How easy is it for all of us to zone out when we are supposed to be paying attention to whatever we are learning. Our lack of focus can be attributed to a myriad of reasons and yet as mature adults we have a few skills that should make this easier for us then the children that we will be teaching one day, determination, focus, discipline and being able to see what our labour will get us. Having these skills in our arsenal should make the process of engaging in material even easier for us and yet we still, on occasion, slide. Yet we expect the children in our class to always pay undivided attention. As Prensky (2005) outlines, it is our job as teachers to provided interesting and appealing material for students so that they engage in the content being taught and achieve the learning outcomes required. Not only does this material need to be engaging but also at a high enough academic standard that students do not need to “power down every time they go to class” (Prensky, 2005).
Once reading the material on behaviourism where Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike and Skinner outlined the stimulus-response pattern in conditioned behaviour I started to wonder where some peoples' belief that technology does not have a place within the classrooms of today comes from. Whether they actually hold this belief or whether they have had previous negative experiences when using technology and it is now an unconscious behaviour that they don’t like it? Technology is what has allowed us to discover the information supplied by this course and share it with our peers to enrich our learning on these topics. We are applying connectivism right now as we all tap out our blogs and communicate the knowledge we have interpreted and gained from the course materials.
Whatever the teacher’s belief or preference is it is our duty to provide any and all resources that we can to ensure that students are engaged in the learning taking place within the classroom. It seems that increasingly the resources that are required are the digital resources that these children are surrounded by. Discovering students learning styles is another important tool in designing lessons in the most beneficial way to all students within the classroom.
I believe knowing a students preferred learning style can assist greatly in delivering content in a way that is effectively and successfully conveyed, however discovering the right tool to assess a learning style can be difficult. There are endless amounts of test out there on the internet that can be applied to determine a learning style. I found completing the learning styles test this week quite difficult/annoying. I have completed quite a few of these tests and I always sit debating which answer to pick and which one will truly represent me. At the end of the tests I have to wonder whether they are a true assessment of my learning style or if I have manipulated the answers to generate the result that I think applies to myself. The benefit of digital resources within the classroom is that they can cater to all learning styles visual, auditory and kinaesthetic so it isn’t so important to have a 100% accurate result. Below are the results from my learning styles test.
Results for: Holly T
ACT X REF
11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11
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SEN X INT
11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11
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VIS X VRB
11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11
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SEQ X GLO
11 9 7 5 3 1 1 3 5 7 9 11
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