1. I believe the combination of deductive and inductive teaching is most effective in ELL. I, personally, would prefer to teach, and be taught, through inductive approaches, because I think inductive is more in-tune with right brain learning. However, I feel like inductive learning method, of samples and patterns, in conjunction with deductive, rules and applications, creates the "AHA," moment, that we have experienced in our learning, and what we hope for our students to experience. The "AHA," moment, is where all the information, comes together, and finally makes sense to student. I remember, one "AHA," moment, that still sticks out, vividly, in my mind. Because I am such a right-brained, learner, I couldn't not understand long division. The rules, just would not click. I had two different teachers try to explain how to do long division. I felt embarrassed that I could not remember the rules, and failed all my quizzes. (Keep in mind I was in third grade.) It wasn't until an older peer tutor, explained long division, not by rules, but by showing me patterns, and helping me apply rules of multiplication to my division practice. Then, it all "clicks," "aha," I loved doing math and tutoring peers. For this moment, required both inductive and deductive usages.
I mentioned this in my exercise, that I think as an instructor, I would approach my lessons using the tolerance of ambiguity method, of explaining deductively, rules and regulations, then move inductively to patterns, exceptions, and strategies. By starting out lesson very specific prevents error, then, slowly and strategically, moving lesson to broader and more complicated caveots, will make lesson more thorough.
2. If I have 15 students, with 15 learning styles, I do not think all students will have drastically varying learning abilities. At-least, I hope not. However, I think all learning styles methods should be integrated into the classroom. I do not think it is impossible to cater to every student. As one person, one teacher, that could be overwhelming, but that is where I think it is our jobs to, sort-of, delegate, and motivate, students and parents to find other sources, to help further ELL. Some moderate ideas I have to expand on classroom learning, that would be more individualized, at home, are online games and practice sites. More effective, outside classroom, help would be to sign-up for a peer tutor, or student teacher, to help student, one-on-one. I think these ideas, allow for more individualized help with lesson, that may better fit a student's learning style. If a student is really interpersonal, I think encouraging social networking, joining clubs, or any social group would be effective for their learning, because they are very interactive. If a student is interpersonal, I would encourage online exercises, and small group studies. The expect ion this this would be, trying to integrate and get students comfortable with all learning situations. This is important because it is always necessary to think about how to set your student's up to succeed outside the classroom, in their daily lives. But in the classroom, all 15 students will experience a mixture of learning approaches, for exposure and creativity of learning processes.
Knowing how you learn is important when presenting lessons and forming your own teaching methods in a classroom. I think there are two main reasons to know the way you learn:
ReplyDelete1. You can apply what methods, learning approaches worked for you, and relate that to your class.
2. To make sure your not being biased in your classroom. Identifying how you learn will enlighten you to find alternative lesson techniques for students who learn differently. For example, Carla and I are right-brained people, we have to be able to teach the left-brain, functioning, learners.
Finally, I think if one teacher had the same group of students throughout their educational career, that would be an injustice. It literally takes a collaboration of teaching methods. Some kids just click better with certain teachers, even if their personalities are drasitcally different. I remember certain teachers who had amazing impacts on my life, maybe not on other students. It is just the way the culture, society, and systems work. We build off each others strengths and weaknesses. Thanks Carla, for touching on that point, so I could, right-brain, rant!