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How do SPs and SJs best learn?

CuriousFeeling

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As a future high school biology teacher, I'd like to know how SPs and SJs best learn class material so then I can help them understand abstract science concepts and design effective lesson plans that will help engage them in learning. What type of learners are SPs and SJs? How would you as a SP or SJ like to have science topics presented to you?

Thanks. :)
 

Jeffster

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SP = hands-on learning, learn by doing. Science can be a fun subject for SPs since there is opportunity to do physical experiments with stuff. The more time they get to be actively doing something the better, the more time you are talking and expecting them to take notes, the greater chance they're going to tune out and not pay attention.
 

Randomnity

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I liked high school biology when we dissected pigs, learned about the parts of a cell, and did labs. I didn't like memorizing the kreb cycle and other metabolic pathways, although the memorizing continues in university, sadly, so I guess it is somewhat of a preparation.

Interestingly I hated the chem labs and didn't mind the abstract learning as much. Less memorizing and more understanding there, I guess. Same with physics. The biggest thing was that the lecture had to make sense, I hated the profs who just presented a million facts rather than tying it together into a cohesive story. It's better to focus on understanding how everything fits in the big picture, rather than overdo the details. imo. It's hard to get too abstract in bio really, it's such a practical science.

I'm currently a grad student in biology so I guess I have a somewhat biased perspective.

ps also examples rock. and analogies. They make it much easier to grasp ideas, and make things more relevant and therefore interesting. I don't think any of this is unique to S kids though, I think most kids learn well through a combination of hands-on stuff with theory to help understand why things happen.
 

ayoitsStepho

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Biology was my favorite high school science class! My specific teacher always had some sort of hands on projects or really fun things to help us learn.

When we had to learn about genes, he'd pick a student from our class and have them sit in front of the class. The whole class had to pick out traits in this student, like hair type, chin type, nose and other things. Then we had to figure out what traits were dominant and which weren't. In the end we'd have to figure out how many more children that students parents would have to have until they had a child w/out those dominant traits. Things like that.

If you make it relevant to the students and really involve them, it makes it so much more fun! If you're teaching at SP students for an example, than we're more likely to wonder off into la la land. For myself, movies were the worst! I couldn't pay attention unless I had a worksheet that I had to fill out as I watched the movie.

Hope that helps :D
 

Halla74

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As a future high school biology teacher, I'd like to know how SPs and SJs best learn class material so then I can help them understand abstract science concepts and design effective lesson plans that will help engage them in learning. What type of learners are SPs and SJs? How would you as a SP or SJ like to have science topics presented to you?

Thanks. :)

Good question.
Nice to know you are considering such things before beginning your career.

From what I remember, high school was pretty formulaic:
-Math classes were taught via lecture and accompanied examples on an overhead projector, or a chalkboard/whiteboard.

-English classes were a combination of lecture, allowing students to read aloued one at a time through a piece passage by passage.

-Science classes (biology, geology, chemistry, physics) were the most interesting of all, because of the myriad of "vehicles" available today that can deliver scientific information. I graduated high school in 1992. Back then teachers had to bring in VHS tapes of programs they taped on TV in order to deliver multimedia content to their classes. The teachers who did so had the best classes, as they were that much better at preventing kids from getting bored and zoning out. Now, you can be just as effective an instructor, and all you have to do is run a few searches on Google the night before your lecture on a given topic and you will have as much supporting material in multimedia format as you wish. For free.

I agree with the sentiments of Jeffster and MPD2525 above. I guess I'll add my own fropp even if it might be redundant.

DISCLAIMER:
The info below is coming from an ESTP 7w8 male who has had ADHD and OCD most of his life. I went through hell learning some things, like mathematics, but once i did learn it I could wield it however I pleased. I always did well in science, English, and social studies. I've always been very athletic.

TIPS for EFFECTIVE TEACHING:
-----------------------------------
(1) Alternate your vehicles of delivery to break up the flow of the class.

(2) Engage the students. Ask questions and have them answer them, even if they are wrong. Don't let the kids raise hands voluntarily. Let them know that you are calling on people at your discretion, and that you will be especially motivated to call on students who are not keeping eye contact with you, or who are "slumping."

(3) If anyone's cell phone rings in class, answer it, and tell their buddy that they are in class and can't call until school is out. Don't give the phone back until class is done.

