Thursday, July 23, 2009

Teaching Style Analysis and Group Profile of Learning Styles

· Why is it that the same group of students will behave perfectly with one teacher but act up in front of another one?

· Why are some classes notorious as “the bad” ones?

· What can the school do?

The answer

That’s 3 questions, but the answers all in Creative Learning’s special Style Assessment tools.

It’s all a matter of latches and mismatches. Every student has a unique Learning Style. Every class has a unique Group Profile. Every teacher has his or her unique Teaching Style. It’s as simple as that.

But how does it work, exactly?

While some principals use the teachers’ teaching style (TSA) to decide which teacher should teach which group of kids, most schools don’t have that luxury.

What they do instead is compare the TSA to the group profile of the class once they've assigned teachers and classes, in order to determine what the potential areas of tension might be. For example:

· The teacher functions best under bright light, but 80% of that class's students need dim light to concentrate.

· The teacher is an analytic while the class is holistic.

· The teacher teaches visually, the students learn best kinaesthetically.

Preventative measures

Once the school knows where the mismatch lies, they can put preventative measures in place to avoid conflict. In the examples above, the following solutions could be implemented:

· The teacher uses a desk light which only lights up her area.

· The teacher, aware of her analytic style and the students' holistic one, plans lessons in a way that caters to the needs of the students, e.g., starts with objectives and goals, uses anecdotes, etc.

· The visual teacher gets ideas about kinesthetic methods of teaching from colleagues, web and CLS.

Not an evaluation tool

TSA is not an evaluation tool of the teacher or the teacher’s skills. It is a diagnostic tool to help the teacher use her strengths and the strengths of the students in her class in order to avoid conflict and create a fun place for learning.

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