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Justin Yap Instructor Greger English 1A 12 March 2009 Which Learning Style is More Effective? Why do teachers teach off the book one may ask? What is the point of it and is it a successful teaching strategy? A student like me may ask themselves these types of questions when they encounter a teacher who strictly teaches off the book. After time, the student realizes that the teacher’s technique of teaching can be very boring and would sometimes cause the person to fall asleep in class. After days of struggling to stay awake, the student then realizes that the teacher is teaching style is not an ideal way. In order for the student to better comprehend such a dull material, like history, it is best to use all three teaching styles: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Auditory learning is students who can learn verbally, such as a student in a lecture class. Some students learn better for the auditory sensory details since they are strong. On the other hand, visual and kinesthetic learners are people who can both learn visually and with hands on material. These are where the majority of the student’s best learn since they can easily relate back to their childhood playing games and discovering what to do and what not to do. As for myself, I believe that learning should have a combination of auditory, kinesthetic, and visual for the students will maximize learning. Four years ago when I was a junior in high school, my history teacher, Mr. Russell, taught straight out of the book. I am not sure whether my teacher did it for preparation for college to emulate professors giving homework and teaching out of the book - or purely because he was lazy. In class, I had a tendency to fall asleep, stare off into space, or do stuff that was unrelated to the curriculum. Mr. Russell somehow did not notice that the whole class was staring off into space. At times, he did tend to call on some people to stay awake or to question them on a particular subject, but mostly he was reading off the book and summarizing. I assume that was just his way of teaching and he was very lenient with
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the students. One time during class, near the beginning of the semester, Mr. Russell was assigning us to do the homework from chapter one-section one, numbers one through six. Surprisingly, no one did the homework since he did not announce the homework assignment to the class. Usually teachers in high school mention the homework assignment before or after class has started to catch the student’s attention. He just wrote it on the board at the bottom right hand corner expecting us to realize that it was there. When Mr. Russell found out that no one did the homework, he made it due the following day. The students not doing their homework was the result of a lack of communication. He barely communicated with the students since most of them were just minding to their own business and watching the clock fly. As Emerson, the author for On Education, admits that “feeding the human mind is not to be fulfilled by any mechanical or military method; is not to be trusted to any skill less large than Nature itself� (253). Emerson would agree that teaching out of the book is not an effective way of learning since it requires guidance. The teacher must guide the student rather than just telling the information and expect the student to learn. Guiding the student will enhance this specific learning style - for the student will never forget it. If we guide the student by showing them the basics while being enthusiastic and emphasizing enthusiasm, it will give the appearance that the material is actually fun to learn. If the student is not responding enthusiastically to the learning technique, they will not find the joy of learning. If the teacher feeds the information mechanically, such as teaching straight off of the book, the student will not engage with the material. The teacher cannot force the information since learning requires respect. The training has to be natural where knowledge is direct in every way that the student takes. Education is natural learning skills where teachers are suppose to direct their students in every possible way. Teaching off the book is not directing the student, but more of giving information where knowledge is expected. Teaching is an essential skill that everyone must learn, and if students cannot
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learn from their own teachers, how could they teach themselves and others. Students are natural learning machines when they strive to learn. It is like an addiction, they are always striving for more. They are constantly learning and adapting to different teaching styles and materials. The most common and effective way of learning is by using all teaching styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Using hands-on and visual activities, students will become more effective in their learning. For example, a teacher can teach history by playing a game called Jeopardy where individuals or team competes for points. A game like this would keep the students interacted and more involved with the book itself while using both visual and auditory learning styles. Unlike playing a game, teaching off the book is only using one learning style – auditory. It is not effective and it will lose a young student- such as a student in secondary education, in their learning process. To maximize the student’s learning process, it is best for the teacher to diversify the learning by covering all the learning styles since students have their own ways of learning effectively. Freire, author of The Banking Concept of Education, believes that education is a banking concept where students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. He would suggest that the teacher is not teaching if s/he is not having a one to one connection with the student. A teacher would not be teaching if the student were not willing to learn, thus making it hard for both the instructor and the pupil. A student would want to learn history if the teacher would make the learning process more interactive by providing various ways of learning, which could include in class activities, peer to peer reviewing, and in class games. This would make learning more efficient since people are naturally competitive when it comes to games, though; generally, there is a need for rewards, which may be along the lines of: bonus homework points or points that are later accounted in the final grade. Freire also agrees, “Education is suffering from narration sickness” (318). The narration sickness is when the teacher tells the student what X minus four equals to the quantity square root of nine squared plus forty-eight divided by three and not actually telling the student what that stuff really means. The student memorizes, repeats, and
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records such information that they do not even know what the significance is and how will it be used in the real world. That is why it is best for the teacher to thoroughly go over the material and explain the significance of how the information is used and why it is so critical or not. In terms of history, the teacher needs to explain why certain events were so critical to the U.S and around the world and how did it make it into books while providing the teachers own personal thoughts and views. In the student’s perspective, this will provide a greater understanding of the material and may cause interest in certain movements such as the Modernization Movement. On the other hand, a person who is in Economics class can better understand the material if the class is interactive with various activities such as, using games to teach the youths. The student would have a better understanding of the material if they liked the way the material taught. In addition, maybe they can later on incorporate the enjoyment of learning into more difficult materials taught. In addition, the adolescent would be able to retain the materials learn over a longer period if the student enjoyed the learning process. Students tend to blame their lack of intelligence if they do not understand the concept of materials taught, but learning is different for every individual. One thing in common we have is that we all enjoy having fun; therefore making the learning process fun would have the greatest impact on the students learning process. However, there are reasons why teachers like Mr. Russell, would teach off the book. One of the reasons why they would do this would be to better prepare the student for higher education, for example, the UC/State system where professors do teach off the book. In college, professors hand down the information to students and expect the students to take notes, commonly known as lecture courses. In college, it is an assumption that students must learn from these lectures by themselves without help or guidance. Although this may seem harsh for some students, especially the students who are international and/or not familiar with the teaching style, it is required for professors to have office hours where students can individually seek attention with the professor.
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Another reason why teachers teach off the book is that it is compose well enough to where it does not require a person to guide the student. Some textbook authors write it in a way that the students can easily comprehend the material. Since they know students will spend more time studying the book than the teacher teaching, it makes it easier for the teacher to hand out assignments directly from the book. To conclude this, teachers teaching off the book can result into a student being passive during class. Teaching has to be a one to one connection with the peers and not having that connection can have the student doing something else other than the curriculum. Emerson’s theory of education is to guide the student wherever their knowledge leads to. Although this may be very good at a certain age, it may not always work that way since there has to be a certain cut off age where people have to be independent and have to learn for themselves. His idea would best be for secondary educational schools where Freire on the other hand, would best fit for higher educational schools. Freire’s theory would not fit with secondary educational schools since it will most likely not fit into their situation. Students in high school still have to be spoon fed with the information due to the lack of maturity.
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Works Cited Emerson, Ralph W. “On Education.” A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2006. 247-58. Freire, Paulo. “The Banking Concept of Education.” A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2006. 315-31