(4) Don't take any shit. I went back to my high school 2 years after I graduated to visit a few of my favorite teachers before moving out of state. I was appaled how in only two years, the school went from a nice high school in a Northern Virginia suburb, to a bunch of classrooms filled with asshat wannabe gangsters who were walking around during class, talking while the instructor was lecturing, and being a bunch of idiots all together. Marshal your classroom. Be FIRM but FAIR. If the kids don't RESPECT you then you can teach them NOTHING.

(5) Yes, SPs/SJs learn by doing. I think that's the case for all kids of all types. Isn't it proven that if you deliver the same information in different formats (lecture, video, reading, writing) that you increase the probability that each student will lock onto the lesson information as you will have delivered it at least once in their preferred learning format? Sure that is not always possible, to deliver each lesson in 4 different modes, but to the degree you can overlap modes of delivery with the lesson content, without making it redundant, I say that's a good thing.

(6) Be outrageous when you need to. use extreme, ridiculous examples in your lessons as they will be remembered more than mundane examples. One of my best teachers ever would stand on a chair and lecture if he saw the class was getting bored. Sometimes he would sit on top of his desk. Sometimes he would sit under his desk. If it got really bad, or if we learned quickly that day he would do random fun shit, like see how many chairs we could jump over (I won that) or how much weight you could allow to hang off a desk halfway, have your palm down and rest the weight on the top of your hand, flip it forward over the desk, and catch it before it hit the ground (i won that too).

(7) One of the best techniques of learning anything I have come across in my professional life is the ability to summarize. Answering question at the back of the book is one thing. Asking the kids to summarize an entire chapter on a one page 8.5" X 11" piece of paper in an outline and bullet points is another issue entirely. It will force them to glean through the material and to identify the salient points and kill the fluff. One of my professors had us summarize entire sections of state law into a one pager as such, and once you do it, you don't forget it. Textbook manufacturers are kind of in the dark ages, as the real world is run on bullet points that can be scrolled through on a BlackBerry, and not 35 page chapters with boring line graphs, a table or two, and a few color photos here and there.

(8) Finally, when possible, think of REAL WORLD examples that the lesson applies to. How will learning that material benefit those kids in their everyday lives. I remember so many times in various classes thinking "This is all fine and good, but what am I going to do with this information in my life? how will it help me make money? How will it make my life better?" If you can't prove the worth of your lessons in concrete and tangible terms that are relevant to your students, they will only be able to dedicate so much of their total capability to your efforts, as part of them will be unconcsciously seeking how to improve their odds at winning at the things that do matter at that point in their lives, like girls/boys, their car, problems at home, or the party coming up that weekend.

Some of the best parts of my career thus far have been the small stints I've had as an instructor for one purpose or another. There is something very special about the look on someone's face, when it lights up after your teachings hit home, and they are no longer confused about what the class is about, and they are so thankful that you have helped them to learn something that they had to learn in order to succeed. I've had this happen in fitness courses I've taught, and software courses I've taught. The material is irrelevant, that look is the same, it is the look of accomplishment, of satisfaction, and of increased esteem. I envy you for having the opportunity to see that as often as you will.

I hope this information is useful to you in some way.
I respect you for choosing to be an educator.
Your efforts make the future a hopeful, for without an educated population a society's downfall is imminent.

Good luck to you!

:)

-Halla
 

CuriousFeeling

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Halla, your information is just what I needed. A lot of what you mentioned is what I've learned in teacher education courses.

I had a feeling that SPs and SJs would need a lot of hands on activities to keep them focused. I'll make sure the information I present to students will be authentic to them, and keep things active and interesting. I love getting students into groups and have them generate their own answers to problems. I prefer to get students out of their seats during lecture segments, draw them towards me when I'm teaching lessons, or I could walk towards them. That way, they know that they have to stay focused on the lesson, because I'm right there watching them!

I quite like the cellphone idea. I'll definitely use that technique. :D
 

Halla74

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Halla, your information is just what I needed. A lot of what you mentioned is what I've learned in teacher education courses.

Cool! My real world experience resulted in something that's been verified by educators! :yay:

I had a feeling that SPs and SJs would need a lot of hands on activities to keep them focused. I'll make sure the information I present to students will be authentic to them, and keep things active and interesting. I love getting students into groups and have them generate their own answers to problems. I prefer to get students out of their seats during lecture segments, draw them towards me when I'm teaching lessons, or I could walk towards them. That way, they know that they have to stay focused on the lesson, because I'm right there watching them!

