That's true. Kinesthetic learners prefer to learn through practical experience. They prefer hands-on than theory.
Hi Ejike,
Good to hear. If you have any further questions please let me know. I will be glad to help out.
Gary
Hi Shirley,
The key is in learning development is to customize the delivery of content to the current students. Each class is different which requires some thinking about how the content can be better shared to their benefit. Also, the more you know about how individuals process information the more you will know about how to provide the learning supports that are needed.
Gary
Hi Shirley,
Right you are. The more total body connection you can create the higher the retention rate of content is going to be. By providing content that lets the students taste, touch, smell, see and manipulate the content the more successful are going to be.
Gary
Hi Ejike,
By knowing the research that is available about the brain we instructors then can develop instructional strategies that will appeal to the different processing pathways that learners use. This will lead to more effective learning and content retention.
Gary
The area of learning theory is a particular favorite of mine from the perspective of a learner and a faculty member. I believe that I must also be a life long learner if I am to create life long learning experiences for my own students. Therefore, the more aware I am of my learning style and processes the more critical I can be of how I design my learning environments. Many instructors teach in a format that works best for them. Unfortunately they are not usually aware of this fact or that likely their style and process may not be the majority. By using the research and data from the other sciences we can strengthen the credibilty of the education discipline.
Specifically, research provides data on how the brain works and what optimal levels can be anticipated. The field of education must then find ways to incorporate the discoveries into our learning environments. By using memory recall tricks such as first letter triggers or jingles or stories, we can incorporate the proven brain research into a successful learning intervention. The key for all educators is to ensure transfer. However, proving and measuring transfer is very difficult. By embracing the science of the brain we can find new ways to actually measure transfer. I am particularly fond of the HBDI and Emotional Intelligence approaches.
Dr. Jeannette K. Jones
I'm actually not in the classroom, i'm in the library, but I do find that we often have a very short period of time with a student and something that needs to click before the student can effectively search, find,select, and use a source. Getting to the "click" is what I am most interested in, and I'm so interested in how this increasingly text based, yet multimedia world is working for students who are using text, but using it is ways totally unfamiliar to those of us who are not digital natives. What is text now? What is literacy now?
Hi Jennie,
Two great questions that cause pause to answer. As these two elements are changing so quickly it is hard to really develop a definition that has any life to it. The key is to be responsive to the changes and incorporate them where they best fix and spend the remainder of the time developing relationships with students so they can see how important the human element is to career success.
Gary
I usually do my best to make the information I teach seem relevant to my students and I focus a lot on how it can be applied. Fortunately I teach a majority of lab classes and have access to computers where students can play with the information they learn in lectures.
I find this is generally successful, but I do have one quiz where I need the students to define a large amount of vocabulary words. I want them to learn the vocab so that we can be comfortable discussing the 'lingo' of the discipline, but I worry that they see a large vocab worksheet as a purely semantic exercise, like they may have done in past schooling.
I try to make them use the words in full sentences, and in discussions and application, to prevent this feeling of just learning words by rote... really I do wonder if they are retaining the words after they complete the course, and how I can increase their retention.
It’s an interesting thought - the process of how the brain works, and how memory is retained. There is also another statistic that suggests something like 10% of what you are taught you remember, but 80% of what you teach you remember. I think to adapt the instructional design would be to allow students to help other students, e.g., in group discussions or creating a project and giving a presentation on the research they did.
Hi Steven,
I would agree with that statement based upon my own teaching experience. I like to ask my students "How many stoplights there are between school and their home?" or "How many windows are there in your house?" None of them can answer either question yet they live in the house and drive through the lights each day. They have decoded and recoded this information into their working memory to the point that they have to stop and think, then count up the windows or lights. Yet, when I ask them the name of their second grade teacher the names instantly pops up in their minds. I then ask them when was the last time you thought about this teacher or recalled his or her name? They answer not since the second grade. Really gets my message across about the brain and how it processes information. This is episodic memory, the strongest from of retention. By using your method the retention is going to be greater and longer with a greater ability to apply the information later.
Gary
By understanding how the brain and learning work I will have a better understanding of how to structure my classes to improve student understanding and retention. For example, when asking students to memorize lists of information the use of Neumonic devices or parsing the information into groups may help students master the list. Especially, if the information can be connected to some type of visual reference or memorable event.
Hi LE,
You make a very good point about making connections for students. In acquiring information students need to have connections between the content and applications in their lives. This greatly enhances the memory and retention of students. I find that helping students with these connections is a fun part of teaching because when the connections are made "aha" moments occur.
Gary
I found the types of learning styles to be very useful for classroom purposes. I will try to integrate projects, lectures, or exercises that approach differing types of intelligences and learning styles.
Hi Lloyd,
I know you are going to enjoy the results you get from offering your course content in a number of different ways. This is a form of "buffet" learning so the students can chose different modes of input based upon their own preferences.
Gary
A better understanding of learning process presents more tools for communicating to each student as an individual. Since there is a great disparity within each class being able to relate to each student in a way that facilitates their learning will result in a better experience for student and teacher. Truly a win-win situation. I particularly will be searching for episodic memory triggers as tool for specific learning situations. Many of the lessons presented in this section can be creatively transformed into new and imaginative instructional tools.
I adapted the instructional strategy in having my students in groups do an activity that they could accomplish quickly, noting the time it was finished. Then I had the groups work on creating sentences for the phrasal verbs, with the first group finishing the task as winners of a prize (a pen for each one). OUt of 4 groups, one focused on learning the meaning of the phrasal verbs - turned out all of them were slow leaners, and one was a leader in teaching the meanings from the textbook. I had the groups read their sentences, wrote some on the board. Many thanked me at the end of class.
That's an interesting statement. I teach at a trade school where we do just that. Classroom/lecture is followed by a hands-on workshop. In the beginning, it's sometimes hard for the students to grasp some concepts since it's introduced in the classroom. The hard part is retention.
We don't run the workshops concurrently with the lectures. First, theory is taught in the classroom, the students are tested on that class, then the workshop starts.
This format has some drawbacks.
Hi Laurel,
Thank you for sharing how learning groups can support each other and mutually help the learning of everyone involved.
Gary
I teach in many different arenas: online, professional education for nurses, training for nurses, paramedica and physicians in the classroom setting and new information for paramedic classes. I find that through the use of different methods of instruction, the students gain the most knowledge. For example, I understand that paramedic students tend to be very visual learners but get bored easily. I use written outlines, powerpoint presentations that include videos and open discussion which allows the students to include personal experiences. By allowing the students to discuss personal experiences, the learning becomes real. I would love to include games and other interactive methods of education, especially in my online classes. This method would help get the students involved and also increase learning.
