Online Reflection #1: A Piglet's Perspective

The first week of my internship was smooth sailing for the most part. My MT and I get along really well (although, that isn’t a surprise since she and I were paired together for my previous placement), and the paraprofessional who occasionally stops in, Miss T., is still her cordial and humorous self. Even with three people in our room, we respect each other and the differing teaching styles we all have, and our cooperation is conducive to the learning environment. Speaking of teaching styles, let me tell you all about how I found out what my “style” is and how it connects to my copacetic partnership with my MT. (:

On the first “official” day of class, my MT began with an activity to reveal the different learning styles of each individual student. I’ve attached a link to the “quiz” the students took here: Winnie the Pooh Leaning Style Quiz. The results, once calculated, would reveal whether the student was a Concrete Sequential (Owl), Abstract Sequential (Eeyore), Abstract Random (Pooh), Concrete Random (Piglet), or Adaptable/All of the Above (Christopher Robin). I joined in on the fun my students were having and completed the quiz as well; turns out I am a “Piglet” and my learning style is Concrete Random (to learn more about my learning style, click the link and view the results page of the PDF). There were quite a few “Piglets” in the first period, one of whom was (surprise) my MT! There was just as many “Eeyores” in the third and fifth period- we are on an even/odd block schedule- and the number of “Owls” were third most common. “Christopher Robins”  were the fourth most common, and the rarities of the group were the “Poohs”. (If I remember correctly, there were only two or three Pooh-Bears.)

A vast majority of the students looked at my MT and I like we had lost our marbles trying to divide them by the names of the childhood characters while they began the quiz, but by the time they were separated and learned what their results meant, I could see their realization of how it would be beneficial to them to know what their own learning styles were. In Scott Hawksworth’s post “Knowing Your Learning Style Can Help College Success” on “The College Puzzle” a college success blog on the Stanford University Website, he defines a learning style as “an individual’s approach to learning based on strengths, weaknesses, and preferences.”...and goes on to say that when you are aware of which learning style you are “ you can study smarter, not harder” (2015). Ultimately, I think by gathering this data on our students the first day of school was a strategic and valuable move by my MT. We now can use this data to aid us in assigning individuals more efficiently to groups when we have collaborative lessons or projects. This will also benefit the students in that they can then, as Hawksworth put it, “study smarter, not harder” thus increasing our productivity and decreasing the struggle to find the group or pair balance and understanding.

I really would encourage all of my peers/colleagues to take a learning/teaching styles quiz to learn more about themselves and how they learn best. To me, knowing more about one’s self is convenient in every area of life, and having that knowledge can surprise you with how it is applicable in the near or distant future. Also, I’d recommend having your students take one at some point during the first few weeks of school, it is a great way to get to know your students and it allows them to learn about themselves as well (and really, what teen wouldn’t want to know more about themselves?). What benefits can you think of to knowing your own or your students’ learning style? Are there any other quizes/tests that you know of that you think would be an alternative to the one I linked here? If you do decide to take this quiz, what were your results? I’d love to know, so post a comment below! (:

Until next time,

Mrs. Johnson

Footnotes:

1. Miss T. is a pseudonym assigned to the paraprofessional in our classroom.

2. This result was a part of our quiz, but it is not shown in the link I posted here.

References

Hawksworth, Scott. "Knowing Your Learning Style Can Help College Success."The College Puzzle. Michael Kirst/Stanford University, 24 Sept. 2015. Web. 04 Sept. 2016.

Taylor, T. Roger, Dr. "RogerTaylor.com | RogerTaylor.com." RogerTaylor.com. Curriculum Design for   Excellence, Inc., n.d. Web. 04 Sept. 2016.