The full question is - what is your perspective on how students learn? What is your perspective on how teachers should teach? What is the realtionship between theories of learning and theories of teaching?
I've started by answering the first two questions - saying that students and teachers all have preferred styles to teaching and learning, but both should employ a variety of methods to get the best outcomes.
However the second part of the question I'm lacking in detail, here's what I have:
There are four major theories in teaching, Constructivist, Behavioural, Cognitive & Humanistic. Theories of teaching facilitate theories of learning. Therefore teachers need to be flexible and reflective to pick up how students respond to different teaching methods. Reflective teaching: the process of thinking about one’s teaching with a goal of improving one’s teaching. Rarely would anyone one theory of teaching be used in isolation.
Any suggestions with what I can add??
One cannot be/exist without the other.
Thank you best of luck!
Well, theories of teaching must be based on theories of learning. The point of teaching is that children learn. So, a teacher has to know theories of learnireflective learning questionsng and then teaching models have to be based on methods that will be consistent with how students learn.
If you are taking some type of test in education then the learning styles thing is probably a part of the answer that your professor would want. But, truly, there is no research evidence that students have "learning styles" or that teaching to learning styles makes any difference in achievement. Really. But for some reason this seems to remain a popular notion in teacher preparation programs.
Reflection is also a popular notion in education right now, and if a teacher thinks about what he or she does in relationship to how children are learning then it is a very good strategy. What is missing is often data about how children are learning.
One idea on how teachers can think about learning theories: They all have something to offer. Constructivist theories suggest that kids construct their own knowledge, so you as a teacher need to know what they know before you start teaching, and you need to constantly check to see that their understanding of the material matches what you want them to learn. Cognitive theories are related more to how students learn materials. This can help you to teach students ways to learn effectireflective learning questionsvely (how memory works, how to get information into long-term memory, how to monitor your own learning--meta-cognition). Humanistic theories of learning suggest two things--that the relationship between the teacher and learner is very important, and teachers should work diligently to have a good relationship with students. It also suggests that motivation for learning is internal, and teachers need to sometimes "get out of the way" of learning. Finally, the behavioral theories of learning suggest that the learning environment makes a big difference. Behavioral theories are useful for motivating students to learn, and they have a lot to say about how to teach students material in an organized fashion.
At any rate, this is more than you wanted, but hope it is helpful.
One theory says that learners have required modes of learning, such as visual, kinesthetic, visual. What is the theory of teaching that would address each student's needs regarding their preferred or required mode of learning?
I like what you said about reflective teaching. I can see that if a teacher reflects on how successful a certain style is with student x, that they would decide to continue with that style, or change to another.
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