My Boarding School Blog

An approach in learning is the main definition of a learning style. It is important to know the learning style of students to maximize learning advantages. Once you have determined this you can effectively incorporate strategic teaching tools to better enhance teaching students with individual learning needs. It is possible to have more than one style in a student depending on their personalities.

1. Logical – Children categorized with logical learning styles are mathematically inclined. They like solving math equations and enjoy working anything that involves numbers. They are particularly interested in how things work, how they came about and their reason for being. They are straightforward and very bright. In teaching students with a logical learning style one needs to be patient to answer their series of questions as they are very inquisitive. Teaching styles can involve the use of graphs and model objects to show the relationship and correlation of subjects will enhance their learning.
2. Linguistic – These children enjoys reading, writing and story telling. They have strong memory and can easily recall things told to them. Best way to teach these students is to encourage creativity by cultivating their interest in things that they see, hear and read. They will excel in competitions and creative writing.
3. Spatial – These kids are more of the visual kind. They like watching movies and day dreaming. They express themselves best in drawing pictures than by talking. They are very artistic but most of the time they have difficulty expressing it which is why you will need to promote creativity in extracting their ideas and opinions.
4. Musical – Kids who enjoy listening to music, playing instruments or singing are characterized by this group. Musical learners have great attention to details. They can transform abstract to a more concrete model. For a teaching style adept to these students the teacher can probably ask them to incorporate lessons in a song or rap them out. By encouraging their love of music you can tap into their skills and abilities.
5. Interpersonal – Students with interpersonal learning styles are often found in the company of friends. They can adapt easily into any situation as they have the qualities of understanding, patience and empathy. If taught well and guided properly students with an interpersonal learning style can become a great leader. The work well with a team and most likely become the leaders of such team or group.
6. Intrapersonal – These students like to work alone. Being independent is their main trait and by this they tend to be original and most of the time unique from everyone else. Try to integrate them into a group to facilitate collective learning and facilitate group participation.

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Kids belonging to the adolescence stage are the most difficult students to handle. Their transition from being a kid to a grown up does not usually come smoothly. As any parent would know understanding what they are going through- physically and emotionally plus all the stresses of peer pressure and the desire of belongingness make them very vulnerable to the slightest criticism, comment or disapproval.

For teachers these are challenging times like when Mrs. Kaufman, a teacher of 17 years at Seth Low Intermediate School in Brooklyn, learns first hand how to mediate between fist fights and cajole students whose self esteem has been dumped low by bullying or humiliation from other students. It takes a lot of courage and strength to be strong to withstand ridicule, pranks and other humiliating acts by middle school students on a daily basis. Unfortunately some teachers cannot bear the challenge and give up easily.

A significant rise in teacher attrition is happening in middle schools in the city. The main causes are student’s impulsive behavior, unpredictable bouts of anger and violence and poor academic performance.

Researchers in Philadelphia learned that 34.2 percent of newly hire middle school teachers quit after their first year. Most teachers who quit are highly qualified teachers on an academic level. They match the job description for teaching the middle school curriculum but they often lack the training in class management and adolescent psychology.

In an attempt to give middle school teachers an edge to handle the most difficult of students the New York State offers certification that focuses primarily on how to teach young adolescents effectively as well as fun things to do in NYC. Knowing techniques on how to adapt to them psychologically will help teachers to integrate teaching styles fit for their needs.

New teachers who are part of the program, Teach for America, are the common new recruits for middle school teaching. While most of them leave after their 2 years contract, a handful will stay and will be toughen by the experience. Most of them share that showing a stern face and strict implementation of the rules are less likely to work in middle school students. Instead if you will reach out and level with them they will begin to open up to you. But it usually a long painstaking process to make this achievable your patience will be tested and your emotions push over to the brink. Part of becoming a teacher for middle school is the ability to withstand cruel jokes, offensive remarks and spontaneous fits of anger.

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Learning is a dynamic process that does not always take place in a four walled classroom. Most educators say that learning is best achieved from experiences and interactions with people outside of school. Traditional learning tools in classrooms are sometimes perceived as boring and monotonous for students. They need an edgy, refreshing and a new way of learning that can enhance their creativity and cultivate the hunger for knowledge. Educators need to create a richer source where students will engage into and start learning.

At Ashmount Primary School in North London, student log on to the Internet and start their Math classes in different way than most traditional schools do. They learn math from their math professors all across the globe in India. Ashmount School is one of the few state schools in Europe that outsources teachers from other countries, mainly in India, through the BrightSpark Education.

BrightSpark Education trains professors in India to teach Math to their students online. They offer quality teaching as the London based company is the one who trains these Indian professors to teach online. The advantage of learning online is that the kid feels confident and in control of how he learns when he do it online. Studies have shown that students who utilize online learning in math develop twice the rate in national tests.

BrightSpark math teachers follow standard lesson plans but they are free to use their own structured teaching style online. Students are more enthusiastic in learning online because it gives them the feeling of exclusive teacher and student learning session that builds trust and fosters open communication which can facilitate effective learning.

But not all agrees to the benefits of online teaching as some believes that outsourcing online teachers is a risky step since they cannot empathize well with the student because of cultural difference and communication barrier with the use of just a headphone and a webcam. For some teachers they just feel threatened that they may lose their jobs to foreign teachers who teach online with a lower salary.

Parents are taking it in a more positive way especially towards online tutoring for their kids. It gives them the option to supplement what their kids learn in school and they can choose among different tutors online based on their qualifications and price per hour. Everything is recorded and documented so parents can review the effectiveness of an online teacher’s style. It will also give their child a peek into the window of the world exposing them to different cultures and values of other nations without leaving home.

