Tag Archives: learn

Truth

Character, Inspirational, Journals, , , , , , , , , ,

The students struggled mightily with this quote.  Some of the more flippant students tried to take the easy way out and claim that the truth is the facts and facts are the truth.  Rather than dissuade them immediately, we moved onto on regular science lesson (this was just the journal to capture their mindset).

The rest of class went by without any issues.  During the next class I broached the topic again of when it would be possible that the truth is more important than the facts.  I prodded them with a few examples because ultimately it becomes about semantics, vocabulary, ethics, character, and even social norms in some instances.

Example 1: A young couple adopts a baby boy, and were then subsequently surprised by their own bundle of joy, a baby girl about a year later.  These siblings were raised their entire life as brother and sister, fighting over television shows, arguing through their teens, and enduring puberty as teens attending the same high school.   When the girl reaches 18 and the boy just a year older, they decide to run away and elope.  Is that okay? Why or why not?  

The students were enraged at the idea that this could happen, but I calmly countered with why?  They may be legally brother and sister, but biologically they are not.  Why does it matter so much?  Then, the students realize, they have to look deeper into the meanings of what is really being asked.  In this instance, because the children were raised together, their eloping would be a violation of our social norms against incest within the family.

Example 2: Teachers in the hotseat.  I ask the students how do they know I am a teacher? Their initial responses are weak and tired.  I get paid to teach them.  I show up to work every day.  I help them learn.  So, I query . . . should teachers be compassionate? flexible? kind and generous to the students? come to school voluntarily? passionate about what they are teaching the students that day?  Then, I ask them, how many “teachers” are there and how many people are just working a job?  How do they know the difference?  In this instance, teachers are paid to teach, that is a fact.  The truth is that children, teens, and adults have “teachers” in their lives every day, in every way, that are not paid for being “teachers.”  In fact, I would argue that some of the most important “teachers” in a student’s life do not have a teaching credential at all.

Now the students are really excited and engaged.  They are realizing truth does not always look like facts.  Just because a person is paid money for a job does not necessarily mean they are doing their job to the best of their ability, for whatever reason.

Example 3: Students in the hotseat.  I ask how many of the students come to school voluntarily?  How many would attend if there were no mandatory attendance laws for schooling in this country?  How many of the students come prepared, passionate to learn what the teachers have to offer each day?  How many of the students go home and google something about their lesson that the teacher did not ask them to do?  How many students joyfully prepared for the lesson of the day?  How many students spent the night before socializing, texting, skating, boarding, or playing video games instead?  How many students stayed up too late not because they had too much homework, but because they did not start their homework until it was already late?  The students immediately understood where I was going.  They openly confessed that the fact is many of them go to school and “pretend” to be students.  The truth is there are many “real” students who enjoy learning and academia; however, the other truth is there are also many students apathetic toward school, and would rather be anywhere else. 

It was a great character lesson that morning that only took about 15 minutes.

 

truth is powerful

Learning Styles

Biology, Experiments, Geoscience, Health, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Current research indicates “an individual’s learning style refers to the preferential way in which the student absorbs, processes, comprehends and retains information.”  Essentially, “VARK is an acronym that refers to the four types of learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing Preference, and Kinesthetic.”  Many learning style surveys omit the Reading/Writing Preference leaving it the typical three: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic.  It is important to note, although a student or adult has a preference for one particular style over the other, it is also important that they practice outside their comfort zone because there may be times when their learning style may be constrained by outside forces.

Every teacher should, theoretically, strive to adapt their lesson plans to incorporate each of these four areas as often as possible to ensure all students’ learning modalities are covered. In fact, according to Fleming and Baume (2006):

  • Students’ preferred learning modes have significant influence on their behavior and learning.
  • Students’ preferred learning modes should be matched with appropriate learning strategies.
  • Information that is accessed through students’ use of their modality preferences shows an increase in their levels of comprehension, motivation and metacognition.

“Identifying your students as visual, auditory, reading/writing or kinesthetic learners, and aligning your overall curriculum with these learning styles, will prove to be beneficial for your entire classroom. Allowing students to access information in terms they are comfortable with will increase their academic confidence” (“Learning Styles”, 2017).

Vark

Understanding how they learn best, enables a student to adapt his or her current study habits to include methods previously unrealized as potentially successful.  This can be a real eye-opener to a student who has struggled in school academically simply because they are more kinesthetic and most instruction is given visual or auditory modalities.

In my classes, I often use what I call the Around the Room Learning Lab.  It incorporate eight different learning stations: Read It! Write It! Explore It! Organize It! Watch It! Research It! Assess It! Illustrate It! and Write It!.  Credit for this goes to Chris Kesler on Teacher Pay Teachers who introduced me to this idea.  I have used many of his labs, and having become familiar with them, have been redesigning them to incorporate deeper cognitive questions and/or thinking, or to emphasize a different aspect of the content.  Mr. Kesler does an amazing job in creating these learning labs, which are great at getting the students familiar with the facts, simple DOK levels 1 and 2 information.  I have been redesigning some of them to incorporate more DOK 3 and 4 levels of thinking.  What is especially great about the labs is that the students are moving around, collaborating, discussing academic concepts, reading academic material, watching academic videos, and illustrating their visualization of academic content.

Once the students have gone through the basics, I am ready to put them through the paces with a scientific lab set up requiring a hypothesis, materials, procedures, data analysis, and results.

Works Cited

Fleming, N., and Baume, D. (2006) Learning Styles Again: VARKing up the right tree!, Educational Developments, SEDA
Ltd, Issue 7.4, Nov. 2006, p4-7.

Learning Styles. (2017). Retrieved March 25, 2017, from https://teach.com/what/teachers-teach/learning-styles/

Othman, N., & Amiruddin, M. H. (2010). Different Perspectives of Learning Styles from VARK Model. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 7, 652-660. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.10.088