Week 19 - 25/02/14 - Don't just teach how you like to learn.

It was the first week of the Inclusive practice route. As the name indicates, We are looking at including students rather than excluding. When I was at school, the term "exclude" only seemed to apply to the final step taken with the mischievous, misbehaving individual. The idea of " inclusion" was making everyone have a go with the bat in PE. I am sure that I am doing many fine teachers a disservice. I had a great time at school and that was in no small part down to some terrific teachers, still I tend to recall, that the " one size fits all " approach was generally the way teachers taught.

A tailored approach, which I have written about previously, is most definitely the best way.

The weeks to follow are going to afford me the opportunity to delve a little deeper into the factors that can impede learning.

The above pyramid was the opening exercise. In pairs we discussed what we felt were the most detrimental factors to learning. It was tricky, as we all had slightly different ideas about what should come top. I believe that this was down to the fact that we collectively felt that they were all very important.

Personally, I was a little uncomfortable with the exercise, isn't it dangerous to start grading them in our own minds ?.. For example, if a student is struggling due to pressures applied as a result of cultural differences, while I may have put it at the bottom of the pile, to them it's number one. It would only harm them if we gave the impression that their problem wasn't as important to us a student with mental health issues. I suppose that is where professionalism comes into the equation. We are human beings with personal opinions and preferences, so leave them at the door and treat all equally.

Expectations can have such an impact on learners - even becoming self fulfilling prophesies in their own right. "I'm told I'm hopeless, so I will be..."; "My parents expect me to do well, so I will try to do so..."; " Girls don't succeed in this trade, so I won't"... It was interesting that while we were discussing the factor of expectations, often other factors such as gender, culture, socio-economic background and mental health labels are so tightly interwoven into the expectation factor.

A very interesting point was made about our own teaching styles. We might be a good teacher, but do we like to teach the way that we like to learn? If we are to be truly inclusive, we must be prepared to move from our own comfort zone and meet the needs of the student.

To help us with this we all completed a Honey and Mumford Learning Style Questionnaire.

My result? I'm a Reflecting Theorist. Quite scary. When I read the definitions it's like looking in the mirror. Of course this will impact on my style of teaching and I will need to adjust my lessons to care for the Activists and Pragmatists that I will inevitably come across. 

It's no surprise that we briefly revisited KOLB. This reflective practice allows all students to take the lesson from an exercise in fact finding, to deep learning and understanding. Certainly the inclusive, engaging approach is going to be a big part of the overall jigsaw puzzle of education.

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To conclude, We were split into groups so as to research several other factors, then report back. Why must a tutor be observant and sensitive to the individual needs.?. the following research on socio-economic factors; Ethnicity; Gender and Family factors will demonstrate some reasons.