Bloglovin' Facebook Pinterest E-Mail Instagram Shop Home About Us Freebies Shop Image Map

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Student Learning Inventories

Mandy from Caffeine and Lesson Plans here, excited to share with you a little tidbit about student learning inventories- one of my absolute favorite back to school activities!

As a teacher, I have always struggled to maximize the limited time I have with my students. No matter how much time I get, I always feel like I could use more! There is just so much learning to do, and so little time to do it in. One of the best ways I have found to get the most out of my instructional time is to really try to tailor the teaching to my students in every way possible. Yes, it's true that I can't change the curriculum... no matter how much I want to at times. However, I can modify my instruction to include different styles, activities, and assessment to best suit their needs. How can I found out what their needs are? Student learning inventories!

The learning inventory is a short questionnaire designed to help teachers identify the learning style of their students. It's a simple "check the box" type of assessment which is pretty quick to administer. There are about a million versions out there to try, based upon the grade level you teach and if you have technology available to you or not. Here are a few favorites of mine:

Multiple Intelligences Survey (available printable or as a self-calculating excel document)
Mathematical Learning Inventory (printable) *one of my favorites!!

To be honest, most years I pick and choose questions from each of the available tests and create something that I think will appeal to my kiddos the most. Definitely make it your own!

Once we finish assessing ourselves, I have the students determine their learning style based upon the answers they gave. The directions are included in each of the linked inventories. Then, I give the students a short presentation on what it means to be each learning style and what they can do to learn best. Here is an overview of what I use with my kiddos, compiled from several websites:

Visual Learners:
  • use visual materials such as pictures, charts, maps, graphs, etc.
  • have a clear view of your teachers when they are speaking so you can see their body language and facial expression
  • use color to highlight important points in text
  • take notes or ask your teacher to provide handouts
  • illustrate your ideas as a picture or brainstorming bubble before writing them down
  • write a story and illustrate it
  • use multi-media (e.g. computers, videos, and filmstrips)
  • study in a quiet place away from verbal disturbances
  • read illustrated books
  • visualize information as a picture to aid memorization
Auditory Learners:
  • participate in class discussions/debates
  • make speeches and presentations
  • use a tape recorder during lectures instead of taking notes
  • read text out aloud
  • create musical jingles to aid memorization
  • create mnemonics to aid memorization
  • discuss your ideas verbally
  • dictate to someone while they write down your thoughts
  • use verbal analogies, and story telling to demonstrate your point
Kinesthetic Learners
  • take frequent study breaks
  • move around to learn new things (e.g. read while on an exercise bike, mold a piece of clay to learn a new concept)
  • work at a standing position
  • chew gum while studying
  • use bright colors to highlight reading material
  • dress up your work space with posters
  • if you wish, listen to music while you study
  • skim through reading material to get a rough idea what it is about before settling down to read it in detail.
As a teacher, I use this info to help guide me through lesson planning. Of course, I can't meet every student's individual learning style every lesson, but understanding where my kids are at helps me break down my planning and tailor as many lessons as I can to as many kiddos as I can.

So, there it is- one of most informative and useful back to school activities!

5 comments:

  1. Great tips.... This subject of this story is diverse in which a woman attempt to take cash with a decent way but you can see this here to manage your educational task. The reason is that ladies are so mean on the off chance that they think to take the things and can ready to break the core of individuals.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Time looks very long but when you are in some contest or in your class so it flies like rocket and you find here that you had a very little time for your students.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is the help of the middle school with the help of which you can find the new session of this time. Just get your time with this area of the collaboration and get the link of useful site with this area of the motivation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You are such a great mentor as the capacity is all about. Teaching is not an easing thing but relaxtion should also taken into consideration. This page is giving me details about learning inventories.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We can teach students in different way. In this site, We can found many interesting ways. Through this techniques, we can teach the students in the fun way. Just visit site if you need help in learning inventories.

    ReplyDelete