What a great day. So much improvement of the students general attitude. It was sunnier today and we spent far more time active, which definitely suits the students better than listening to a lecture. Today was all about giving them a coaching model/framework and within that some different coaching styles, all to link with their learners learning styles. It was interesting when asked how the students classed themselves as mostly doers & therefore kinaesthetic learners. However they do listen, watch as well as practice and there aren't many that I would say are truly kinaesthetic - i.e needs putting into position. So I wonder whether it is kinaesthesia we are measuring with these tests that we do or actually just "active" people who need to practice the skill. To understand the skill in the first place they can take in the information audibly and visually, but perhaps true understanding of the physical comes with being active. We all get better understanding if we actually use the information .. thus making what we teach relevant to our learners is paramount, so they have context to practice.
Check some theory here ... (see later comments on learning schools from Petty (2009:4)
Ultimately we need effective communication skills as teachers which involve all aspects of our senses . touch/feel, see, hear. taste, smell. Perhaps teaching cookery involves more smell that other things we could teach. I certainly use it to tell whether the pizza is cooked! Again taste would be relevant for cookery, but not canoeing! I think that feel, see, hear are common for most of us in communication so this is why they are relevant for learning & I think we all use all these aspects, unless we have lost that sense. I always maintain that I don't listen and so don't take in information that way. I certainly struggle to remember everything spoken to me if asked to repeat, but some information goes in and can be processed into words on the paper, so perhaps it is just the processing power and memory capacity that is at issue ... Or repetition, ie processing what I hear to paper through my brain and body. I hear quicker than I read so can process the information to paper at a reasonable rate.
(Re reading this after reading Petty (2009) I realise that remembering words is not necessarily relevant and that concepts related to what we know already is - Cognitive School of thinking, so maybe for me I have to hear the words and form them into pictures and concepts that are relevant to me rather than words, hence my inability to remember acronyms very well, but I like concepts)
This suggests that this is more about memory - long term verses short term. Learning is being able to repeat the information/skill/technique sometime after the course, without referral to a manual? So by writing down I am able to remember for long enough to then practice in some other way, for example teaching the information to someone else or using the skill when I really need it, eg breaking out of a rapid safely. - again Petty (2009:2) talks about STM & LTM and repetition for recall.
Check some theory here ... (see later comments on learning schools from Petty (2009:4)
Ultimately we need effective communication skills as teachers which involve all aspects of our senses . touch/feel, see, hear. taste, smell. Perhaps teaching cookery involves more smell that other things we could teach. I certainly use it to tell whether the pizza is cooked! Again taste would be relevant for cookery, but not canoeing! I think that feel, see, hear are common for most of us in communication so this is why they are relevant for learning & I think we all use all these aspects, unless we have lost that sense. I always maintain that I don't listen and so don't take in information that way. I certainly struggle to remember everything spoken to me if asked to repeat, but some information goes in and can be processed into words on the paper, so perhaps it is just the processing power and memory capacity that is at issue ... Or repetition, ie processing what I hear to paper through my brain and body. I hear quicker than I read so can process the information to paper at a reasonable rate.
(Re reading this after reading Petty (2009) I realise that remembering words is not necessarily relevant and that concepts related to what we know already is - Cognitive School of thinking, so maybe for me I have to hear the words and form them into pictures and concepts that are relevant to me rather than words, hence my inability to remember acronyms very well, but I like concepts)
This suggests that this is more about memory - long term verses short term. Learning is being able to repeat the information/skill/technique sometime after the course, without referral to a manual? So by writing down I am able to remember for long enough to then practice in some other way, for example teaching the information to someone else or using the skill when I really need it, eg breaking out of a rapid safely. - again Petty (2009:2) talks about STM & LTM and repetition for recall.