teaching with passion, learning by choice..

I was first introduced to the concept of learning styles when I was in a teacher's college. I had this in my heart when my lecturer told me this, "If only I knew this all along while I was growing up, I could have catered to my styles better. @#$%!" Anyway, better now than never right?


I'm going to share this with you, so you're now obligated to be aware of your respective learning styles (if you're not aware of it yet....). Knowing your strongest forms of intelligence helps you to become a faster, learner, because there are techniques for more effective learning that match your learning style.


Here it goes (credits to www.acceleratedlearning.com)

Linguistic – well developed in people who are good with words, who like to write and read a lot.
Obvious examples are authors, journalists, poets, orators and comedians.

Mathematical/Logical — well developed in people who are good with numbers and appreciate step-by-step, logical explanations. Obvious examples are engineers, economists, scientists, lawyers and accountants.

Visual/Spatial — well developed in people who are good at art, visualising, navigating. Obvious examples are architects, photographers, painters, strategic planners, and sculptors.

Musical — well developed in people who are good at music and rhyme, and who have natural rhythm.
Obvious examples are composers, musicians and recording engineers.

Bodily/Physical — well developed in people who are good at sport, dance, and handicrafts.
Obvious examples are athletes, sportspersons, carpenters, surgeons, builders.

Interpersonal — well developed in people who are good at persuading and selling or at teaching others and who can read other people's moods well. Obvious examples are teachers, trainers, politicians, religious leaders and sales people.

Intra-Personal or Reflective — well developed in people who are good at self-analysis and reflection, drawing conclusions from their own experience (and mistakes!), setting goals and making plans.
Obvious examples are philosophers, psychologists, therapists.

Naturalistic – well developed in people who like and respect nature and are interested in subjects like astronomy, evolution and the environment. Obvious examples are farmers, vets, biologists, gardeners and environmentalists.


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The fact that everyone has a range of intelligences has huge implications for how you as a parent/ educator support your children. There are critical periods in mental growth of every child where you can influence their development to the greatest effect.

Find out your learning style for FREE here at www.tiny.cc/Lstyle!

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By Richard Leblanc, York University, Ontario This article appeared in The Teaching Professor after Professor Leblanc won a Seymous Schulich Award for Teaching Excellence including a $10,000 cash award. Reprinted here with permission of Professor Leblanc, October 8, 1998.

One. Good teaching is as much about passion as it is about reason. It's about not only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and memorable. It's about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and conveying that passion to everyone, most importantly to your students.  
Two. Good teaching is about substance and treating students as consumers of knowledge. It's about doing your best to keep on top of your field, reading sources, inside and outside of your areas of expertise, and being at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is not confined to scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the gap between theory and practice. It's about leaving the ivory tower and immersing oneself in the field, talking to, consulting with, and assisting practitioners, and liaisoning with their communities.

Three. Good teaching is about listening, questioning, being responsive, and remembering that each student and class is different. It's about eliciting responses and developing the oral communication skills of the quiet students. It's about pushing students to excel; at the same time, it's about being human, respecting others, and being professional at all times.

Four. Good teaching is about not always having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible, fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing circumstances. It's about getting only 10 percent of what you wanted to do in a class done and still feeling good. It's about deviating from the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily when there is more and better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about the creative balance between being an authoritarian dictator on the one hand and a pushover on the other.

Five. Good teaching is also about style. Should good teaching be entertaining? You bet! Does this mean that it lacks in substance? Not a chance! Effective teaching is not about being locked with both hands glued to a podium or having your eyes fixated on a slide projector while you drone on. Good teachers work the room and every student in it. They realize that they are the conductors and the class is the orchestra. All students play different instruments and at varying proficiencies.

Six. This is very important -- good teaching is about humor. It's about being self-deprecating and not taking yourself too seriously. It's often about making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own expense, so that the ice breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you, like them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.

Seven. Good teaching is about caring, nurturing, and developing minds and talents. It's about devoting time, often invisible, to every student. It's also about the thankless hours of grading, designing or redesigning courses, and preparing materials to still further enhance instruction.

Eight. Good teaching is supported by strong and visionary leadership, and very tangible institutional support -- resources, personnel, and funds. Good teaching is continually reinforced by an overarching vision that transcends the entire organization -- from full professors to part-time instructors -- and is reflected in what is said, but more importantly by what is done.

Nine. Good teaching is about mentoring between senior and junior faculty, teamwork, and being recognized and promoted by one's peers. Effective teaching should also be rewarded, and poor teaching needs to be remediated through training and development programs.

Ten. At the end of the day, good teaching is about having fun, experiencing pleasure and intrinsic rewards ... like locking eyes with a student in the back row and seeing the synapses and neurons connecting, thoughts being formed, the person becoming better, and a smile cracking across a face as learning all of a sudden happens. Good teachers practice their craft not for the money or because they have to, but because they truly enjoy it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn't imagine doing anything else.

Five Senses ! Do you see what I see?

Despite the rain prior to the exploration, we had an insightful excursion. We observed different plants and animals like the snails, hermit crabs, colourful birds, butterflies, and huge lizards.

It wasn't an Amazing Race, but all the children were eager to complete the tasks. I did a simple worksheet for them to do just to give them a taste of answering Science questions and also, what recording observations simply is like. They drew what was captured on their sense of sight through a magnifying glass, collected different types of leaves and so on. 

 

As most of the participants are still in pre-school (aged 4-6), they spent lots of time drawing. Children that age love to draw and share right? I had budding artists presenting their masterpieces of their lovely looking trees and crabs!  

Oh yes, many were thrilled upon hearing names of clouds! I told them the little secret that they can just be the next weather forecaster if they can remember which clouds bring the rain. So glad to be able to share joys of Nature with these young ones!  

 

 

As their parents were around, it wasn't very tedious trying to manage about 10 children. No doubt some were a little cranky due to the insect bites. I totally forgot to remind them to bring insect repellent or wear long pants. Please, please take note on this! This should never happen again. Poor little geniuses were scratching again and again while trying to observe the leaves with their little magnifying glass.

awesome day spent at the Butterfly Park/ Insect Kingdom (Sentosa Island) on 1st December 09 with about 20 children. i’m not really an ‘insect” person before this trip, glad to proclaim that i’m interested to know them better now!

i fall in love with the black and white butterflies. they looked so mysterious. you’d probably thought i would go for the purple or pink butterfly right?

that's a very rare butterfly on the boy's ear. cool or what? the insects are all bred in the garden, so they are all not harmful. i doubt i'll have the guts to do what i did below, if it wasn't in the garden!

children are just amazing! simple things like the 'smoke machine' makes them happy! i love being around happy children.

The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity. ~George Carlin (i hope the caterpillars are not the teachers, and butterflies are not children! hehehehehe...)