Learning Style

From my experiences and the researches that I have read, I can conclude that I am definitely a visual learner. When I see something, I understand it better. Pictures, diagrams, videos help me develop a deeper conceptual understanding of the ideas is being covered.

Even though as teachers we are not able to teach every student according to his or her learning style, having an understanding of how each of our students learn can be very helpful to our teaching. Our focus needs to be on the content we are covering and how best to deliver it to all our students. In teaching mathematics, I often present information in a variety of ways spiraling them through several lessons. By understanding my students' learning styles, I can try to make the different lesson presentations accessible to various learning styles that exist in the classroom. At the same time, if there is a particular student who is unable to understand a concept and comes in for extra help, by understanding his/her way of learning, I can better cater to his/her needs.

Since we also have a learning style of our own, it is possible that we may become accustomed to presenting ideas using teaching strategies that suit our learning style. By being aware of the various learning styles that exist, we can adapt our lessons to match the diverse learning styles in our classroom.

Creative Commons Lab

Below is the image that I selected from Creative Commons. It can be used to introduce the pi.




Photo Attribution:

Original Image: "Happy Pi Day (to the 69th digit)!"
Image URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/3355106480/sizes/s/in/photostream/
By: Mykl Roventine
Released under an Attribution-Author must receive credit
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Using images in a lesson can be a powerful teaching tool. For my mathematics classes, images can show students "the big picture" and provide all visual learners with another way to view mathematics and understand its beauty. It can also combine several elements of a mathematical idea together and show how they are connected, as well as how mathematical ideas connect with the real world. Using images that are already available can also be a great time-saver while planning lessons and in the classroom.

Here is the URL to my Flickr account page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/61844508@N05/

PC Maintenance and Security Workshop

I selected the following three tutorials since these were the topics that I know and/or understand the least about: Introduction, Organizing Your Computer, and Protecting Your Family.

From the tutorials in the Introduction, I will definitely share that disorganization does not only cause inefficiency but also actual problems with the computer. I liked the term "careless computing," and was quite surprised to learn that 100-5000 Spyware components can be found on a system with no security. After watching the tutorials from Organizing Your Computer, I plan to share the way to customize the toolbar as well as how to select the frequently used toolbar buttons and reorder them to better suit individual needs. I was surprised to learn how easy it is to quickly launch the toolbar! The tutorials from the Protecting Your Family Online section is a must see for all computer users. I will definitely share the way to clean our history and the way to control preferences online. I was surprised to learn that the process of protecting ourselves and our children online is actually not very difficult to do, and it can be very effective.

Overall these tutorials are worth watching and very easy to follow.