Students:
One who worries about always getting things just right,
One who you believe has untapped potential, and
One who reminds you of yourself as a student.
Workers:
One who worries about pleasing everyone, never confronts,
One who is not very engaged in the work, doing minimum, and
One who reminds you of yourself.
Post your comments to this blog post. Post the challenge you would creator each type of learner by adding a COMMENT to this post.
As someone who wants to get everything right, I am not sure I can connect what I would do to a particular style or place in the learning cycle....
ReplyDeleteOne who worries about always getting things just right—My initial thought was to have graduate students or upper level students ask each of our five faculty to edit a paragraph from one of their papers. I suspect each faculty member would edit it differently and this would hopefully encourage the student to realize that what’s “right” varies according to person. My second thought is that you mean the perfectionist, not the person who’s worried about getting everything correct—in that case I would have the student do in-class writings where there is no possibility of getting it “just right” because the time is too limited. This encourages people to write before they feel ready.
One who you believe has untapped potential—I usually approach this in one of three ways. I usually give a lot of positive feedback in the hopes that the student would feel that they could succeed and thus try harder. I have also occasionally just openly said “I don’t think you can do that” and dare them to prove me wrong. This is a risky option though. I also would try to find something they could get excited about by giving a variety of options for an assignment. I love MI theory and have done projects where the student picks from doing a paper, designing posters, writing a play, doing a survey, does a skit/play, records a song or video, etc. (trying to hit most of the intelligences).
One who reminds you of yourself as a student—I hate relying on other people for my grade and I hate having to be creative. I would make them work in groups and have it involve something creative like drawing a leadership theory. I actually do this in my organizational leadership class when we have it in person. I haven’t incorporated this in my online class though.
Student #1: What a great idea to have the students see different teacher responses.
DeleteEncouraging people to write before they feel ready is also a fine idea, just be sure to give very quick responses when they do.
Student #2: It depends on the cause doesn't it. Fear is one thing, but lack of interest about learning in general is another. I like your MI plan, another good idea from you Lora.
Student #3:You're right, you can't make people be creative, but a real challenge often can do it.
Student #1 I try to immediately create an inclass environment of wonder and exploration. I hide my assessments in fun talks, games and lots of group interaction. I reward students for guessing. Even if they get it wrong. I do alot of verbal affirmations. I share with students that we all have to learn. Learning is about attitude more than aptitude. I encourage to be persistent like a falling baby learning how to walk. This makes perfectionist students very uncomfortable at first but soon they give in to the culture I have created in my class. By the time they finally get a grade it does not even matter any more.
ReplyDeleteStudent #2 I really dont do anything different because I see untapped potential in all my kids. Again I create a class climate that facilitates risk taking, wonder and exploration by doing alot of discussions and hands on learning. They are always coming up to me with new discoveries of what they didnt know they could do.
Student#3 I was a little above average as a student but I had a very short attention span and I lacked motivation. I would hyper-focus on things I enjoyed while paying very little attention to things I did not enjoy. So with that said my grades were all over the place. Some A’s some B’s and lots of C’s. I just could not make my self pay attention if I didn’t like it. I am sure that there are many students like me. I have met some of them. I strongly encourage 4mat for this very reason. Due to being left handed and a Right Brained thinker I have always used multiple learning styles to teach. I just wish I knew more about them when I was the learner. I high school and college would have been way more enjoyable had my teacher been taught this valuable lesson in diversity of styles. I think it is precisely because of my learning experiences that I seek to meet every student where they are. I let them know early on that I really really get it! I get that some stuff is just not fun or exciting or interesting. So my challenge to the students like me is for them to find a fun way for us to learn it. Sometimes I even give them opportunities to teach a lil bit with me. Or sometimes we debate the importance of a topic in the real world. Or sometimes I connect how that skill is transferrable into real world critical thinking applications. I switch it up alot with trivia related questions or amazing facts. I do alot if quirky fun stuff right in the middle of teaching when I see attention spans wanning. I stop and ask students what they are thinking. I sometimes even allow them to interupt me to ask a question. I try to think about what I would want to be doing in my ADD brain.