Sherri Fisher

Spring 1998

Learning is not a single, concrete product, but rather a continuous process that proceeds throughout life. The definition of learning that best fits my understanding of this concept is "the construction and reconstruction, exchange, and negotiation of significant, relevant and viable meaning" (Harri-Augstein & Thomas, 1991, p. 2). This explanation of learning represents the ability of a learner to alter their constructs on a concept due to new experiences and personal reflections. The learning process can be improved by understanding and developing an appreciation of the main aspects behind acquiring knowledge. I have selected concepts that I felt have had the most influence upon my learning development and which also may be connected to my future students' learning process. The aspects to be discussed are: personal conversations, personal myths, basic needs, process of learning, and personal preferences. These concepts greatly influence how I perceive my learning as a student, as a future instructor, and will eventually effect my students' success at reaching their potential.

When asking people if they learn more in an institutional setting or outside of school walls, most would say the latter. Unfortunately, learners may view the school as forcing them to learn ideas that they do not deem relevant to their own lives. If students do not view the activity to be useful they will not spend time reflecting upon their experiences, causing the learning event to be less satisfying. Students cannot fully learn a concept by just hearing the material. Instead, they need to interact with the subject matter and reflect upon the ideas so that learning can occur. These personal conversations are not only needed for students to understand material, but are used constantly to understand the world in general.

When I observe a classroom, I discover numerous teaching strategies and management procedures used to organize the classroom. However, my experience is not complete until I reflect upon the events by writing about them in a journal. As I write about my observations regarding how the teacher settles her class down, many more ideas come to me and I ultimately discover a personal connection with the events. One example that I have observed was the instructor clapping her hands to signal the students to stop everything and clap back. Another example was the instructor counting to three and by then the students should be settled down. A final example to calm the students was the class watching the clock in perfect silence for ten seconds. Other ideas of how to calm students down may come to mind as I am recording my experiences and I can reflect upon the positive and negative aspects of each. In the future, when I am in a situation in which I need to regain order in the classroom, I will already have an idea of a possible approach. By just observing the experience of how each teacher works with her students, I would not be able to apply it to my personal needs and purposes.

Students in my classroom will also be faced with numerous discussions, facts, and ideas that they will need to self organize in order to understanding them. If my class is working on how to save energy, they might have trouble understanding the new concepts or how they relate to their own world. As a teacher, I need to recognize that each one of my students brings different experiences about the topic of energy to the class, and this may cause different internal conversations about the material. My job is to stimulate these conversations and encourage the students to reflect on these new ideas. Each person will leave the lesson with a different outlook because they have organized the information differently to fit their personal needs and purposes. To help my students consciously recognize that they have reached a higher order thinking level about saving energy and to evaluate what my students have gained from the lessons, a journal entry or a poster project could be assigned instead of a multiple choice exam. Personal conversations can take place in numerous ways such as through writings, artistic projects, or discussions. The essential component of a personal conversation is for the learners to reflect upon their new knowledge and relate it to their preexisting ideas.

Previous experiences can effect our new experiences. Multiple experiences can alter or effect the overall predictions we make about our learning styles. These hidden assumptions about the way we learn are called personal myths, and they can influence how we approach new learning situations (Harri-Augstein & Thomas, 1991). Every learner possesses their own positive and negative beliefs such as physical conditions they feel they learn best under, or ideas about their "innate" abilities.

One of my myths about learning is that I am a terrible speaker when I have not practiced my material. This myth causes me to become nervous when talking in front of the class, thus lowering my ability to be a talented speaker. One afternoon, as I was assisting a second grade teacher, I was asked to take over the lesson until the teacher could return. I became instantly nervous about my unexpected responsibility, as my personal myths about speaking in front of the class without having practiced the material restricted my faith in my abilities. Needing to quickly adjust to the situation, I made a mental list of how I was going to carry out the remaining portion of the lesson and began presenting. The experience went very smoothly and made me realize that I can handle situations under pressure. I still hold the myth that I need to practice my information before presenting it to a group of people; however, this experience enabled me to place confidence in my abilities.

As a future teacher, I will need to be aware of myths that my students may hold about their own learning styles and abilities. In the past, I was unaware of one second grader's myth concerning his handwriting ability which caused an unpleasant experience. As the student was working on a handwriting assignment, I came over to offer assistance and noticed that he had made some mistakes. I pointed them out for him to correct and he started crying because my criticism had supported his myth that he was a failure at handwriting. If I had realized his myth, I would have pointed out the positive parts of his assignment and then gently made some suggestions for improvement. Teachers need to try to understand their students' personal myths so that they can build up students' self-esteem in areas that may cause distress.

Glasser (1986) discusses the importance of realizing the causes of students' behavior. Glasser states that all behavior is an attempt to satisfy one or more of our basic needs, which include: survival, belonging, power, freedom, and fun. I found the last basic need, fun, a little surprising, but then understood its significance when Glasser states that, "humans are the only creatures that laugh" (Glasser, 1985, p. 28). These basic needs show that our actions are not always governed by intellectual thought, rather it is our emotions that are a primary factor in controlling our behavior.

The more I work with children, I recognize just how influential these basic needs are to students' behavior. One need that I feel is quite easy for a teacher to satisfy is that of freedom. Children obviously need direction and restriction in the classroom; however, they still can be given freedom to make decisions. I have observed my teachers give students options regarding who they want to work with, and choices of which project they wish to complete. Small expressions of freedom may be less intimidating than constant decision making, and can build up the children's enthusiasm with the project.

