How+to+Learn

Recently I had the pleasure of perticipating in a questionaire about preferences of learning styles. The information and options were interesting. The questionaire can be found at http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSpage.html under the title of ILS questionaire. The following is my intial reaction to the activity:

The Learning Styles quiz that was taken was an interesting exercise in limited response option. Although the results were fairly accurate to the ways that I view my own learning I feel that the questions were very polarizing. The choices were often so very limited and as I would discuss the possible choices with others sitting around me I would often hear "You are a going to be a math teacher, so of course you are in the first category." This response would catch me off guard. The idea that all people of a particular discipline must do or learn things in a certain way seems to go against the very nature of teaching a large class of diverse students. One thing that really sticks out in my mind is the notion of multiple learning styles. While this test does take what is answered and then places it on a spectrum of four categories I have read a study that states there are six to seven different learning styles. How does this exercise take these others into account? With the evaluation that one receives at the conclusion of the exercise is a table to display this spectrum. The categories given show the spectrum to be Act/Ref, Sen/Int, Vis/Vrb, Seq/Glo. While I am fairly good with abbreviations the second grouping does not make sense to me. Also, once I have the scaling explained, which the test did a nice job of doing, what am I to do with the information? Perhaps the developers could go through the information and state something along the lines of “If you tend to be more Visual then you might find it helpful to…” or have a category for “Popular methods for Visual learners.” It might also help to have suggestions on how to bring ones self into balance. Each learning style is unique but if a person is extreme to one side or another what is he or she to do in situations where that learning style is not appropriate? In total I found this to be an interesting exercise but now I wish I knew better what to do with the information that I have received from it.

My results from the questionaire are given in the following table:

Results for: Reginald Hass 
 * = ACT ||=  ||=   ||=   ||=   ||= X ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||= REF ||
 * =  ||= 11 ||= 9 ||= 7 ||= 5 ||= 3 ||= 1 ||= 1 ||= 3 ||= 5 ||= 7 ||= 9 ||= 11 ||=   ||
 * = SEN ||=  ||=   ||=   ||=   ||= X ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||= INT ||
 * =  ||= 11 ||= 9 ||= 7 ||= 5 ||= 3 ||= 1 ||= 1 ||= 3 ||= 5 ||= 7 ||= 9 ||= 11 ||=   ||
 * = VIS ||=  ||=   ||=   ||= X ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||= VRB ||
 * =  ||= 11 ||= 9 ||= 7 ||= 5 ||= 3 ||= 1 ||= 1 ||= 3 ||= 5 ||= 7 ||= 9 ||= 11 ||=   ||
 * = SEQ ||=  ||=   ||= X ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||= GLO ||
 * =  ||= 11 ||= 9 ||= 7 ||= 5 ||= 3 ||= 1 ||= 1 ||= 3 ||= 5 ||= 7 ||= 9 ||= 11 ||=   ||
 * = SEQ ||=  ||=   ||= X ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||= GLO ||
 * =  ||= 11 ||= 9 ||= 7 ||= 5 ||= 3 ||= 1 ||= 1 ||= 3 ||= 5 ||= 7 ||= 9 ||= 11 ||=   ||
 * =  ||= 11 ||= 9 ||= 7 ||= 5 ||= 3 ||= 1 ||= 1 ||= 3 ||= 5 ||= 7 ||= 9 ||= 11 ||=   ||

I later returned to the site and retook the questionaire and received results as ACT 1, SEN 1, VRB 1, and SEQ 1. This shows that the results of the quiz are subjective to the attitude of the taker at the time of the endeavor. The information is useful and some fo the criticisms that were in my initial review were found to be resolved at the time of the second taking. There is, for example, a link on the results page of what to do with the information and I found it helpful in some regards. As I look over this information and the results that I had for the two times that I took the test I have pondered the implications of these methods in the world of teaching. There are many theorists out there that want to claim their method of instruction to be supperior to the others, and why not? It is their method and it has worked for them so why not for others. The first answer to this is that it is not neccessarily the case that what is good for the goose will be good for the gander. No one method will ever work for everyone. Socond, when students can honestly change from day to day how they sit on this scale then it becomes more difficult with each passing day to reach those that were in the game just one day before. The ideas of Lev Vygotsky would seem to have the most flexibility. If a student tends to learn well in details one day then he or she can be with others of that zone. If he then needs to have the global perspective the next day others will be around to accomodate that as well. This was not how he had intended for the system to work, but by grouping students by the learning style that is dominant for them they will be able to build on eachothers' strengths and prosper as a whole body.