My Learning Style and Flipped Learning

When I think about learning styles I start to think about how would I want to have learned the material that I am covering. My learning style is very much a combination of visual, hands-on, and audio learning. It really all depended on the subject that was being taught at the time. If the teacher was teaching material about math I needed a hands-on and visual style to make sure I understood what the material was. If the teacher was teaching material on reading or writing I thrived when I was instructed using visual and audio learning styles of instruction. Growing up I definitely had to learn ways that would help me grasp concepts that came easily for my classroom peers. Being dyslexic I had to find other ways to learn materials that teachers weren't doing in the classroom. One way that I made reading textbook materials easier on me was receiving an audiobook of the textbook that was being used in the classroom. This allowed me to listen while I read along to the material. Being able to listen to the textbook while I read along allowed to me get information that I may have missed just reading it to myself.

Being new in the teaching field I am starting to find myself thinking about how I want to present information and material to my students. I know that once I get into the real world of teaching I am going to have many different learning styles in the classroom. There are going to be students who are auditory learners, students who are hands-on learners, and students who are visual learners. The challenge is how does one construct a lesson plan that allows all students to use their prefered learning style. This is where flipped learning came come into play. Flipped learning is when instead of students getting assignments or worksheets to do at home, the students learn the lesson at home and are able to come to school with questions about what they have learned. The students also are given materials or worksheets to do in class that would have traditionally been given as homework. Flipped learning has its own pros and cons. The time used in teaching the material has now been cut out of the classroom completely. Teachers can now focus on the application of the materials then spending a good portion of the week teaching the material. One thing that could be a con on flipped learning is we know rely on the students to watch a video on the material that they are to be learning and have to now figure out what to do if a student doesn't do the "homework" for the day before. If you allow the student to watch the material that was missed you then run into that student missing out on getting the experience of applying the material. A solution to this could be that a teacher could have a small group with students who have missed watching the material for "homework" and work with them using the materials that other students are working on. This way students can learn the information and be caught up with the rest of the class.

My personal opinion of flipped learning is very much mixed. If I were in a flipped learning classroom growing up. I believe I would have liked it for subjects such as math, science, and possibly even social studies. Those subjects, in my opinion, would be ones that a teacher could break out into groups and have students work on materials that pertained to what was learned from the video. For reading and writing, I am not sure how flipped learning could be used. Those subjects I think are better taught in person. I would be able to ask questions that I had right at the moment than waiting until class the next day. In theory, I believe that flipped learning could be very useful for students who really benefit from multiple learning styles.