Learners and learning

Learners and Learning
What do we really mean when we use the word “learn”? It is something we all do from the moment of birth, so most of us likely take this very complex process for granted. How many of us have spent time trying to understand the meaning of learning, or how it occurs? Although many of us have a general sense of what it means to learn, there are often many assumptions involved.Teachers often assume that, because they are “teaching,” students must be learning. Students assume that, because they have read their text and memorized facts, they have learned something. Tice (1997) mentions that “learners have different learning styles and preferences” that is why teachers have to avoid to cater in only one type of style of learner, then the others will fail behind. Theimportant fact here is variety in terms of our approaches to learning activities.
For this assignment, I will describe and evaluate differences in learners’ response and consider ways in which the quality of learning can be improved. I will try to describe and account for any differences in how they responded and in what they achieved. Then, I will outline some ideas I have for ways in which I canimprove the quality of learning achieved by my learners in future lessons. Where it is appropriate, I should include ideas which will help my learners to perform successfully in a forthcoming test or examination. After that I will describe how I would know this improvement had taken place. Finally, I will give a rationale for the ideas I have put forward in response to this assignment.

In my lessonplan all my activities have a learning objective. I consider that every single activity needs a purpose and it must be according to my learners’ learning styles or their different intelligences. Scrivener (1995) mentions that “when planning classes, you may naturally bias lesson ideas towards your sensory preferences.” I mention this because while I was planning, I could notice that I hadactivities that fitted in my learning styles and intelligences and not in my learners’, so I changed them.
During the elaboration of my lesson plan, I had not noticed how important is to keep in mind how different the learners are. The learners might have multiple intelligences such as linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily, naturalistic, intrapersonal or interpersonal. All of theseintelligences can be developed during the years, but as Scrivener suggests that “we probably have these seven intelligences but in different proportions” (Scrivener, 2005), as well the learners might have different learning strategies such as: cognitive, methacognitive or social.
Both, the multiple intelligences and learning strategies were aspects that I considered to planning the lesson. Allthese aspects are important to select activities and tasks in order to make the learners feel comfortable and motivated. I taught a lesson in which I tried to include activities for all the learning styles.
I decided to analyze a small group of learners because I considered that these learners had different reactions during the activities that I prepared and it was easier for me to identifytheir intelligences and learning styles.
Edgar Padilla is a kinesthetic learner because during the vocabulary introduction activity I stuck some pieces of paper under the learners’ desk and I asked them to look for them and he was the first one who looked under the desk. Guadalupe Rodriguez is very shy, but a very intelligent learner who is always trying to participate. She is very analytical butwhat makes her different from the others is that she is an auditory learner. While I played the song she immediately started moving her head and tapping her shoe. Pedro Flores and Denisse Lozano have developed a logical mathematical intelligence because both of them are always hypothesizing or creating different situations form the context that I established or they are always trying to identify...