Innovating Education

What’s Your Learning Language? A Guide to Identifying Learning Preferences to Increase Student Engagement

1/25/2021

Everyone knows their “Love Language,” but does everyone know their Learning Language?
by Caleb Davis

Imagine going throughout your entire academic career and not knowing the ways you actually learn best. What if there was a way to identify learning preferences starting as early as kindergarten?

For far too long, parents and educators waste so much time teaching their learners in ways that aren’t effective or that don’t align with their youthful preferences. It’s no one’s fault. The learners may not have to dialect to advocate for themselves or they may simply just not know why it’s more difficult for them to learn. On the other side, educators and parents may think they know how their learner learns best, but whenever it’s not clicking, it’s usually the students’ fault.

However, what if educators took the time to identify the learning preferences within each of their students at the beginning of the year? It would essentially speed up the process of understanding our students better and ultimately open up opportunities for our students to be more academically successful.

In a recent survey done by our company, 77% of students say that if their teachers would have identified the ways they learn best, they would have performed better in class.

The most effective way to achieve our goal of providing a premier educational experience to all learners is to work as a TEAM. We have to find ways to connect the teaching with the learning and make it a more meaningful experience.

Team Learning will transform the educational experience for all learning moving forward.

This is a guide to building a learning team that promotes an individualized instruction, yet results in a collaborative learning environment. Team Learning has multiple definitions across different disciplines. For FlUrNing, Team Learning is first identifying the diverse learning preferences of each Player (student) within the classroom. Then, using these preferences to create culturally responsive instruction, and ultimately establishing a team culture that develops the social and academic success of the collective Team (classroom).

The following is a list of the 6 Team Learning Players that are within every student and a brief description. The goal is to identify which Player preference is exhibited the most within each student and to use that information to help facilitate your instruction.

Solitary Players: Self driven & independent. Enjoys self paced work.
Topic Players: Inspired by certain topics or interests and thrives with topic centered work.
Rule Players: Most successful with scaffolding and clear expectations/ solutions.
Team Players: Energetic learners who love to help out their peers.
Creative Players: Artistic, creative and passionate about technology.
Exploring Players: Thrives on positive reinforcement and may still be search for their Learning Point.

With FlUrNing’s Team Learning, there is no “one-stop-solution” to truly understanding your students. This is simply a tool to help guide the differentiation of your planning and instruction. There may be students who noticeably identify with multiple Players—that’s fine. Use them all to better serve your students. Do not think that students have to be placed in a certain category. That is what FlUrNing is trying to avoid. The goal is for us, as educators, to not think about the idea of placing students into categories that have traditionally controlled the way teaching and learning has been practiced for decades. We must be the catalyst for sparking the push of identifying students as human being first. Humans with wants, needs, and interests—then bringing the field of education to them. We must make education relevant to their individual and collective cultures and backgrounds instead of trying to force their cultures and backgrounds into education. It’s time for us to innovate education!

*More information on creating “Culturally Relevant” learning environments can be found in works by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings.*

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FlUrNing | The Classroom Makeover

9/27/2019

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A major concern with education today:

         In just as recent as the past 20 years, the world has witnessed vast advancements in almost every aspect of life. We have seen revitalizing technological advancements, art and infrastructural advancements, communication advancements, and superb medical advancements. Although, of all of the beneficial transformations happening in our world, one important part of life that has made little to no transformation at all is the way that our students are being taught in the school setting.

         Centuries ago, students’ desks were lined up in rows while the instructor would stand in front of them and lecture with hopes that all students were understanding the information. Today, in the 21st Century, this methodology of teaching is still swarming many schools within our country. We still see desks lined up in rows and teachers standing or sitting in the front of the class lecturing and presenting information onto boards. The sad part is, this method of teaching is active in grades as early as kindergarten and as late as senior-level courses in high-school. Students are practically seated for 6-8 hours a day listening to a person talk. Think about how hard it may be for a child, or even an adult, to remain seated for 6-8 hours a day—just listening. So, why are we continuing to teach this way? Why are we so afraid to break the barriers of the traditionally ran classroom environments and set up an environment that best suits the student learners? Many students dread coming to school each day, and when I asked why they didn't enjoy it, most of them responded by saying, “Because we have to go.” Our students see school as a place that they are forced to go to everyday instead of seeing it as an opportunity to have fun and better prepare themselves for adulthood.

