Hi Nicole,

Your posting is SO exciting and relevant to where I am
'coming from' at the present time - thank you very
much not only for the references but for sharing
insights (I would LOVE to hear more) about your work
with your kids in class.  You are way ahead of me in
your thinking and your research.  I am just getting
into realising that I will need to atune my research
mentoring to the (other?) teachers I work with (I say
other because I feel very much despite years in
university that I am a teacher) - I still feel
happiest in schools and yet love straddling academic
and school-based contexts.  Just this afternoon I was
research mentoring with a schoolteacher and we were
focusing on forming a research question for her MA
dissertaton.  I am not her tutor but as we work
together so well she asked to bounce some ideas off
(and with) me.  

What a fantastic opportunity for us to explore
learning modes/styles/identities?  I certainly agree
about having a multipliity of learning styles rather
than some bi-polar conitinuun to angage with.  When we
got stuck because the MA handbook insisted on
following a linear and rather traitjacketed apporach
to research we ad libbed - it was FUN! 

We decostructed together how Emma and I plan lessons
and realised we start from the outcomes and work
backwards - we look at what we want our learners to
achieve and not us (at least not at this planning
stage) and we see how it relates to what they already
know and what they need to know from the scheme of
work - we work back towards how we will interact in
class deciding the resources and tools last and then
we plan forwards again - have we missed anything? How
will the lesson operate - and suddenly we realised the
parallels with research - 

Emma (and I) don't start off with the research
question (sorry if I shock anyone!) we work back from
what we hope to achieve as we engage in research and
how we will situate what we investigate in the 'field'
as well as working forwards towards the outcomes -
maybe it's because we have both been involved in
undertaking research for several years?

Anyway, what we discovered was when Emma engaged in
planning her dissertation like her lessons she could
get a flow of excitement and ideas - whch hadn't
emerged in planning from the 'front to the back'!

I will defintiely follow up all the references you
have given - have you written up any of your research
in a form we could share on this list?

Warm regards,

Sarah

--- Nicole Schnappauf <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Sarah
>  
> there is some researhc out there but not much -
> tillies book on dyslexia  and 
> learning style (Tilly Mortimore/ Whurr
> publicatrions) has some referneces  
> but be careful which perspective you are coming from
> education of psychology - . 
> i started off some years ago exploring the learning
> styles of my studetns  
> and trying to look how i actually teach the kids
> (they were all labelled  
> dyslexic autisitc etc and between 12-16 years) in
> maths - i together with the  kids 
> came to the conclusion after going through
> substantial amounts of learning  
> style assessments that these styles where actually
> one way but that learning is  
> two way - i use discourse/ dialogical or however you
> want to call it in my  
> classes - i dont do standing in the front telling
> them what to do. and that 
> what  the kids do in differnet classes actually
> differs and is to some extend  
> influenced by the teacher, thats true 
>  
> I than went on to talk about activity styles -
> comprising social  interaction 
> and cognitive processes - at the time i used
> sternbergs thinkking  styles as 
> self government of the mind as the very base line to
> develop my styles  from. 
> In contrast to traditional theories he asumes that
> we have a profile of  
> differnet stlyes rather than a bipolar continuum.
> Sternberg is also very  clear 
> about the two way between the individual and the
> environement and the  
> environment and the individual 
>  
> Still i wasnt t happy either for my final thesis i
> am using ways of  
> interacting with each other and tools - hence i look
> at how we all interact with  each 
> other and use our existing concepts to form joint
> arguments /  further 
> concepts and pre-concepts  and of course the roles
> students take on  as well as the 
> degree of interdependence between students  
>  
> I agree that there are preferneces of visual,
> auditory and kinesethic but i  
> wouldnt describe them as styles, and they may change
> between subjects or  
> situations anyway - 
>  
> as a teacher i find i have to klick on anything
> visual auditory and  bodywise 
> my studetns do and thats also how i react -interact
> with them  we  did a test 
> once with the kids trying to find their preferences
> to learning  and by 
> looking at the videos it became very clear that they
> always use at least  two of 
> the three  but that we are sooooooooooooooo
> fasicnated by cognitive  processes 
> and actually dont realise what else the kids do -
> and utilising the  other 
> apparent style does a lot for the cognitive and
> social learning!!!! I wish  now we 
> had written all our stuff and the comments of the
> kids down - would have  
> been some very original researhc!! 
>  
> nevertheless Sternbergs book on thinking style is
> worth reading  - and doing 
> it too but like the kids always said the langauge is
> dificult  and it applies 
> differnetly in different lessons.  
>  
> dont know if that makes anysense but the above is a
> very short summary  of my 
> journey through styles and i am glad i have found/
> developed  something more 
> dynamic - since learning is to me a very dynamic
> process. 
> But if you find anything intersting on teaching
> styles that describes the  
> multi layers of interaction i'd be more than
> interested 
>  
>  
> take care 
> Nicole 
>  
> 


Sarah Fletcher
http://www.TeacherResearch.net