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Teaching and Learning
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Web Resources
Teaching and Learning Styles
Teaching StylesIndividual teaching and learning styles are one of the things that make teaching so complicated. Teachers who have taught for any length of time begin to realize how hard it is to be all teachers to all students. Below are several links for teachers to figure out their "teaching styles" (how they view authority, knowledge, power, etc.), as well as the sort of "learning styles" their students come to classes with. McKinney, for example, explains how important it is for teachers to engage various learning styles in classes, which doesn't always require a massive overhaul of the teaching style with which the teacher is most comfortable.
Facilitator Approach
The instructor chooses to value the development of learning skills as more important than, or at least as important as, the content. This commitment is based on the assumption that a student who learns how to learn a subject is far more competent (especially in a world of expanding and changing knowledge) than someone who repeats facts or theories verbatim (Indiana State University).
Instructional Design and Teaching Style
Based on the instructional theories of Anthony Grasha, this site offers hints on how to design courses based on the level of authority and control you need to have over a class and its workings (Indiana State University).
Teaching Styles Inventory
Forty-question inventory of classroom-related questions for teachers to answer based on specific courses they teach.
Learning Styles
Take a few minutes and examine the different learning styles. As each student is different and unique, a variety of teaching techniques should be utilized to motivate and stimulate the learning process. What is your learning style? Take a few minutes to complete the online Type Focus Personality Inventory. What type of learner are you - visual, auditory, or kinesthetic? Do you think by using your left or right brain?
According to Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory, there are many ways in which individuals take in information, retain and manipulate that information, and demonstrate their understandings (and misunderstandings) to themselves and others by providing activities that appeal to all of the intelligences of the human minds. This will enable a wide variety of students to reach their full potential.
Multimedia and Multiple Intelligences
MI & Technology: A Winning Combination!
Additional Resources
How We Go From the Unknown To the Known?
A learning style is a student's consistent way of responding to and using stimuli in the context of learning (Don Clark).
On Learning Styles
Brightman discusses the impact that Personality Type can have on learning and teaching (Harvey Brightman, Georgia State).
Index of Learning Styles
The Index of Learning Styles is an on-line instrument used to assess preferences on four dimensions (active/reflective, sensing/intuitive, visual/verbal, and sequential/global) of a learning style model formulated by Richard M. Felder and Linda K. Silverman.
Dialogue on Learning: Unlocking the Extraordinary Potential of Every Mind
Recent advances in the brain sciences and technology have created an opportunity for educators to unlock the extraordinary potential of every learner (Tompkins Cortland Community College and Dialogue On Learning).
