Kids+These+Days

Kids These Days

If there's one thing I've learned from my teaching experience, it's that one cannot form generalizations about students in any demographic group. No matter what I do, and no matter what learning models I use when designing lesson plans, there's someone for whom my plans will not work. The one word I would use to describe the learner characteristics of my students is: variable.

A couple weeks ago, my students were watching a film adaptation of a book they had been reading. My master teacher's rationale was that most of her students were visual learners, and so watching a movie was more likely to give them good information than just reading the book. It may be true; many of her students may very well have been visually oriented learners. However, enough students clearly did not gain what they needed to from the film to make me doubt whether there was enough justification for the activity.

My students have many different learning styles, so in my practice I must provide learning activities centered on different learner needs. I will know which learning styles to target based on which activities benefit my students the most. I must give my students choices when creating learning activities so that my students can choose the forum in which they think they are most likely to learn.