Learning Strategies

As a future teacher it is important for me to incorporate different learning exercises and activities in my classroom in order to meet the diverse learning styles amongst my students. However, I will have preferred learning strategies to others and my preferences will differ by what subjects and topics I will be assigned to teach. My first teaching area is social studies and I think discussion would be an effective teaching strategy that will suit me as a teacher and many students. I would want to pose a question or a topic to my class and I would ask them to tell me their opinions and thoughts on the question and/or topic. I think most students like to feel that their opinion matters and their thoughts are heard.

Through personal experience as a student, I think by not revealing the answer right away and rather have students form their own opinion through critical thinking and empathy, students will likely remember long-term what they learned since they had to think about each step that lead them to the answer or understand why something is the way it is.  I found as a student that the discussion learning strategy helped me remember the answer better because I had to go through the steps of shaping my own opinion, hearing other peoples’ opinion, and hearing what the teacher has to say on the topic.

            However, discussion is limited as I think it is best used when it comes to topics and questions that have different perspectives or ways of analyzing it. I think when it comes to my second teaching area, English, journaling would be more of an effective tool for that subject. As stated before, I think most students like to feel heard and I believe journaling will allow students to write about themselves or choose what they want to say on a certain topic. It has been noted that the journal strategy can be challenging for teachers as it is hard to grade and formulate a rubric that will fit such a subjective exercise. However, I think it will be doable if the exercise was more for enhancing grammar and sentence structure than content.