Learning Styles

How do people learn? That is the fascinating question that got me into education in the first place. For myself, my process to learn something feels a bit chaotic. Typically I go into "gatherer" mode first. I collect as much related information as I can find on a topic. When I say "related" I mean centrally, peripherally, tangentially, and any other way a topic can be connected. I need to "see" all the ways I could go before I can find a focus. I'm one of those that must get the whole before I look at the parts. So I'm in gatherer mode right now and here are a few tidbits I am trying to weave together to answer the question.

It is the forever question, how we learn. Doesn't matter how many years I've been at it, the answer is always the same: make it personal. But how does a high school student relate to cells? What personal connection can I help them make to cellular respiration? Why do they need to know how DNA and RNA work together to make proteins? As a biologist, my first instinct is to look to neuroscience to help understand how learning works in the brain. According to Dr. Caine: "Gestalt psychology suggests that everything comes together in the moment of action, and if we want to know why and how students are learning then we have to know how they are making sense of a situation – how they are relating to what is being learned."

This past year I started out by talking about diversity and I asked my students to share with me their thoughts about how they learn and what I should know about them. Of course, they are teenagers and so the responses I got varied from insightful to "I don't like school". In an article by Jay N. Giedd, what happens at this stage of life is described as "....... a changing balance between brain systems involved in emotion and regulating emotion spawns increased novelty seeking, risk taking and a shift toward peer-based interactions." So each year, in addition to finding out what makes each student tick there is the added factor of who is in the class with them and how they interact. Many of my students have known each other since grade school, but I'm new to them so I have a chance to create a bit of novelty. From the NPR series on stress:
"hormones spur action and increase fuel to the brain, helping the animal react to danger appropriately. Those hormones also flow to memory centers in the brain, to help the critter remember those notable moments and places."  The trick is to add enough newness to get them out of their comfort zone, but not so much that they shut down on me.  Humor is a great strategy to help make stress less threatening, for example this podcast is quite silly and I use it when talking about cell growth. 

To make it personal this year these tidbits begin to suggest a plan. Instead of asking them to share with me their thoughts about how they learn and what I should know about them, I'll give them the opportunity to make a profile like you do when joining an online community. It needs to be open ended, but also have categories that will provide insight like the priority list mentioned in my previous post.