Week 9: Learning Styles and Strategies, and  What can the Internet do for my classroom?

This week is quite tough as I have to finish my final project report and do some readings. However, I am very glad as I thin I have gone through them very well.  The topic for this week is very interesting as it deals with types of learner and strategies used by each type. I read some articles this weeks. I am very much interested in the  articles  Learning Styles and Strategies by Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman and Technology and Multiple Intelligences on Teacher Tap and articles on The Concept to Classroom  on http://www.thirteen.org/.

As written by Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman , there are various types of learner: active and reflective learners, sensing and intuitive learners, visual and verbal learners and sequential and global learners. Although difficult, it is  the teacher’s task to recognize what type of leaner their students are. I tried to encourage my student to both active and reflective learners through the use of web technology. I created a web class for my Intermediate Listening Class  (http://www.rinaesl.blogspot.com) on which I wrote  the weekly listening tasks for the students.  I feel very enthusiastic selecting materials from the Internet that might be of the interest of the students. The students  also created their reflective blogs and use their blog for sharing what they learn from the material. I was amazed by students’ creativity in choosing and redesigning the already available template.  The names of the blog are amazingly inspiring and motivating. As written by Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman “Active learners tend to retain and understand information best by doing something active with it--discussing or applying it or explaining it to others. Reflective learners prefer to think about it quietly first’.
I found that now we, my students and me, now is becoming closer and communicative. My students can post their question or comment on my blog and I can follow their listening activities and leave my comment on their blog. Since this is a small class, it is not difficult for me to visit every blog and leave my comment.


What can the Internet do for my classroom? is a question that I have tried to answer during this e-teaching course. Internet in fact can do many things beyond my thought. It is not only a rich source which provides teacher with teaching knowledge and skills but also thousand of teaching materials. As can be read on Why Net? http://www.thirteen.org, Internet provides us ‘access to an an incredible wealth of information  and amazing number of resources which are updated and expanded.   

I have been using internet for my own need  in the last decade either for my teaching or my research. However, only recently, after joining this e-teacher program, that I used the Internet and the available tools to help improve my teaching into a better way. Now I use the Nicenet for my class ‘Linguistic Research Method’ whose students do a lot of reading and writing. I introduced the students  two weeks ago how to register and participate in the discussion or post their comment or task. It was amazing that the students did it without any difficulty in a short time. Others who came late to the class did not ask me any question about it as they learned it in a short time from their friend sitting next to them.  

What technology can I use for my class?  is another question I am trying to answer lately. I takes this question to ask myself about the teaching technique I have used  so far. This is the time to do some changes and start to adopt technology for my teaching. Yes, there are lots of technologies a teacher can use to improve the quality of their teaching. Internet provides various tools that can help teacher enhance learning environment and develop learner autonomy as well as encourage student to be an active and/or reflective learner. Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman widens my knowledge of the types of learner and how technology might help each type of learner to be successful in learning. 
I am thinking of using Web site for nest semester. I think website provides more space and various teaching activities . I have tried to build one several times but due to time limitation and complexity in its construction I have never finished one yet.