A solution to the concern:

         Our classrooms within the U.S. need a makeover. Society is not the same as it was 50 years ago. It is not the same as it was a mere 15 years ago. Our ways of educating our youth must be altered to adapt to the current ways of life. Teachers cannot be stuck on traditional methods of classroom instruction or even the traditional classroom environments. Everything within life is shifting. Students will become uninterested very quickly and have no shame in telling you that something is “boring.” As educators, we cannot fault them for that, we must be learners as well. We must seek to understand the ways that our students learn the best in order keep them interested. Students have proven, day in and day out, that they tend to learn the best when they are having fun and the work is intriguing to them. That is where my solution comes in. I have developed a pedagogy of teaching that I believe will set a new trend for the classroom setting. It will allow the environment of the classroom to ease up and be more welcoming and engaging. Student and teacher relationships will be more interactive and the transference of instructional information will be more feasible for all students. Most importantly, students will have fun while gaining the necessary knowledge needed to succeed in the global workforce of the 21st Century.

What is FlUrNing?

         No student should be cheated out of an educational experience that is filled with fun. Students should be able to come to school and be themselves—kids, that is—and do “kid things.” Kids love to have fun. This thought led to the creation of a pedagogy that combines students having fun with them also learning the instructional material. This pedagogy is called FlUrNing. FlUrNing is the act of simultaneously having FUN and LEARNING. Imagine a learning environment where students are eager to come to school each day. Where they are excited about learning new material that traditionally, would have had a “boring” connotation connected with it. They have the opportunity to laugh and play and interact with classmates all while learning the curriculum.

How FlUrNing works:

         FlUrNing is nowhere near a self-acting cure for the gaps within our educational achievement. It is simply a catalyst to invite teachers to alter the way they have been teaching our youth. It promotes the recognition that there is a change happening and to adapt to that change in order to do what is best for our students. The key mission of the FlUrNing pedagogy is to take original lessons or activities and transform them to become more innovative, hands-on and game like. FlUrNing is restructuring your classroom’s way of life. It is creating a learning environment in which the teacher takes a back seat and becomes the facilitator of creative and interactive lessons. It is setting high standards to make it the best learning experience possible.

         For example, think about a vocabulary lesson where you are introducing new words to the students. Traditionally, students would be responsible for finding the words in the dictionary and writing them down on paper to turn them in for a grade. I don’t see anything wrong with that activity, except, it is not fun. The students do not have a relationship with the work they are doing. Instead, make it more interactive and innovative. For my class, which practices FlUrNing daily, we took a list of new vocabulary words and competed in Vocabulary Relay against each other to get a better understanding of the words. With this lesson, each student enhanced his or her dictionary skills and learned new words all while having fun and being physically active.

         Sitting for a prolonged amount of time has negative effects on the human body. Incorporating physical activity in the classroom has been a topic researched for decades. The Enhance Physical Education Task Force (2014) explained that better health, better behavior and better learners are all positively correlated. Active children show greater attention, have faster cognitive processing speed, and perform better on standardized academic tests than children who are less active.

         FlUrNing can work in any classroom. Again, there is no right or wrong way of incorporating FlUrNing with your everyday learning environment. It is a paradigm shift from the way teaching and learning used to be to how it can be facilitated today and into the future. It can be effective from kindergarten all the way through college because it allows teachers to find ways to meet the needs of each individual learner through games and activities.

Goals of FlUrNing:

         I do not intend for every teacher in the country to agree with my pedagogy. Although, I do want teachers, administrators and parents to understand that FlUrNing is an attempt to ensure students obtain a high quality and worthwhile education. Before I implemented a FlUrNing environment, I would have constant battles with my students who portrayed ADHD tendencies or who were diagnosed with ADHD. I kept redirecting them to sit down or stop moving so much; even though they could not help it. At some point, I decided to give in and foster that energy into his or her learning. In return, I started to witness fewer problematic behaviors out of those students and encouraged them to practice self-control. With FlUrNing, teachers, just as I did, will notice that hyperactive students will have the ability to let their true talents shine because they aren’t being howled at to sit down and stay still. These students are able to move about and experience learning in ways that best suits them.

         If as little as one more educator understands the shift that I am trying to make within the education system, we will be on the right path for change. Our classrooms need a makeover. We must work together to do what is best for our students. I am not saying that we need to get rid of sitting in desks and listening to teachers. This delivery of instruction may be effective for many students and teachers. What I am saying is that our teachers need to find ways to innovate instruction to make it more fun for our scholars. Teachers need to find ways to make the instruction more effective to improve our relatively low reading and math levels. Our society is stuck on saying that it is impossible to close, or even shrink, the academic disparities we face. Respectfully, nothing is impossible. It just means that everyone else who has tried--failed. I will not fail, and I hope you will not either!

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What’s Your Learning Language? A Guide to Identifying Learning Preferences to Increase Student Engagement

FlUrNing | The Classroom Makeover

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