kevinspear.com » baby

Are Learner Styles Bunk?

speartoons — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:26:02 +0000

This morning, I heard a news item on how we learn. The conventional wisdom for the last few years was that each of us learn differently and teachers should cater to an individual’s learning style. The main learning styles were the following:

visual learner
auditory learner
tactile/kinesthetic learner

Personally, I’ve always wished one of the learning styles was “gourmet learner.” I’m sure I learn by taste, especially when it comes to chocolate chip cookies.

The premise of the article was there is no scientific evidence that there is such a thing as learner styles. I was very surprised by that, since I’ve heard many educators proclaim it as gospel. What the study suggested is that we find similarities on how our brains learn instead of the differences. After all, all hearts perform in similar ways. Why should we treat our brains differently?

That is where they lost me. It’s true that our organs operate similarly, but we all react to things differently. My stomach loves hot and spicy food. Others find that revolting. Many can’t eat the spicy stuff without paying for it later.

What I could agree on is that everyone benefits from teachers varying their style. No one responds to all lectures/all the time. We need as many of our senses engaged in different ways to keep a student’s interest and make learning fun.

So what do you think about this study? What do you do to keep learning exciting and fun?

Birthday Stress

speartoons — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:03:05 +0000

Cartoon of two babies. One says, “My first birthday is next week. Talk about pressure!”

There are lots of birthdays in my family this time of year. I don’t know how we planned multiple generations to have summer birthdays, but I’ll take them. I much rather eat ice cream with my cake in the summer instead of the dead of winter. No pressure for you winter birthday people. I’ll eat the ice cream in January too, if prodded.

Joyful Noise

speartoons — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:25:19 +0000

Cartoon of a boy and girl toddler at church. The girl is enthusiastic. The boy says, “That’s a quite a joyful noise you’re making there.”

I drew this cartoon for Church of God Ministries. You can find the newsletter at http://www.chog.org/chognews/CHOGnews-jun11.htm.

Graduation Beginnings

speartoons — Fri, 06 May 2011 13:35:46 +0000

This is an illustration of a baby in a cap and gown. I drew this for Illustration Friday. This week’s word is “beginner.” It reminded me of how young we are when we go out into the world with our degrees. We think we are prepared and ready, but really, we are so naive about what is to come. We can never predict the good and bad that will come our way.

Drinking and Texting

speartoons — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:00:21 +0000

Cartoon of two babies. A baby girl has a cell phone. A baby boy says, “Should you be drinking and texting?”

When it comes to texting, I can’t multi-task anyway. But I can imagine some young toddler somewhere is cutting her teeth on texting while juggling five different activities. Could babies be next?