I believe that these basic needs should be recognized and used to improve a student's performance in the classroom, but should not be used to excuse their behavior. One student that I work with constantly disrupts the class, and it was explained to me that he comes from a very disruptive family. It is important for the teacher to be aware of the needs that are not being met at home so they can do their best to satisfy those needs in the school environment. However, the teacher needs to realize that needs are very complex and there are limitations. "There is no teacher, no matter how skilled, who can teach a student who does not want to learn," (Glasser, 1985, p. 13). Teachers have responsibility to their students, but there is a limit to the amount of influence they can have in a child's life.

Roger von Oech (1986) breaks down the thinking process into an explorer, artist, judge, and warrior in order to stimulate the creative process. I believe that the two most important qualities of a good teacher are organizational and creative skills. A teacher needs to begin by brainstorming about several different ways to express the content knowledge, and then be organized enough to carry out the activities. It is almost impossible to be creative in every lesson and activity. Roger von Oech gives some pointers and inspiration on how to increase the creative process.

Now that I am developing lesson plans, I realize creativity can effect the success of what the students learn. I developed a unit plan on teaching fractions for third graders, and I had to create multiple games and activities that would stimulate interest and relay content knowledge of math skills. Using Roger von Oech's process helped me to create a unit plan that was interesting yet realistic. I began by using my explorer to search all of my resources such as the Internet, curriculum books, and workbooks. My artist then began manipulating my resources to fit into my specific goals. Some examples consisted of using a scavenger hunt around the school to find fractions in everyday life, and developing a matching memory card game to practice equivalent fractions. Then I used the judge to decide what activities would be the most appropriate and in what order I wanted to use them. I divided the unit into three weeks with each week dedicated to a particular task. The first week dealt with understanding what fractions are and relating them to real-life. The second week the students learned about equivalent fractions. In the third week, the students learned how to add and subtract fractions with like denominators. I had numerous activities that helped explain each main concept, and I had to judge the best order to complete them. Lastly, I actually got to teach some of my lesson to the children, and my warrior gave me the courage to support my ideas and then to evaluate their success.

Even though students may not be aware of it, they will also be using this process to complete class projects. Children tend to be naturally creative and may follow these steps more quickly then adults could. When children are involved in play activity their imaginations have no boundaries. However, when schools and society start placing limits on what ideas are realistic and acceptable it causes children's creative process to decline. Teachers need to promote creativity by excepting multiple ways of doing an activity, and engaging students in projects that require them to use unique problem solving skills.

Everyone is different in how they go about making decisions, forming opinions, taking in knowledge, and completing daily responsibilities. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an inventory that helps organize individuals' preferences into eight main categories that include: Extraversion and Introversion, Sensing and iNtuition, Thinking and Feeling, and Judging and Perceiving. Before taking the test I had a fairly close idea of what my final results would be, but the test did point out some interesting qualities I had not realized about my personality. My MBTI results showed that I was an E (Extravert) N (iNtuition) F (Feeling) J (Judging). By understanding more about myself, I can predict how I will react in particular situations, and try to adjust to them to better adapt to my environment. Extraverts prefer to focus on the outer world and enjoy cooperating with others rather than individual responsibility. Being an extravert I tend to enjoy class activities that include group discussion and cooperative learning. As a teacher, I need to make sure that my methods of instruction are not biased by my personal preferences. It is very easy to favor those students who constantly engage in classroom discussion and offer answers and ideas to my questions. Many of my students may not be extraverted and may need other outlets for expression such as journal entries, artistic projects, or kinesthetic activities. All students have wonderful insights on a subject, they just need the right outlet to express themselves.

The preference towards iNtuition causes me to focus on the possibilities for the future and notice patterns of complex situations. I enjoy assignments that ask me to use my imagination and creativity such as a hypothetical question about what would happen if I was stranded on a desert island. My students may prefer to learn about the concrete facts and details of a topic so I need to adjust my lessons so that they include both preferences. One method that I use to relate to both preferences is a concept map which has a main idea in the center and related ideas that branch off from it. This method allows those students with the preference for iNtuition to see the pattern of how all of the ideas relate, while allowing the other students to see the concrete facts.

The Feeling preference describes the way I make decisions. I usually base my decisions on my personal values and how it will effect others. I dislike conflict and try to understand an issue from different points-of-view. This may cause problems in the classroom if I treat individuals differently. If I allow a student more time to complete a homework assignment because of a personal problem, some students may feel that I am favoring them, where as I believe I am being fair. I need to create a standard of classroom rules, but also explain to the students that sometimes there are exceptions to the rules.

I was surprised that my results showed that I was a Judger and not a Perceiver. Judgers prefer plans and order and are goal oriented, where as Perceivers are more flexible and like to keep their options open for new solutions. Being a Judger I tend to plan my lessons very organized with structured learning events that have specific deadlines for the completion of the task. My students may prefer a more relaxed approach and may be intimidated by such an "imprisoned" environment. As a teacher, I need to plan activities that may not have complete closure for learning is a continuous process and may not always be demonstrated by a completed project.

Learning is a very complex process, but it can be simplified by understanding some of the important components that effect its potential. These aspects are not single entities but are all entangled and integrated to create the learning process. Teachers have their own styles of learning, but they need to be aware of students' individual differences and reflect these in their lessons. By analyzing the five main aspects of learning (personal conversations, personal myths, basic needs, the process of learning, and personal preferences) and assigning personal experiences to them, I have reconstructed some personal conversations and developed a stronger image of the type of educator I hope to be.

Harri-Augstein, S. & Thomas, L. (1991). Learning conversations. London: Routledge.

Glasser, W. (1986). Control theory in the classroom. New York: Harper and Row.

Von Oech, R. (1986). A kick in the seat of the pants: Using your explorer, artist, judge, & warrior to be more creative. New York: Harper and Row.