Online teaching has its advantages and disadvantages but by trying it out both parents and students can experience the opportunity to see whether it will work for them or not. Whichever way it goes, it is still an opportunity that a student will definitely enjoy.

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Character education supports the emotional, social and ethical development of students. It is initiated by the state in cooperation with schools, districts and educators to promote important values to students at an early age. Character education also known as civic education teaches students to be the best they are which can facilitate a positive behavior towards learning.

School is not just aimed for academic excellence it also gives importance to character development above all. Students that will potentially become leaders of nations and innovators of change will need to be grounded with the right values to be able to be successful individuals with dignity and honor.

The goal of delivering character education to students materialized into the creation of the Student Citizenship Act of 2001. In this legislation, it requires all local education agencies (LEAs) to teach character education to its students. The Student Citizenship Act of 2001 lists twelve traits to incorporate in teaching character education. These are good judgment, courage, kindness, integrity, respect, perseverance, responsibility, respect, self discipline, good citizenship, accountability for school safety, service to others and respect for school personnel.

Character education is essential to be integrated in children’s studies as they spend most of their time in school. Schools and other educational institutions should have the initiative to help promote students to become caring, and respectful to their peers, teachers and other school personnel. This will prevent the prevalence of school violence and troubled students. The emotional, social and moral development of an individual is equally important in education because this serves as the foundation for academic achievement.

Schools that implement character education such as CEP’s National Schools of Character show improved behavior, better social interaction, and increased academic performance. Various researches have been conducted to study the effects of character education in the academic performance of students and it reveals a significant results. The Oregon State University researchers discovered that the Positive Action program, teaching social and emotional skills plus character development to primary school students, improves test scores by as much as 10%. Other relevant key points showed marked improvement on state reading and math examinations. Student suspensions dropped by 70% and there were less absenteeism.

Character education does not have to be a class on its own rather it should be infused in every class. Methods of teaching character education are available for teachers and educators to utilize and implement with the school’s curriculum. Developing effective character education also needs an active participation from parents and student’s families. Character development is the primary responsibility of parents and by taking a step towards character education we are greatly helping them out. Any adult in the school can teach character education, not just teachers and professors. School personnel like bus drivers, cafeteria vendors and counselors can have a chance to teach good moral character by means of setting a good example.
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Teachers are all at a loss, despite great deals of efforts over the years, academic achievement among students, particularly in high school, continues to lag behind. In their attempt to improve the results, educators are consistently trying to find root causes of poor academic achievement amongst high school students.

Some blame the outrageous loads of home works given to students. The argument is that the students are overburdened with academic demands that are questionable of value. As a result, students become indifferent to studies due to exhaustion and stress. There is probably small truth in this claim. However, recent studies have denied these suggestions.

The latest Pew Research Centre poll has produced unprecedented results. Academic achievement is going down not because of enormous pressure and stress. It was due to low expectations.

This claim was supported by Stanford University lecturer Denise Clark Pope, who has researched and written about the effects of stress on students. Her research was conducted in the comfortable San Francisco Bay Area communities which proved that the reason of poor level of knowledge is due to the lack of challenge in the school environment; and not on the heavy workload that are exposed to students.

Thus, the problem becomes apparent that low academic proficiency is due to the search for causes that are based on ’how much’, rather than ‘what’ are students are asked to do.

This leads to identification of different contributors to low learning proficiency such as incorrect approach to assessments, incoherent assessment tasks, teachers’ and parents’ indifference. This list is rather long, unfortunately.

1. Not Knowing The Purpose

The core reason why so many high school students are uninterested is because they do not understand their studying routine. The truth is, there is a huge number of teachers that do not even bother explaining to their students the expected outcomes of the learning are, the reasons why they need to achieve these outcomes, and the method in which they will be assessed.

Now, students read stacks of books and do hundreds of paperwork, without having any idea of the initial purpose of all these tasks. They accomplish by command, which results in lack of interest, reluctance, and initiative to study.

2. Incorrect Approaches in Assessment

Another contributing factor to the lag in knowledge proficiency is the incorrect approach used in the assessment process. As a matter of fact, assessment is often intended by teachers as punishment or traps for the students, to catch them out. Grades seem to exist in order to show the students where they made an error on, rather than to give students reasonable opportunities for displaying their achievements of specific learning goals.

Needless to say, instead of making the students feel excited about the assessment of their hard work, it creates a fearful attitude towards assessment. This tends to make the students focus on getting a “pass” grade rather than focusing on what was learned. Education becomes more concentrated on grades rather than knowledge.

3. Incoherent Assessment Tasks

It is alarming that the common practice of majority of the teachers is to set a lot of time-consuming and unrelated tasks that demands for a great deal of work to be accomplished in the shortest time period.

As a result, this approach makes students use surface approaches, which is trivial. This involves seizing all the facts and memorizing them, without necessarily understanding them, as best as they can just in order to pass.

4. Lack of Personal Approach to Students

Due to the large classes of more than 20 children, many students don’t receive due attention from their teacher. As a result, students don’t feel cared about, become indifferent to studies, and lose faith in a brighter future. This is a problem of a great deal amount of students.

5. Parents’ Attitude

Unfortunately, parents also contribute to the problem of low interest of students in their studies. Many of the parents’ thinking are set towards the “performance orientation” which emphasizes grades rather than if whether or not their kid was able to master the material. On top of that, most parents are reluctant to help their children with home works for the fear of being unable to supply them with the correct answer, thus leads to losing the child’s respect.

However, these fears are baseless. This simply misleads their children into thinking that not giving them a helping hand mean indifference to their work.

It’s clear that children are wrongly geared towards the quantity of knowledge rather than quality. Educating students should be about be about challenging and engaging them. If radical steps aren’t taken in the soonest possible time, the situation is expected to aggravate some more.

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