"Effective teaching might just be the hardest job there is" - William Glasser
As a student and a tutor, I agree with Glasser’s approach to
learning.While agreeing with Glasser, I also believe in finding one’s
own balance between each of the parts of learning he states. While his might
just be an overall percentage for each part, as each person is unique they all
have different needs. For myself, I don’t know where 80% of personal experience
would come from with a subject like math, chemistry or physics. Although
theoretically I could think of experiences that COULD occur, these aren’t true
experiences that would necessarily help. When I am studying for a test, in any
of my classes, it is always helpful to first read what I need to know, be
present for lessons, create visual stimuli like mind maps or colourful notes to
help memorize the information, talk to classmates about the material, experiment
with certain aspects of the course and finally help others learn the material
in order to reinforce my own knowledge of the coursework. All of these steps I
have personally come up with, are not exact percentages as Glasser states,
rather it is what I can fit into my time and what I need help on myself. Thus,
while the backbone of his theory is correct it is too general for it to be a
set plan.
As a tutor, I agree
somewhat like how I agree as a student with the foundation being correct but
again each student is DIFFERENT. With each student being different, they are
going to need separate plans in order to help them succeed. Again, the breakdown
of how each part helps people to learn, for tutoring if you do not know the
material it doesn’t help so the 95% allotted to that way people learn does not
really make sense. Thus, like being a student the theory stated by Glasser is
too general to have every student you tutor be using the same percentages.
Modifications for Each Learning Style
According to an article on the University of Indiana
website, auditory learners retain information through hearing and speaking and
often like to produce their own notes and summaries to memorize the material.
For these students, I would pre-record the lesson, with the needed visuals much
like Khan Academy does, and have them watch these during the class period while
giving them the objectives of the lesson and having them produce their own
notes, then summaries. To better help and engage these students I would have
them also meet with other students who are auditory learners in order to
compare notes/summaries.
The same article presents visual learners as needing visual
objects such as graphs, charts, pictures, and seeing information in order to
memorize material. These students would also listen to the pre-recorded
lessons, needing to take their own notes. These notes will then need to be put
onto Bristol board or any other form of board to show their knowledge of the
material. They will be in charge of creating the visual stimuli for the whole
class, as part of their mark.
For kinesthetic learners, the article explains them as
liking to use their own hands to learn. These students would again listen to
the pre-recorded lessons and create their own notes, however these students
will demonstrate to the rest of the class through presentations the material
they are learning. These students will be encouraged to work as hard as they
can for 20 minutes, where a break will be encouraged. They will also be
encouraged to be as physical as they need to, in order to stay on track and get
their work done.
As all students will listen to the pre-recorded lessons, I
will simply be there to help fill in any blanks or help any student who does
not get the lesson on their own. The pre-recorded lessons are there to
encourage classwork to be done in class, so that I am there to help them
immediately rather than at a separate time.
Experiential Learning
Many parents worry when a new curriculum is decided in the
province. Just recently the new curriculum for sexual education has created a
ton of feedback, some good some bad, from parents all across the province. The
new curriculum has started to face the facts of TODAY’S society that people are
not just heterosexual anymore. The newly added information on sexual orientation,
gender identity, and sexting, are concepts parents worry their children aren’t mature
enough for yet. This change has caused many parents to be mad and this is only learning
about it. While in this case you can’t experience it experimentally, the fact
that just LEARNING about this information, that has been long overdue to be
added, has caused such an outcry from parents is hysterical. Thus, when just
learning about new things in a simple class like physical and health education
because you worry your children aren’t 'mature' enough, imagine if students
were asked to do more experiential learning.
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