Blog #3 My Learning Style

I mentioned in my last post that I am a terrible student; I failed to mention that I am a great learner.

I don't mean that in an arrogant or condescending manner. I simply mean that absorbing and applying and articulating new information comes fairly easily to me. It's something I'm good at. So, in order to figure out, or understand, my learning style, I had to think back to the last time I had difficulty learning a new concept.

In my Junior year of high school I took an Honors level Chem course; partly because I needed a science credit, and partly because there was absolutely no way was I going to learn anything in a classroom full of mere plebeians. I knew science was usually a difficult subject for me, but I was riding the high of an overly successful year of Honors Physics the year before. Honestly, how different could the two sciences be?

Let's just take a moment of silence for Adolescent-Amber. She was a special snowflake.

I was rather quickly disabused of this notion, but the intervening period really tested my strength as a learner. I scraped through that class in a constantly shifting balance between frustrated and apathetic. To this day, I'm still not sure how I managed to get the grade I did. Miracle or teacher intervention: either is equally probable.

That class was taught linguistically (via lecture) with intrapersonal homework assignments, visual model-building projects, and interpersonal lab days. I learned and understood the most about chemistry on lab days.

I need the freedom to openly discuss and think through problems within a small group setting to really achieve an understanding of any given topic.

To that end, small group discussions and Socratic Seminars would be the most helpful for learners of this "intelligence". My instruction should be gently guiding and it should facilitate an open environment for these individuals to learn in.

Not every student does best in interpersonal styles though.
Let' consider how we might teach a poem to different students:

Kurt: Let's propose that Kurt is a Linguistic learner. he understands new material by using words effectively, I would read the poem aloud once, than have Kurt read it aloud as well. Since "I, Too", by Langston Hughes is a response poem, I would have Kurt write a response to a poem as well.

Charlie: Suppose that Charlie is a Logical learner. she need to reason or calculate her way to the meaning. I would ask her first to identify the tone of America when this was published, and then from there I would ask her to identify the broad themes of Langston's work.

Lawrence: If Larry learned independently I would ask him to construct a journal entry picking out any literary devices employed in the poem.

Maria: If Maria was an interpersonal learner, I would have her read the poem and then come up with three questions to ask the class during a Socratic Seminar.

To wit, my three questions about the poem are as follows:
1. If this poem were longer, would it be as powerful?
2. Does this poem stand on its own? Or do you need to read the first to fully understand it?
3. How different would the poem be if it were written by today's 'assigned-to-the-kitchen' minorities?