ILI Blog - Week 4 - Teaching and Learning Styles

Questions
What is your learning style? How do you think this will influence your teaching/facilitation? Is your teaching approach more akin to behaviorism, cognitivism, or constructivism? Describe an "aha" moment you had this week, if any.

Answers
I believe I have a very visual learning style, one that has contextual and sequential components. I remember information so much better when I've seen something, be it on a slide or whiteboard, or better yet written down in my notebook. Visual diagrams or examples, especially 3D and animated ones, help me conceptualize things so much better than just listening to someone lecture. The context and sequence part has to do with building schemata as I learn, taking the framework of the content and transferring it to my own notes and understanding.

My visual, structured preferred style of learning will guide how I design and present curriculum, as it is how I understand and organize my own learning. I will include visuals for reference and explanation/elaboration, and will try to be obvious and logical about how I'm structuring the information I'm trying to help students learn. I will have to be conscious of making sure to include verbal teaching as well - spoken descriptions, examples, metaphors, etc., from myself as well as my students - for those students who do better with that style. I will also need to give ample time for practice, exploration, collaboration, and creation outside of my organizing structure, and incorporate student discoveries in future lessons.

I feel like I default to behaviorist and direct instruction, though it was encouraging to read that there's a valid use for it, as long as it involves active learning. I have had a lot of experience as a learner with these instruction types, especially over the last ~dozen years of undergraduate and graduate school. I think my goal in teaching is using more constructivist approaches, especially with older students, but I will probably start with more behaviorist approaches with the youngest students, building towards cognitivist and constructivist approaches overall as the school year goes on, and with older grade levels.