How Student Learn: Visual or Conceptual?

Hey everybody! What's poppin!

I hope you are all lovin' this fall weather...except it has been a little to warm for me as of late!

So anyway, in my mind, one big thing that teachers are always exploring, and debating about is not only how students learn, but is it to be more visual or conceptual.

For me, when I was a grade school student, ad even here in college, I see myself as being a visual learner with a very big spotlight on hands-on-activities. I need to be able to either literally see or mentally see what is going on. And, it does not matter what subject it is. Then, for me to really grasp the concept, I MUST have a hands-on-activity(s). I cannot sit in a lecture for an hour and a half and be able to walk away fully remembering what we went over and the professor talked about. Lecturing, student or teacher view, can get very boring and overbearing which becomes hard and stressful on students.

As a teacher my goal will be to provide a place where student's are learning in a variety of ways. Because I most likely will be teaching student's under the age of ten, I do not think that student's should know how they want to be taught and how they learn best. At this point in their academic career, I believe that they need to be exposed to every single different learning aspect. But, we also need to remember that 6-10 year olds, do not have the longest attention span, so therefore a ton of lecturing (although, sometimes it is necessary) will not be useful.

I believe that rewards can be very useful, but at the same time, I think they can be just as hurtful and abused. Rewards should not just appear, and at some point "rewards" cannot be physical things. A student cannot and will not learn how to be a decent human being if they depend on rewards. At some point, the things that are being rewarded must become a natural thing to do, rather than just doing it to get a reward. My strategies when I have my own classroom is to have a reward system. For example, Miss Hayes Bucks! Every time a student exemplifies exceptional academic or personal responsibilities they can earn a buck. Then maybe at the end of the week or month, each student can "cash in their bucks" to receive a small prize. But, all in all, I do think rewards are necessary for motivation. They just cannot become abused and over used, either.



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