Thinking and Doing, Comparing and Contrasting

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Today was a beautiful day in Manchester: the trees are just beginning to add touches of yellow in their edges and the sun battles to provide us with some last warmth.

In between classes, I sat on a park bench with a thermos of brought-on-over-from-Germany, sage and honey tea, to reflect on the learning provided in the morning session with our Dutch professor Juup Stelma.   He started off the course, Psychology of Language Learning, with one of those very popular psychometric questionnaires. 

The problem with this sort of test is they force you into answering YES/NO -and well, if you, like me, have lived, then you know that being forced into black and white answers can intimidate and perhaps irritate  -  too much of what we do and think is grey;  too much is

'MAYBE,'

'it DEPends,'

'er, when I'm hungry'  &

'aye, when I'm in a grand mood.' 

Or, worse, if you've any intelligence then you quickly notice the relationships between the different questions separated out by a few lines and despite the valiant attempt to be "honest and truthful to oneself" you wind up wondering if you may be being tricked (why do we so distrust the psychological) and thus, forced by the pressure and the immediacy laying in wait behind the stopwatch, the demanding YES or NO, you attempt to reply in exactly the same way each time, whether or not it is the "truest" answer. 

Anyway, the resulting results are that I am a pragmatist-activist.

Oddly enough, true. 

But not surprising news.   Of course, I like life and learning to be practical (I'm a teacher!) and to be immediately applicable (tick-tock!), that's why out of all the MAs in the world, I wound up here, doing this one TESOL with real-life applicable educational and technological aims!  

Juup then acknowledged the lack of contextual reference presented through the questionnaire and wrapped up the exercise with a drawing made up of stick figures walking across the whiteboard, challenging us to think about what and who we, as people, as learners, interact with and how those things directly influence our learning.

The interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects.  

He provoked us into thinking about how the results of this non-contextual questionnaire, by Honey and Mumford, could ultimately provide a teacher with enough data to then create contextual materials and hinted at the potentiality of separating learners according to 'type.'

I'm intrigued by this idea but not sure.

In fact, it forces me to mull back over the whole concept of individual learner types - you know the now tossed out, theory of folks being auditory/kinestic/visual learners?   (gotta admit I still subscribe in part,as I know I always learn so much more from a picture than a droned lecture) but I actually tried separating out my students this way and it never really worked.   Even in the small classes.   Noticing was one thing but preparing, presenting, teaching, working together, another.   What about you?

And what do you do if you're teaching 30 or even 60 as some of my Asian colleagues need to?

Apart from the feasibility, is it practical or even worth the effort, to divide up students into theorists, pragmatists, activists and reflectors?   Aren't we all different because it is through the cooperation and collaboration of our differing skills that we make the better, more dynamic whole?   If we separate our learners into groups, won't they become flat and one dimensional?

But then, later, as I walked home, crisping my way through the first batch of dead leaves which rustle in oranges on the concrete lanes, after my class with Gary Motteram, on the Evaluation and design of Digital Software, I began reflecting once more on the infinite potentiality for well-designed computer programs to cater to these issues - whether on the surface level or deep within our id, in areas we don't even know about yet…  and how this potentiality may soon be within the reach of technology  - to teach and treat each individual learner individually while we work collectively.

Best,
Karenne


Useful links related to this posting:

• Learning Styles
• Peter Honey Learning styles questionnaire
• Psych Press Understanding your learning styles

COMPARE AND CONTRASTING
I received an invitation from Anne to take part in her blog challenge, of finding two similar pictures.   Why did I choose these two and how do you think they discuss the text above?




image credits:
Buddhist monk in Sirikit Dam by Tevaprapas Makklay
Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore by AngMoKio 

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