This week was a busy one as we were
working hard on our Final Project Reports. The Final Project Report has a great
importance as it covers the change that we can implement to our classes by
using the tools that we came familiar with during this course. To be more
clear, it is the first time we practice what we have learned. It is for that
reason that I feel very excited about it.
The group I have decided to work for my
Final project is important as they are the English Language Teachers of the
future. We, as teachers and also our students, want to go beyond the
traditional lecture classes. I have
always believed the importance of using computer in the classroom. However, as
a teacher I wasn’t aware of the opportunities that we have in the web.
Personally I believe that, I have the responsibility to show my students, who
are prospective English language teachers, the resources that we have in the
web so that they can also use them in their future classes.
In this 9th week of our fruitful study,
I can say that I feel very proud of
myself as I have worked really hard and learned many useful information from
Courtney’s guidence and from my other very hard working colleagues and never
missed a deadline J . With all the things I gained from
this course I had a chance to improve myself as a teacher.
The discussion of this week is
about “Technology and Learning Styles”
This topic has a great importance for almost every teacher. It is a known fact
that every learner has different learning styles. It is essential for the
teachers to design different materials for different learning styles. There is
no one best method that can be applied to all learners and it is a known fact
that if the teaching style and the learning style don’t match, there won’t be
proper learning within the class. It is for this reason that we cannot limit
our teaching to one style only. The teachers should incorporate among the many
learning styles. According to the theory of Multiple Intelligences, by Howard
Gardner, each learner acquire the information in seven different ways but they
are dominant in only one.
1.Linguistic/Verbal
2.Logical-mathematical,
3.Musical,
4.Bodily-kinesthetic,
5.Spatial,
6.Interpersonal, and
7.Intrapersonal.
Later on, he proposed these three
additional forms:
1.Naturalist,
2.Spiritual, and
3.Existential
The
latest studies by Gardner show that currently there are ten intelligences
listed as follows:
Visual/Spatial
|
Verbal-Linguistic
|
Logical/Mathematical
|
Visual/Spatial
|
Bodily/Kinesthetic
|
Musical/Rhythmic
|
Intrapersonal
|
Interpersonal
|
Naturalist
|
Existentialist
|
On http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic68.htm (Technology and Multiple Intelligences)
you will be guided to many other styles which will give you a clear understanding
about learning styles and how to get the best within a class having different
learners. It also gives a clear picture of how important to understand students’
strengths and weaknesses in each intelligence so that we can help students
become more successful. In fact although we try and do our best in our
classrooms, crowded number of students prevent us from preparing lessons for
each learning style. However there are some web based activities that we can
use which will activate different learning styles. We can also find some
examples in the article titled “Do Technology Based Lessons Meet the Needs of
Student Learning Styles?” The article
titled “Learning Styles and Strategies” by Felder and Soloman give us some very
important ideas on different kind of learners and how to these kind of learners
help themselves in order to forster their learning. I highly recommend the
readers of my blog to surf on these sites where they can find many useful
information on learning styles.
Incorporating technology with the learning
styles is the general topic of this week and we all benefited from what we have
learned. Before completing the blog post for week 9, I would like to wish every
coursemate good luck in their Final Project Report.
