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First Year Humanities Students — Thinking about Learning By Heather J. Richmond Introduction First Year Humanities students at St. Thomas recently participated in a workshop entitled Learning Styles. The purpose of the workshop was to increase the students’ awareness of personal learning styles and that of others in their university classes. Another goal was to see if students could begin to think about their learning preference in relation to the university courses they would now be attending. A final goal was to see if students could expand their learning style repertoires while taking part in a class activity during the workshop. My teaching of the students in each of the three workshop groups attempted to facilitate their learning development by encouraging their consideration of other ways of knowing. Intelligence and learning style background This type of thinking about an individual’s thinking derives from the work of psychologists in the 1940s. These researchers asked whether individuals could think about the whole field at issue — or were they better at seeing parts of things? Holistic or analytic? Later researchers asked questions about an individual’s learning preference — whether it was impulsive or reflective. This encouraged the development of learning style inventories used to decide how an individual learned best. The inventories are available everywhere and can be quite amusing for the casual seeker of self-knowledge. These types of inventories are often criticized as lacking in reliability and validity. Other anecdotal evidence suggests that students learn better when they study in their preferred way. Educators have a renewed interest in learning styles due to the research of Howard Gardner on multiple intelligence. Gardner himself says he can’t prove that there are multiple intelligences; but he does propose eight and now a ninth (existential) intelligence: 1. Linguistic - a
wordsmith, a poet; Sheree Fitch Learning styles Learning styles are said to reflect these various abilities or intelligence and are usually categorized in three main ways. The following provides a few of the characteristics of each style. 1. Visual learner
2. Auditory learner
3. Kinesthetic
learner Class activity The final stage of the workshop was to have students explore learning by having them respond to problems in creative ways. The tests of creativity were written on the overhead. The students formed loose groups with those sitting nearby. Each group had to decide which test or problem they wanted to solve. There were large coloured markers and unlined chart paper for the groups. Working in colour while lounging around the aisles or stage in the huge lecture hall seemed to help learners think outside of their everyday way. After solutions were reached, the groups presented their finding to rounds of applause and friendly comments. Feedback form Students were asked “what kind of a learner do you think you are”? The majority did appear to have a sense of how they learned best (informal survey findings), most believing that they were auditory or visual learners — those who prefer to listen, take notes, see some visual aids, and write tests both essay and multiple choice. The kinesthetic learners were in the minority in the survey results, but perhaps this reflected their previous learning directed by teachers who may favour a paper and pencil approach. Students like this also reported that they liked to do projects and activities and be able to demonstrate their learning through oral presentations, debates, drama, performance and art or other visual interpretations. The majority of students also said they were learning from their professors in a way that met their learning needs, with some requesting more visual aids. These first year students are not yet self-directed learners, a possible goal of their learning in the university. Humanities students at St . Thomas University feel that they will be able to continue their development and increase their potential for learning in ways which are valued in one context or another. Bibliography Gardner, H (1999). Sampling of Intelligence in Scientific American, October/November. Woolfolk, Winne & Perry (2000). Educational Psychology. Canadian Edition. Allyn & Bacon: Ontario. |