What is your learning style?

To begin with, my first lab assessment indicated that my strengths include but are not limited to Nature and Body Movement. This was verified in the second assessment which indicated that I am a tactile learner. However, I also showed strengths equally in intra-personal and interpersonal learning. I think these are accurate and are reflected in my personal hobbies which include fitness, outdoor activities, cooking and etc. I think this is also shown in my interest in teaching science. I think this is further shown in my need to have time to reflect (intra-personal) on my own learning and I usually do this best through activity (body movement). This is why for most of my educational career, I study in the morning which gives me the rest of the day to absorb, revise, and plan how to integrate new learning. Of course, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I am very close on all indicators. I think this is due to the fact that I have always pushed myself to be a well-rounded individual. I can talk with anyone on any subject and hold my own. This has also helped me connect to my students which I find invaluable. It is my personal belief that this is what makes someone well-educated.

However, I find when I am not connected to nature and activity I struggle with balance, productivity, and learning. This first became obvious to me when my family moved from the suburbs of Chicago to a country lifestyle. This for me was like being released from a cage. Unfortunately, I have repeated this cycle throughout my life moving from the more industrious side of a small city to the more walkable, greener, more cultural side. Feeling burnt out during my undergraduate career and disconnected, I hiked to the top of a bluff and threw my watch off of it.

From the beginning of my educational career starting in first grade, my teacher communicated to my parents my desire to be outside as a negative aspect of who I was as a student. This was a painful experience for me. From this point on, I began the arduous task of teaching myself the discipline to conform to teacher expectations and a continued educational career of auditory and lecture based instruction. On a positive note, it is this discipline which has helped me overcome life's greatest obstacles. I focus on teaching my students discipline within the context of learning and subject matter for this reason.

In high school, I was fortunate to have teachers who were passionate about their subject matter and pushed the current boundaries of teaching by incorporating whole class game competitions (history), hands on labs, and outdoor experiences (biology). It was in my biology labs wherein I saw glimpses of myself as a teacher while assisting other students in class with their lab work. Even my middle school science class had no lab instruction. While common today, these teachers in my mind were progressive for their time. With this being said, I actually excel in auditory lecture based instruction but do not prefer this type of learning. My preferred mode of learning includes a good mix of active, reflective, sensing, intuitive, visual, sequential, and global learning. I am usually most engaged and excited about learning when I am active, reflecting, or making global connections.

In ending, I agree we (teachers) do not have the luxury of teaching to every learning style at all times. However, I do believe that we should seek to accommodate to different learning styles in our instruction. For example, if 65% of the population is visual that is probably something worth addressing in our lesson plans. I also think it is necessary to adjust to different groups. How we taught something to last years class may not work for this years class. In this way, we keep our own teaching of the same content exciting and novel. In other words, we enrich our own experience of teaching.

I also believe in providing a variety of types of instruction. In this example, not every lesson is auditory based. In another way, we might begin our instruction with auditory instructions but incorporate visual images and active hands on learning during guided instruction. Most importantly, while some students can accommodate to learning outside of their preferred learning style some students cannot. I do not agree when teachers are resistant to address the learner who needs to have an accommodation to meet their learning style. This is essential to meet the needs of both gifted and learning disabled students. While I feel this is becoming less of the norm, I still feel it is important to note. Currently, I think this is being addressed through a push for differentiated instruction in the classroom.

However, I also feel learners must be pushed to accommodate to different styles of learning. For example, when I first began teaching it was sometimes difficult to get even the best teachers to collaborate for the benefit of the student. This required a lot of communication and relationship building and always resulted in a benefit not only to the student but in the teacher's learning which would later benefit his/her whole class. I agree with the article "Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching" by Susan M. Montgomery and Linda N. Grout, we risk as Kolb stated becoming too homogeneous in our profession. In other words, the teaching profession seems to attract well-motivated and independent individuals. While these are valuable assets especially when teachers are often taxed with limited resources, we also need teachers who can collaborate to the benefit of all our students.

My personal example of accommodating to my students needs include but is not limited to hosting book clubs (I have never attended a book club), baking my first cake (Dr. Seuss cake in my second year of teaching), incorporating craft instruction ( I do not usually enjoy doing crafts), dressing up in costumes ( I enjoy watching theater not participating in it). In this way, teaching has forced me out of my own personal comfort zone many times throughout the years for the benefit of my students. In this way, I have grown not only as a teacher but as a person.



Montgomery, Susan M. & Groat, Linda N. "Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching" CRLT Occasional Paper #10, 1998, University of Michigan, Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. PDG/Adobe Acrobat