My profile results indicate I'm more of an active rather than a reflective learner. Thus demonstrating the verbal form of learning, testing a process out physically and working more in groups to be more beneficial.
According to Felder & Solomon "Everybody is active sometimes and reflective sometimes." My results indicate I'm mild to moderately active. I would have to agree with these findings. I've never been the type of learner to think things through first and reflection in itself just doesn't interest me. Though there are parts of the active learner that don't quite fit me either. Problem solving has over the years, been a strength of mine and I can't say I've ever lacked "discussion" in class.
I certainly sit into sensing over intuitive. My results here indicate I'm a moderately sensing learner. I found this quite an interesting read. Sensing is so me. I am a very cautious learner. I certainly like my facts and again a sensing learner is more practical which is in alignment with the previous result of active learner. So it seems apparent that if your an active learner, your not necessarily but probably more likely, going to be a sensing learner also. My innovative thinking has always needed improvement and with my results being moderate as a sensing learner, indicates why that is. What can I say? Sometimes its just hard work getting the motor to run...
VISUAL! VISUAL! VISUAL! I scored a 9 here. Seriously! I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. That's the simplest way for me to explain it.
I am most certainly a sequential learner. While I do have those light bulb moments as I believe we all do at some point in our lives, I can understand and follow the material most of the time. While I like to follow the steps when learning new material, depending on the circumstances I can at times deal with skipping certain details.
Recapping the findings here based on Felder and Solomon's questionnaire; I'm an active, sensing, visual and sequential learner. In terms of learning experiences, I would certainly benefit from an interactive group orientated learning environment, that has a sequential theme involving facts and relevant assessable topics. However I need to learn not only to adapt to the needs of other students but also to improve on my weaknesses. Personally I think its important to use all forms of learning experiences, particularly ensuring that as a teacher, you are including the experiences that best relate to the students you are teaching. That way you are ensuring that they are learning through their chosen methods, but also learning to adapt and strengthen their others.
2. In a traditional classroom of 25 students, how would you support the range of learning styles each lesson?
Conducting a basic questionnaire with the students to establish which learning style they are would be a starting point. From there I would have an idea of what the majority of my learners needs are. When planning a lesson I would consider the technique best suited, however I would engage them in all styles of learning at some point during each day to improve on their weaknesses. I think its important to be multi-skilled both as a learner and a teacher for the purpose of being able to adapt to all situations.
3. With your current knowledge of ICT, how could your design and digital pedagogy support your learners better?
- Do you prefer to work on a task in a group or alone?
- Would you rather read a book, listen to music or play sport?
- Do you have better understanding taking notes from a class, seeing the explanation displayed in diagrams/tables etc or taking part in an activity involving the process of the task?
- When you perform a task do you prefer to master one way of doing it or come up with new innovative ways of doing it?
- When writing a paper do you prefer to write from the beginning and progress forward or work on different parts of the paper and then order them?
5. How does ICT support differences in learning styles?
ICT allows for a much more creative approach to teaching. There are so many various techniques in terms of this. Engaging them and continually being creative in your approach I think is important. Using various different ICT tools for digital pedagogy not only assists with students interests but also teaches them different learning styles and techniques. Not to mention the endless resources now made readily available at the click of a button. However in my opinion there aren't all positives in relation to this new innovative design to pedagogy. The Digital Natives due to ICT support today has become what I believe to be the "lazy" generation. So much is done for them. While ICT is the way of the future it is also crippling the Digital Natives by taking away their need to spellcheck, punctuate, apply grammar, complete calculations and achieve even basic art by drawing a picture of the oval for a class activity. These days they have mobile phones to take pictures instead of drawing and these phones have also provided a calculator to prevent them from having to calculate even the simplest maths. Meanwhile computers are constantly correcting their grammar for them. Not to mention most forms of writing these days from Digital Natives is via texting/emailing/blogging which in most forms is shorthand thus preventing some of these students from even learning to spell at all. So while ICT has its benefits and I certainly believe it does and is essential in the learning and development of the Digital Natives, I can't help but feel that this generation is becoming lazier and therefore less educated then the Digital Immigrants before them.
REFERENCE:
Felder, R.M., & Solomon, B. 2011. Learning styles test. Retrieved March 4, 2011, from http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html.
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