Individual Learning Styles and Strategies

Learners As IndividualWhat is Learners as individual

What is an individual learner and what do they look like? To answer this question, I need the meanings given by many educators. Howe other learners can become the individual learners?

‘In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass. Education, therefore, must begin with a psychological insight into the child’s capacities, interests, and habits’ John Dewey, from ‘My Pedagogic Creed’, School Journal vol. 54, (January 1897), pp. 77-80

“An individual is a person or any specific object in a collection. In the 15th century and earlier, and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics, individual means “indivisible”, typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning “a person.” (q.v. “The problem of proper names”). From the seventeenth century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires.” Gracia, Jorge J. E. (1988)

“Learner is an individual involved in the acquisition of knowledge or skills in a technological learning system.”Legendre, (2000:1)

“It is not concerned with one specific method, but allows for any method which the individual leaner finds beneficial to his’ learning purposes.” Fenner & Newby (2000)

I, from the meanings given above, conclude that learners as individual is the learning styles that learners seek to the new modern learning strategies and they can learn autonomous. This styles include with personality, intelligence, attitude and attitude. They just get the rough guidance from the teacher in the class and then they and bring it to be increased and link or integrate with other fields. These learners have to often practice themselves as it be their habits. A learning style is an individual’s preferred way of learning.

What are Learning Styles?

Before we deeply study into how to best advantages from making your learning style out, we need to spend a few moments studying the several types of learning styles and how to best identify which learning style group you appropiate into.

Learning styles point to the variance in your ability to amass as well as incorporate information. Basically, your learning style is the method that best allows you to gain and use knowledge in a specific manner. Most experts agree that there are three basic learning styles. Each individual may holds a single style or could possess a joining of different learning styles. In most cases, the personalities of a learning style can even be noticed at a quite young age. Once you have identified your particular learning style you will be able to identify ways in which you can adapt the learning process and your studies to maximize your education.

Visual Learners

Individuals who fall into this type usually learn through what they are able to see with their own eyes. Visual learners are those students who navigate for the positions at the front of the class, must have front row theater seats and love to be right up front for sporting events in order to get the best view. Visual learners have a orientation to describe everything that they see in terms of exposures. These learners love visual medias such as photos, diagrams, maps and graphs. They habitually are good writers and will commonly perform quite well on written assignments.

Auditory Learners

Auditory learners are very good listeners. They tend to consume information in a more proficient manner through sounds, music, discussions, teachings, etc. These individuals will be more probable to record lesson so that they can revision them at a later time for study goals. They recognize books on tape and may find that reading aloud will help them to keep information. Rather than written statement, auditory learners tend to do better on verbal presentations and reports.

Kinesthetic Learners

Kinesthetic learners are tactile learning. This means that they learn best through moving, doing, acting out and touching. Projects that are acted in nature are best for kinesthetic learners. They tend to become thwarted when they must sit for long phases of time. They enjoy deportment experiments, exploring and accomplishing tasks.

These students are independent and seek for the missing knowledge by themselves. They may have characteristics listed below; They…

are able to break up an organized visual field and keep part of it separate.
surpass at retrieving names.
conceive visual cues and are better at math.
prefer learning surroundings that require least interaction.
enjoy discovery learning and individualized self-paced learning.
are more likely to be males.
My Experience with the individual learners.

I can much less meet students like this in my classroom, for my being Thai traditional condition teacher. Thailand has the specific cultural for the younger men have to express their respect to the elder ones. My students gain knowledge just in the limitation of curriculum and the instruction I have given. The materials related to the identity of individual learning are also lack. It may be caused by the poor country and the condition of environment that Thai students are the students in the developing country-that means have not been developed yet.

However, I think this can be developed and changed by changing the crisis to become the chance. We can see various problems and this is the chance to diagnose and resolve them. It’s the time to take together between teacher and students. Individual learners must consist with personality, intelligence, psychology and behavior. All the aspects must be deal together by realizing the differences of individual.

Strategies to be learners as individual

There are activities might guide the learners to be independent and individual. They can be flexible , not arranged in orders, depending on their readiness and which condition. There are 16 strategies shown here.

Readiness / Ability

Teachers can use a variety of evaluation to find a student’s ability or readiness. Also, to learn new knowledge concepts students may be generally working below or above level or may be purely lack necessary required skills.

Changing the level of query and thinking skills and compacting the curriculum and are useful strategies for accommodating differences in ability or readiness.

Adjusting Questions

During large group discussion activities, teachers indicate the higher level questions to the students who can deal them and adjust questions accordingly for student with greater needs. All students are answering important questions that demand them to think but the questions are goaled towards the student’s ability or readiness level.

With written test the teacher may assign specific questions for each group of students. They all answer the same number of questions but the involvement needed varies from group to group. However, the alternative to go a parted from minimum requirements can be available for any or all students who indicate that they require an additional challenge for own their level.

