Last week in CEP 811 I created a lesson using my Makey Makey Kit. Kindergarten is a year of many firsts, but one thing many students need to learn and work on is how to collaborate with their peers. In my lesson students will be working together to play a game called Road Rally. They control a speeding car by moving it left or right or having it jump using the appropriate pie tins. That’s right! Pie tins! These are large and provide my students who don’t have the best coordination yet the opportunity to actually hit the controls. 🙂 You can read all about it here!
This week in CEP 811 I watched Reimagining Learning by Richard Culatta and then looked at various learning theories. I decided to learn more about learning styles. It struck me when Culatta talked about how learning styles are a “bunch of malarky” and that students should have the choice to learn how they want. Like any other teacher, I’ve heard of learning styles and certainly thought about ways of incorporating them into lessons so I can reach all learners, but I had never thought about it before in the way that Culatta suggested. Just because a student likes to watch a video one day does not necessarily make them a visual learner. So I decided to learn more about learning styles and how they may have an effect, or lack thereof, in education.
As I researched and read about learning styles I found rather mixed reviews. In Maryann Kiely Lovelace’s article Meta-Analysis of Experimental Research Based on the Dunn and Dunn Model, she stated “the Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Model for prescribing and providing responsive instruction was effective for improving student achievement” (Lovelace, p. 179, 2005). She also said “one can conclude that learning-style responsive instruction might be expected to improve academic achievement” (Lovelace, p. 179, 2005). On the other hand, Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer and Bjork said quite the opposite in their article Learning Styles – Concepts and Evidence. They stated, “any application of learning styles in classrooms is unwarranted” (Pashler et al. p.112) and that if a student is unsuccessful it’s easier to “think that the fault lies with instruction being inadequately tailored to one’s learning style” (Pashler et al., p.108, 2009).
While thinking about learning styles within my own classroom I feel like students have many learning styles that suit them. To say that this student learns only this way or that is naive because they are going to learn multiple ways. Now a student may be more apt to working in groups than alone or better understand information when it’s presented visually than verbally but to say that a student’s has one learning style seems inconclusive to me.
After thinking about learning styles in relation to my lesson using my Makey Makey kit I thought that I could do a better job with giving students multiple ways to learn and understand what the directions are. I decided to add a part where students go with their partner and explain what they will be doing and how they will be doing it to each other. This way they get to see me demonstrate the game, they get to talk with their partner about what and how to play. I also added that I will write down the words and phrases we come up with to use while playing. This will give students visual clues as well. I’m hoping that by adding this in I can reach all students in my classroom. Even though they might not all have one specific learning style, I want to make sure that I teach using various methods so as to catch every learner’s attention.
References:
Culatta, R. (2013). Reimagining Learning: Richard Culatta at TEDxBeaconStreet. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.co/watch?v=Z0uAuonMXrg&feature=youtu.be.
Liss, M. One Size Fits All [Online Image]. Retrieved from http://www.chicagonow.com/still-advocating/2014/04/respecting-childrens-unique-learning-styles/.
Lovelace, M. (2005). Meta-Analysis of Experimental Research Based on the Dunn and Dunn Model. The Journal of Educational Research, 176-183.
Pashler, H., Mcdaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 105-119.
Technology Teacher Confessions 