Week 1

As an aspiring teacher I have always believed that the most rewarding part of the job will be making a difference in your students life. Whether it be teaching them to spell their name, solve a difficult mathematical problem or answer that "what if?" question that has been bugging them for the day. 

Week one has given me a lot of insight on how important it is to understand all of your learners and how to best make them succeed. It is important to build teaching around what you believe in and drive children with their strengths. 

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE WHEEL

It is becoming more obvious that, as a teacher, it is important to understand your own learning styles and above is the results from my multiple intelligence test which has helped me gain more understanding of how I learn and how I can use these results to better my own learning techniques. 

HOW CAN VAK CHANGE YOUR TEACHING?

Creating a lesson plan that is 'one size fits all' will not help to maximize the learning strengths of all the students in the class so it is also important to understand the different learning styles. 

Put simply VAK is broken down into 3 different learning styles:

• Visual: learn best through reading and seeing 
• Auditory: learn best through listening and speaking
• Kinsthetic: learn best by touching and doing

Felder and Solomon created a more complex version:

• Active and reflective learners
• Sensing and intuitive learners
• Visual and verbal learners 
• Sequential and global learners 

I have completed their learning styles inventory and not surprisingly my results showed that I am a visual and sensing learner. A visual learner will retain knowledge best when provided with pictures, diagrams, graphs and films and a sensing learner solves problems with well established methods and are patient and practical. 

21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGY 

It is my belief that in the 21st century it is important for teachers to understand and use the technology available for students. Having said that, I know that there is a lot to learn in the way of communicating and teaching with technology (this is after all my first EVER blog). I found the introduction of Padlet (when used correctly) very intriguing and I am going to try and incorporate this into my teaching somewhere in the future.  

However, issues such as reputation management and cyber bullying are very relevant in the 21st century, therefore, learning to use technology safely, legally and ethically is a high priority in my education. 

A FINAL NOTE

• Understand your learners 
• Create a learning design that caters for all students
• Drive students with their strengths 
• Stick to your beliefs

and remember... 

REFERENCES

Smart Driving. 2011. Eye accessing cues. Retrieved July 6, 2013, from http://www.smartdriving.co.uk/Misc_pages/Eye_accessing.htm

Birmingham City Council. (n.d.). BGFL Multiple Intelligence. Retrieved July 6, 2013, from http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/questions/choose_lang.cfm

What is my learning style?. (n.d). Visual Learner. Retrieved July 6, 2013, from http://www.whatismylearningstyle.com/visual-learner.html

Discovery Education. 2011. Sun Fun and Learning. Retrieved Juley 6, 2013, from http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2011/03/09/sun-fun-and-learning/