How do I learn? How will I teach?

According to Howard Gardner ,"An intelligence is the ability to solve problems, or to create products, that are valued with in one or more cultural settings."

The Brimingham Grid for Learning showed that I am primarily an interpersonal learner. Falling not far after was a tie between logical and naturalistic, and then intrapersonal fell shortly after them. I was rated the same in visual/spatial and linguistic with music and then kinaesthetic taking in the rear. I would say that the order these fell rings fairly true in my own life. By imaging my future students as individuals who have fully realized and developed their intelligences I will better be able to meet their needs. By nurturing all of the intelligences and offering different learning opportunities students will benefit most in their learning.

Because I am mostly interpersonal I enjoy getting to know people. Group work opportunities, such as skits, are a way to meet this intelligence. To meet the logical intelligence will also be easier for me to find ways to do sense I rated highly in it. I can offer opportunities to work with patterns and numbers. My love for nature was also reflected in my results. This intelligence can be reached through a trip to an aquarium or to a park. Intrapersonal intelligence could be met in oral presentations or debates. My medium multiple intelligences were visual and linguistic. I could use paintings, technology, and field trips that go along with the subject matter to reach the visual intelligence, and have students write stories that help them recall important math facts to reach the linguistic intelligence. Music has always been important to me but just not a way I connect to learning as much. The musical intelligence could help students to connect with a certain era being studied or the rhythm could reinforce the use of fractions. Singing songs about weather or what we are learning about could help reinforce the lesson. Kinaesthetics was last for me so this will be the area I will need to work the most to integrate in my classroom. Hand motions to songs could be a way to reach this group of students more effectively. A game for physical education class in which students are verbs, nouns, and adjectives could be invented to help teach grammatical rules.

Along with having different levels of intelligences we all also fluctuate between learning styles. We all have preferences about how we learn. By reflecting on our preferences we can better understand how we learn best so that we can be more effective with our study time and we can gain understanding on how others learn best so that we can help them learn.

On the Learning Styles Test I found that I am fairly balanced between being an active learner and reflective. I was just slightly more of a reflective learner. Thinking about my usual response in working with a group I would say that I am definitely am more of a reflective learner because I much rather think through things before jumping right in. A downfall of being more reflective is that it can be hard to not over think things, which can lead to procrastination. In teaching this might slow me down in creating lesson plans. Being more reflective I may also not give even class time for discussion. I could counteract this affect by planning on having discussion time, creating group time, and making sure to take questions often to make sure that I am reaching all of my students.

I was also fairly balanced between sensing and intuitive, however, I was slightly more of a sensing learner. A sensing learner is one who is more attuned to details and careful with their work. Sensing learners get in a rhythm of how things equations are suppose to work though and when they don't sometimes they lack the understanding. Sense I am majoring in integrated science I have taken many classes that use formulas and have often found myself just trying to count on the familiar method to solve problems. With teaching I will need to remember to find ways to discuss how theories link to facts and not just focus on facts and memorization. To help reach my intuitive students I will need to remind them to take their time on tests and give them time to double check their work.

On the visual verses verbal scale I received a 7 which means that I moderately prefer the visual dimension. This rings true in my everyday life because when meeting new people I will remember people's faces more than their names and when studying I will remember charts more than my reading. When studying in a group I never learn much by just listening to others because I need to use flash cards or draw pictures to correlate with what I'm learning. Most people are visual learners so I will be able to easily meet many of my students needs by using technology and the whiteboard, but to meet the verbal learners I could include handouts and detailed explanations.

Lastly, I scored fairly balanced on the sequential verses global scale, falling slightly more to the sequential side. Being more of a sequential learner I tend to like to learn things in steps and focus on details. Some times it slows me down because I will get wrapped up with details that do not really matter all that much in the overview of things. To meet the needs of global learners I can make sure to give them an overview of the material we will be covering first and try and find ways to explain what we are learning about connects to things they should already have an understanding of.

Because I rated fairly well balanced in 3 out of 4 of the learning styles I think that it will be easier for me to flex to reach both dimensions of each learning style. I really found both of these quizzes very helpful in learning how I learn and how I will teach.