Flavors Of Learning

These are several pictures of what some other groups did on the first day of class. We all (the groups) had different prompts, that basically had the same premise-to explore the Cinderella Story. While some groups seemed more basic, they really just had more individualized (see top left) instructions, such as to on their own color a short flipbook of the story (see bottom left). Others participated as a group (top right), to form a consensus solution, but they still had specific instructions. Also, while these instructions allowed for a little bit of leeway as far as color choices, there was not nearly as much elbow room as there could have been. My group, was at the opposite end of the spectrum, and we had what seemed like too LITTLE instruction.
We were to create either a skit, a rap, or a puppet show to represent the events that happened in Cinderella. Where the other groups needed space to be creative, for us, the sky was the limit. Through this experience (so early in the year!) of first-handedly witnessing the most extreme (as far as creativity's subjectiveness) learning environments, as well as observing from the "audience", how my classmates performed in their own learning environments, I have learned some things about teaching for learning. I want to be able to reach all children, in whatever style and way they learn. To do this, there will need to be much variety in instruction specificity, groupwork vs. individual, lots of time & limited time, etc. I have learned that generally (whether the student might "like" it or not), group work is a good thing. It stretches people out of their comfort zone which (with some exceptions) is rarely bad. This class helped me realize that while I may prefer one of those learning environments, some of my students may not just feel more comfortable in, but actually may learn and grow more by coloring the story than acting it out. "To each their own", really comes into play here. I need to step back and assess the learning styles, get to know my students well enough to know if they are just copping out, or if they are actually learning better, and then construct my teaching diversity accordingly.