
When I studied in bachelor of engineering, I used to get A from one subject that I only sit in the class and listen to the instructor. I used to get A from one subject that I really do not know what it is for. There is one subject I really understand, but I got C.
“What do you want from studying? Transcript or Knowledge?”
“What is more important?”
At that time, I could not exactly answer these questions. But, the majority tends to be the transcript. Because I did not clearly understand what I wanted, my style still did not clear at that time.
First Teaching Style
My first teaching style was the pure lecture from the standard textbook, step-by-step, topic-by-topic, and chapter-by-chapter. There were not any activities added into the teaching process. Because the most Thai students are shine and worry about saying right or wrong, this is the big beerier for class discussion. So, knowledge was transferred in only one-way communication. However, experience cam improve the teaching techniques. When I did the research in the topic I interest, I had more information and samples for adding in teaching. I added some VDO for helping students more understand the topic. I recorded some explanation and uploaded to the online media for students who absented or misunderstood in class. I added some mini-project to let students applied the knowledge to solv...
... middle of paper ...
...(student) change, the process to produce the products have to be changed and updated all the time. Although, university is non-profit organization, it should be managed and developed in the same way as business. For competitiveness, programs, courses, processes, facilities, and key staffs must be improved continuously. Moreover, university do not have only teaching task, but the performance in research must be considered as well. There are many thing must be done because education is one foundation of the country.
Works Cited
Fleming, N.D., 2001. Teaching and learning styles: VARK strategies. Neil Fleming, Christchurch, N.Z.
Hawk, T.F., Shah, A.J., 2007. Using Learning Style Instruments to Enhance Student Learning. Decis. Sci. J. Innov. Educ. 5, 1–19.
Prince, M., Felder, R., 2007. The many faces of inductive teaching and learning. J. Coll. Sci. Teach. 36, 14–20.
Martin, K. (2000). Alternative Modes of Teaching and Learning. Received September 13, 2002 from Internet. http://www.csd.uwa.edu.au/atmodes/to_delivery/discovery_learing.html.
Learning is defined as a permanent change in attitude or behaviour that occurs as a result of repeated experience (Sims & Sims, 1995). Understanding one’s learning style has many advantages as it can help one to identify the learning method or activities that can help to optimise the learning experience. It has been suggested that the importance of one’s learning style has been identified through studies and research on how one can maximise the potential for success and further learning development (Honey & Mumford, 2006). Learning styles are unique to each individual and are developed in childhood (Chase, 2001). We all have different personalities; therefore we all have preferred learning styles that suit us best. The way one learns depends on preference. Some learn by observing, listening and imitating others and draw conclusions from their experience. There are several factors that affect our learning style; for example, background, culture, religion and environment can have a major influence on one’s learning.
Talking about the concept of “teaching” leading us unconsciously to talk about the concept of “ learning” and vice versa. In general, learning and teaching associated with each other. The high achievements of one of these cognitive operations means the success to another. On the other hand, the failure of one of them implies the fall of the other one. Successful and effective teacher, who concentrate on two essential matters. First, teachers should learn about the principles of learning and teaching to know how to teach. However, One of the most substantial affairs is learning styles and strategies.
Learning styles is one of the ways schools have changed over the past couple of years in regards to diversity. The varieties of learning styles of students have become more aware to educators. There are three main learning styles; visual learning, kinesthetic learning, and auditory learning. Visual learners take up about half of student learners using textbooks, charts, course outlines, and graphs are useful instructional aides (Sadker, p. 47). Kinesthetic learning is also known as tactile learning. These students learn by hands on learning. Planning for student to have movement in class will help these learners. Our last learning style is the less of the three called auditory learning. These students learn best by hearing; they can remember the details of conversations and lectures and many have strong language skills (Sadker, p. 47). By providing a time for these students to recite the lesson themselves can support this form of learning. To be an effective teacher for all the learning style diversities means being able to be flexible and incorporate a variety of teaching techniques.
Pritchard, A. (2008). Ways of learning: Learning theories and learning styles in the classroom. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis e-Library.
Hawk, T. F., & Shah, A. J. (2007). Using learning style instruments to enhance student learning. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 5(1), 1-19.
“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.
The overall essence of education or knowledge acquisition is reflected in an axiom by Confucius which says “Tell me, and I will forget; show me, and I will remember; but involve me, and I will understand. Back then, it was clear that learning was a comprehensive process which involves passionate exchanges between students and their teachers; unfortunately this is not the case in most modern classrooms. Instead of the expected bidirectional communication between learners and teachers, in the modern learning environment there is a unidirectional system which involves the teacher incessantly hurling facts at students who, due to their passive roles as mere receptacles, have fallen asleep or; in the case of “best” students are mindlessly taking notes. This leads to a situation where knowledge has neither been conferred nor acquired.
Thought out our lives, we are faced with many different learning experiences. Some of these experiences have made a better impact than others. This can be attributed to everyone’s different multiple intelligences or learning styles. A persons learning style is the method though which they gain information about their environment. As a teacher, it is our responsibility to know these styles, so we can reach each of our students and use all of the necessary methods.
There was a significant amount of knowledge given in this course, involving concepts that in our teaching career will be extremely important. From this course I have gained a significant amount of learning experiences. I had the pleasure learning about how the educational system has come to be what it is today and who were the important people in the creation of the public education, like Horace Mann. Watching the videos and reading the chapters required has opened my eyes more of how a teacher should respond to different situations involving a student, For example when we read the chapter on the laws that revolve around the educators and the students. I had absolutely no clue that students had rights while in school property. Another learning
Along these two weeks we have been prompt to make a recall to our own way of learning and why we became a teacher: Was it because coincidence, due to life circumstances, maybe because family tradition, was it a conscious decision or because someone influenced us? Whatever the answer is, we have to face reality and be conscious that being a teacher does not only means to teach a lesson and asses students learning. It requires playing the different roles a teacher must perform whenever is needed and required by our learners, identify our pupils needs and preferences, respecting their integrity and individuality but influencing and motivating them to improve themselves and become independent.
Teachers face with a lot of daily choice problems, such as, how classrooms and curriculums should be organized, how students' behaviors should be interpreted, how learning time can be protected, and others. Sometimes these problems seem to be so ordinary that, teacher need to solve the problem automatically. But in the teaching process there are also complicated choices about difficult problems that, if left unaddressed, often increasing. These difficult choices call for teachers to engage in sophisticated reflection (including self-reflection).
Most classes such as math and the sciences are taught deductively. This means the instructor of the class introduces the students to a new concept, such as multiplication or division in an elementary classroom, and then requires his/her students to use the new knowledge. The other style, inductively, is just the reverse. Inductive learning is done by first being thrown “into the gauntlet” so to speak. The students are given something to interpret such as a real world problem or data set and told to find the solution. After some time is given to allow the students to search for a solution, hints or the solution are given along with an explanation of how to derive the answer. The theory behind inductive learning is, “As the students attempt to analyze the data or scenario or solve the problem, they generate a need for facts, rules, procedures, and guiding principles, at which point they are either presented with the needed information or helped to discover it for themselves” (Michael, 1).
Through classroom observation I was exposed to the different methods of teaching a lesson. The methods of teaching depends on how will the teacher execute the lesson well. I learned that modern learners today needs both modern and traditional way of teaching as for them to fully learned the lesson in a meaningful way.
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.