Week 5 - Wiki and Personality Types

I think very highly of Wikis and approve their use both in and out of the classroom. While wikis can be altered and the information in them wrong, wiki does an excellent job of spotting these mistakes and correcting them in a timely manner. Wikis are a good source of information and provide students a valuable resource for student research and the search for knowledge. I believe I would be able to use wikis in my classroom, but only for informational purposes because they do a great job of giving out complicated information in a format that a student can understand.

For learning approaches both a learning community and traditional instruction go hand in hand. Often times in traditional instruction, a student maybe struggling with a concept they can't understand and often times gets left behind. In a learning community, a student can hear listen to their peers and learn from them by looking at different perspectives and often times a peer can explain a concept better than the teacher. Not to say that traditional instruction is bad because teachers are an important part of the process. Teachers have been taught for many years in their field so their knowledge of the subject is invaluable and provides a basis of learning concepts for a student when they are taking that particular class. My belief is confirmed in the fact that when I go to class, my professors provide a basic concept for me to understand and I internalize and apply my views and experience to that concept. Once I step outside the classroom and begin talking with my peers, I better refine that concept because I receive input and ideas from my peers that might change the way I think about that particular concept.

Yes, personality types have a great affect onl learning styles for a student. For someone like me, I am a very hands on person, but I must have all the information on something before I jump right into it so that requires a teacher to thoroughly teach me something before I begin a project or homework. After I understand everything about that particular problem, I can see it from all different angles and figure it out. Other students may require more hands off projects or a different type of teaching style for them to learn the concept the teacher is trying to get across to them. Knowing a student's personality is key in getting them to understand, internalize, and adapt the information you are teaching them. I believe by having my students take a personality test it will help me better understand the student and how to deal with them when they don't understand something or teaching them the subject matter another way. By having them take a personality test I can understand the ways in which I need to teach the subject material so they will understand and be a succesful student.