Condensing Curriculum

Condensing the curriculum means assessing a students knowledge, skills and attitudes and providing alternative activities for the student who has already mastered curriculum content. This can be accomplished by pre-testing basic concepts or using performance assessment methods. Students who demonstrate that they do not require instruction move on to tiered problem solving activities while others receive instruction.

Row Assignments

Row activities are a series of related tasks of varying complexity. All of these activities relate to crucial understanding and key skills that students need to acquire. Teachers assign the activities as alternative ways of achieving the same goals taking into account individual student needs.

Acceleration/Deceleration

Accelerating or decelerating the step that students move through syllabus is another way of differentiating instruction. Students demonstrating a high level of competence can work through the curriculum at a faster step. Students facing difficulties may need adjusted activities that allow for a slower step in order to experience success.

Flexible Grouping

As student performance will transform it is important to permit movement between groups. Student’s readiness varies depending on personal intellects and interests, so we must remain open to the concept that a student may be below grade level in one subject at the same time as being above grade level in another subject.

Even highly talented students can benefit from flexible grouping. Always they benefit from work with intellectual peers, while seldom in another group they can experience being a leader. In either case peer-teaching is a valuable strategy for group-work.

Peer Teaching

Many times a student may have personal needs that require one-one instruction that go beyond the needs of his or her partners. After gaining this extra instruction the student could be selected as the “inhabitant expert” for that concept or skill and can get valuable practice by being given the chance to re-teach the concept to peers. In these situation both students can get benefit.

Learning Profiles/Styles

Another filter for assigning students to tasks is by learning style, such as adjusting preferred environment such as quiet, lower lighting, formal/casual seating, or learning modality: auditory (learns best by hearing information) visual (learns best through seeing information in charts or pictures) or kinesthetic preferences (learns best by using concrete examples, or may need to move around while learning) or through personal interests. Since student motivation is also a specific element in learning, understanding individual learning styles and interests will grant teachers to apply right strategies for developing intrinsic motivational techniques.

Student Interest

Interest surveys are often used for determining student interest. Brainstorming for subtopics within a curriculum concept and using semantic network to explore interesting aspect of the concept is another effective tool. This is also an effective way of teaching students how to focus on a manageable subtopic.

Reading Buddies

This strategy is particularly useful for younger students and/or students with reading obstacle. Children get additional practice and experience reading away from the teacher as they develop fluency and comprehension. It is important that students read with a specific purpose in mind and then have an opportunity to discuss what was read. It is not essential for reading buddies to always be at the same reading level. Students with varying word recognition, word analysis and comprehension skills can help each other be more successful. Adjusted follow up tasks are also assigned based on readiness level.

Independent Study Projects

Independent Study is a research project where students learn how to develop the skills for independent learning. The degree of help and structure will vary between students and depend on their ability to manage ideas, time and creativity. A adjustment of the independent study is the buddy study.

Buddy Studies

A buddy study permits two or three students to work together on a project. The expectation is that all may share the research and analysis information but each student must consummate an individual output to demonstrate learning that has taken place and be answerable for their own planning, time management and individual accomplishment.

Learning Contracts

A learning contract is a written understanding between teacher and student that will effect in students working independently. The contract helps students to set daily and weekly work goals and develop management skills. It also helps the teacher to keep evidence of each student’s advance. The certain assignments will vary according to personal student needs.

Learning Centers

Learning Centers have been used by teachers for a long time and may contain both differentiated and compulsory activities. However a learning centre is not necessarily differentiated unless the activities are varied by difficulty taking in to account different student ability and readiness. It is important that students understand what is expected of them at the learning centre and are inspired to manage their use of time. The degree of structure that is provided will vary according to student independent work habits. At the end of each week students should be able to account for their use of time.

Anchoring Activities

A student can do these activities at any time when they have completed present assignments or it can be assigned for a short period at the beginning of each class as students arrange themselves and prepare for work. These activities may be related to specific needs or improvement opportunities, including problems to solve or journals to write. They could also be part of a long-term project that a student is working on.

In conclusion, learners as individual is the one of methods encouraged the instructional progress. The characteristics defined the individual learners are given various by educators. They can be added and developed or also cut. These behaviors can be raise by the agreement of teacher and student. Learners as individual is also related to the research of many psychologists realizing the individual differences and it also includes with the assessment. We should assessment the students’ outcomes by be aware of their individual differences.

Reference Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles

http://www.futureknowledge.org/background/the-perspective-of-the-individual-learner

http://www.instructorweb.com/info/learnstyles.asp

http://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview

http://people.usd.edu/~ssanto/styles.html

http://www.lsda.org.uk/files/PDF/1543.pdfhttp://www.questia.com/Index.jsp

http://www.saba.com/education/individual_learners.htm

http://www.tefl.net/esl-articles/learning-styles.htm

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