Sunday, September 15, 2013
A Couple Thoughts on Kolb Learning Style Inventory
The first thing that I thought about just happened to be the first section in the booklet. I suppose the environment, actions to learning, and whether or not I was independent or in a group would all be factors to what kind of learning took place. I have always learned better in small groups. There is something about interacting with people that helps me. This was reflected in my results that I obtained from my individual learning style inventory. I placed in the concrete experience above and beyond all others. After reading the criteria for this category, I agreed with my results. I often learn by experiencing something. I do not remember a time in my history of learning when this was not true. I like to listen to what others say and pick up on what they may feel and relate it to myself. I have always found a great deal of self awareness from this practice. I was a bit confused that I scored second highest with abstract conceptualization but there is no cookie cutter approach to this. I could have abstract ways of thinking as well as the concrete ways of thinking. I often learn from experience and then act afterwards on what I have realized about myself. I am certainly a logical thinker and like to plan. It was a cool experience to be able to do this because for the last 12 years of my life I have been so focused on becoming a good teacher without allowing myself to sit down and consider what kind of learner I am. If I am to be "a student of my own students", then it is vital I know what kind of learner I am myself.
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Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty powerful when I tell my students that I don't know how to do something and offer the students an opportunity to explain their reasoning to me. It is difficult, actually border line impossible, for me to not plan for my class in a traditional sense- have an agenda, do the problems that you are going to ask your kids to do, have a back up plan, etc. However, recently I have dropped a difficult project on my students and said "go." Projects like these have been designed by me to be open ended so that students can do them as i their mathematicians or a student that is brand new to the class. In this case, the most important thing in my opinion is the student's explanation of his or her work. You made me think of it because I get a different reaction from the kids when i present them with a project and say, "I'm not sure how I would do this, but I'm going to sit down and work on it by myself and you are all going to do so in groups of 2 and only 2. The closer your answer is to mine (assuming I'm right) and the better your explanation of your process is, the better your grade will be." I dunno.
Than again... I'm literally sitting in a computer lab with 20 angry algebra 1 students... we are taking our second major test in recent memory for our district and my kids are bored stiff.
I think your project seems interesting for the fact that it is open-ended and that you work on it like they do. There is a "together" factor there that I can relate to. That is too bad the kids are so bored because of the testing. Hope it goes by quickly for you guys.
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