Universal Teaching with an Individualized Twist
After living and learning with another human being for the past five years I know indepthly that people have different learning styles, for me, this is incontestable. Despite this, while reading the Pashler et al. (2009) article I tended to agree that teaching to an individual's preferred learning style does not necessarily mean the individual will learn information better. Many thoughts raced through my mind as I read this article. The first that I considered is the matter of the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you learn a certain way will you learn better that way simply because of holding the preconceived notion that you will? I was also reminded of the age-old questions of "Are you an introvert or an extrovert?" or "Are you Type A or Type B personality?" It could be my indecisive nature, but I've always been flabbergasted by these typologies. Like Pashler et al. (2009) I've found that such categories "classify people into supposedly distinct groups, rather than assigning people graded scores on different dimensions" (Pashler et al., 2009, p. 107). This is also applicable for many of the labels that students are diagnosed with.
After reading this article and past material for this course, I started constructing a potential solution (at least in my head). My whole life, I've been taught that trying to learn through several modalities was most effective. I'm not sure if this is just something my mom told me or what, but it has worked for me. Usually this plays out as me reading material, writing on the material, reading concepts out loud, rewriting the concepts down on paper, talking to my husband about the concepts, and pacing around rooms reviewing information. Reading this article I questioned if it would be most effective for teachers to universally teach to best practice through multiple modalities. To follow James' (1983) advice of inciting interest and attention through pairing information with native interests. To avoid behaviors Dr. Usher reveals in her PPT as "minimizing how well student can register the information presented" such as through poor classroom management, distracting mannerisms/presentation, etc. And then to pair these practices with allowing students to individually engage in required learning activities based on how the students feel they learn best and further to pair this with Skinner's lovely idea of teaching machines.
Does being called a "good" teacher mean by definition that when you teach, the information reaches all students? Is this possible?
You raise an interesting question about the power of self-beliefs on the effectiveness of learning style. This would be a great research question to be tested empirically. Dissertation anyone?
ReplyDeleteYou also raise a good question about what "good" teaching means. There is a great connection to be made to James on the points you raise here ...