Horizon Report Pages 10-11

While many believe that using learning styles to determine learning strategies is successful, others do not. After reading the article: http://reedgillespie.blogspot.com/2014/01/10-statements-debunking-using-of.html I believe even I am seeing things in a different light. The author, discusses the use of learning styles to determine learning strategies and he describes in detail why this isn't a good practice for educators. The author, Reed Gillespie, states that having students complete a learning style inventory, causes a forced response and not a true vision of their learning style. The example he gives is that anyone would rather see a science lesson demonstrated rather than having an uninterrupted lecture, because science is best learned by demonstration. He also says that recognizing a students strengths and weaknesses is good practice, but grouping them by those is not. That method is not helpful to low performing students. Gillespie also discusses how you can not label one group of students in the same class as auditory learners and another group as visual learners. There is not any validity to making that classification that is based on neurology or behavioral performance. The author also discusses how VAK is nonsense. He says that we build a picture of the world by our senses working together. Reed digs even deeper and states that the research on learning styles is weak and unconvincing. Also providing a quote that there is no evidence that learning styles even exist. To sum up his discussion, he points out that a vast majority of educational content comes from stored meaning and does not rely on auditory, visual, or kinesthetic memory, which is why little research is found on its validity.

After reading the following article: http://www.edudemic.com/7-ways-to-hack-your-classroom/ I chose to discuss choice boards. In my classroom I actually implement choice boards during literacy centers. Right now, I only use them with my word work center though. They are able to choose the working with words activity they do for the day. I would like to change that now and create a choice board for my whole literacy block. I could include several activities that they could choose from. I have seen more student engagement just with the word work choice board and I can only imagine the engagement I would see if they used a choice board for the entire literacy block.