Week Two Reflection Question

2. My understanding on different learning styles and its influence on learning.

Learning styles are the ways and conditions under which people learn best. It is important for teachers to be familiar with the learning styles of their students. This is vital information to remember when planning lessons and activities. Knowing how the students learn best can provide teachers and students with more enjoyable experiences. However, some teachers may feel that it is becoming increasingly harder to accommodate different learning styles. The responsibility of providing more information to more students with less funding and less flexibility for teachable moments can prove to be extremely overwhelming. Nevertheless, teachers must remain diligent in their attempts to reach students in the most meaningful ways. According to the Chapter One, not distinguishing between the different learning styles of students can result in unnecessary barriers of communication between teachers and students (p. 14).

Until I started working at a school that embraced Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences theory, I did not fully appreciate the practice of varying learning experiences for students. However, I have watched students truly blossom when given the chance to respond to activities in ways that best suit them. At the beginning of each school year, all of our students complete a Multiple Intelligences inventory. The ‘smarts’ and MI are even mentioned in the school creed recited by students every morning.

School Creed

‘I believe that I have Smarts potential. I will listen. I will read. I will write. I will use my brain to think, to learn with all my might. I know how I learn and I can tell you why. I believe in myself because I’ve got MI.’ (This was written by the school's first principal.)

Since Chapter One dealt with learning styles, I decided to complete a learning styles inventory. The internet offers a number of online inventories. Although most are not free, learning-styles-online.com offers a 70 statement inventory that is somewhat free. Of course, there are some features that you can pay for. The inventory provided scores in the following areas: visual, logical, aural, verbal, social, and solitary. My highest scores were in logical or mathematical style and aural or musical style. The logical style students tend to like math and finding connections between different things. The aural style speaks to my musical side. Below are my results. They also give you a graph to review. However, it was copyrighted, so I decided not to paste it. I found them very interested and fairly accurate. They also lined up with my dominate Multiple Intelligences (Logical and Musical).

Style Scores
(The highest score available under each style is 20.)

Visual
7
Social
11
Physical
10
Aural
16
Verbal
14
Solitary
10
Logical
17

Introduction to Me

Warning!!! I love to talk (type) and laugh. That means this could be a little long. Feel free to tell me if I start sharing too much in the future. My name is Tiwari McLain Goins. This is my first course on the long, long road to my Ph.D. in Instructional Technology and Design. From 7:30 AM – 6:00 PM, I play the following roles: surrogate mother, Library Media Specialist, Junior Beta Club sponsor, RIF coordinator, mediator, and 21st Century After School teacher. At 6:00 PM, I rush home and prepare for my favorite role. . . WIFE. I’ve only been married for five years, so we’re still pretty new at all of this. However, I feel like this is the year we’re going to get it right (LOL). I’ve had quite a few online classes. I actually earned my MLIS online from USM. I have been using Microsoft products for approximately ten years. In the past, I’ve also taught teachers to use the products. While I use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on a regular basis, it has been a while since I used Access or Publisher. I would have to say that I am fairly comfortable with the Office products. I’ve never used Concept Mapping or HyperStudio, but I’m very interested to learn more about them. I love using the internet and all things related to technology (I had a Commodore 64 when I was in the first or second grade). I dabbled with the internet long before I even considered doing something productive like taking classes. I had WebTV years ago. I’ve been emailing and chatting for about eleven years now. While I was working on my last degree, I became very familiar with the listserv and discussion board. I prefer chatting to discussion boards, but I can use either method. A couple of summers ago, I won a grant to fund an Intel Essentials Course training session. For a week, I helped ten teachers learn to create unit plans. We worked with blogs, web-based document sharing, WIKIs, etc. Although they seemed to enjoy the week, the majority of them acted like the process of creating the lessons was cumbersome and tedious. I don’t think any of them are currently using what they learned. I truly felt like I didn’t get them to understand how important technology can be to the learning experience. Hopefully, in this course I will learn to help others understand how effectively using technology can make learning more interesting and fun.