When younger, we're a handful when bored, but if you catch our interest we're really fun students. Establish your rapport with them early in the first quarter and they are yours for the rest of the semester.

Good luck to you, Sir! :)

-Halla

I quite like the cellphone idea. I'll definitely use that technique. :D[/QUOTE]
 

CuriousFeeling

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Cool! My real world experience resulted in something that's been verified by educators! :yay:



When younger, we're a handful when bored, but if you catch our interest we're really fun students. Establish your rapport with them early in the first quarter and they are yours for the rest of the semester.

Good luck to you, Sir! :)

-Halla

I quite like the cellphone idea. I'll definitely use that technique. :D
[/QUOTE]

Thanks. I'll keep these in mind. :)
 

Cimarron

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When we had to learn about genes, he'd pick a student from our class and have them sit in front of the class. The whole class had to pick out traits in this student, like hair type, chin type, nose and other things. Then we had to figure out what traits were dominant and which weren't. In the end we'd have to figure out how many more children that students parents would have to have until they had a child w/out those dominant traits. Things like that.

If you make it relevant to the students and really involve them, it makes it so much more fun! If you're teaching at SP students for an example, than we're more likely to wonder off into la la land. For myself, movies were the worst! I couldn't pay attention unless I had a worksheet that I had to fill out as I watched the movie.

Hope that helps :D
Yes, stuff like that. It really gets me interested in what I'm learning.
 

sLiPpY

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I spy the SP's already have the bases covered. :)

Discecting was my favorite thing in Biology, not a bit squeemish at all. And nice to see other SP's post they enjoyed it as well.

Aside from hands on, I liked the videos we'd sometimes see that did a good job of illustrating how things fit together. I also liked the teachers presentations when that was the case as well.

I didn't enjoy Chemistry at all...Physics, Geology, Astronomy and plain jane
Physical Science rocked!

Biology, uh...only other thought is I had one hell of a time getting my leaf collection done, because everytime I'd go out with the intention to do so. I'd get distracted by something else outside and start doing that instead.

Like shooting basketballs, or well...I made a B for turning it in a day late. But the one with the greatest diversity and least commonality of the sample group. :)
 

sticker

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I don't like hands on. :eek:

This is a copy pasta (with a few edits) from a previous post about how I best learn (does not necessarily apply to all ISTJs), but I guess it pretty much covers what you want to know... I think.

I prefer visual (animation is a huge plus) compared to verbal and when teachers give an outline of what we are going to learn for the day (Global learning). When learning new things (even programming), I prefer searching up google/youtube for video tutorials. I prefer to watch the videos at least once through to get the general idea of the approach, before attempting them myself, sometimes to the point that know it so well that I think I can handle it on my own. However, when doing the stuff myself, I still end up following the videos step by step because I'm not confident enough and afraid that if I deviate just a bit, I might hit a point where something different happens and I can't follow through the video anymore and having to waste my time starting all over again.
When learning a new concept, I learn better if I'm able to find similarities and consistencies between the new concept and previous concepts I might have learned. Sometimes, such things aren't needed though if it's simple enough for me to draw my own connections. [(Simple example would be e.g. a teacher teaching about Earth and its crust. It'll be easier for me to understand quickly just how thin Earth's crust is compared to Earth if he/she said it's like a grape and its skin than throwing a number for the thickness of the crust and the diameter of the Earth even though the latter is more accurate.)] Numbers on their own don't make sense to me.
 

iamathousandapples

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(4) Don't take any shit. I went back to my high school 2 years after I graduated to visit a few of my favorite teachers before moving out of state. I was appaled how in only two years, the school went from a nice high school in a Northern Virginia suburb, to a bunch of classrooms filled with asshat wannabe gangsters who were walking around during class, talking while the instructor was lecturing, and being a bunch of idiots all together. Marshal your classroom. Be FIRM but FAIR. If the kids don't RESPECT you then you can teach them NOTHING.

DO THIS. Of all the things you could do to help your students learn(and keep them sane as well!) is to do this. When a teacher is too weak or too apathetic, the class tends to get more loud and out of hand, making it impossible for anyone to learn(or to think, for that matter).
 
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