Responce to Jessica 2/3/2011

Jessica ended her post about learning styles with the question: Can a person be taught to be a different kind of learner? If so, who does the teaching?

In Steven Stahl's article "Different Strokes for Different Folks?" he mentions several articles in which the participants (students) are evaluated to their style of learning. Those students then are taught through the different styles of teaching and the researchers see if their style is correlated to the style they learned best from. In most, (if not all) of these studies, the results did not support the hypothesis that students learn better through their matched learning style. Like Garlikov mentioned in his article, people learn different things different ways. The example he gave was riding a bike. No one can learn how to ride a bike by watching someone, they have to do it themselves. Yet, somethings you do not have to learn first hand.
The article also mentioned the Myers-briggs type indicator and Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. The Myers-brigg type indicator is a personality test, actually, it is probably the most accurate out of all the personality tests. [(Through 72 questions it tells you if you are Extroverted vs. Introverted, iNtuitive vs. Sensing, Feeling vs. Thinking , and Judging vs. Perceiving. There are 16 possible combinations -- 16 different personality types. (Take it your self at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp .)]Gardners theory of multiple intelligence is criticized for being more of a personality test than a measure of intelligence. There are eight different types (Naturalistic has been recently added) and he is currently coming up with more! So in all of these tests, they are not even using an accurate measure. The type of learner someone is does not measure their ability to learn from a certain style-- it measures their personality traits. As Stahl mentions, personality traits have little to do with how well you learn.
Music was mentioned a lot in the articles as well. Music can be taught visually, like analyzing a piece of music or reading notation. Music is also taught through audio, also analyzing a piece of music or how to tell if an instrument is in tune (listening to the sound waves). And finally, you have to learn how to play an instrument by actually playing it, this would be a tactile way of learning. So it is confusing to me how someone can be a 'musical learner' when music is taught different ways. The same goes for many other lecture hall class, you have to write what is on the board as well as listen to what the professor is saying. Unless someone has a certain type of learning disability that limits them, anyone can learn any way. This can be self taught as well as by someone else. Regardless, it does not matter which way someone learns best, they should learn every way, because we are going to be faced with situations from all these aspects in the real world.

Question: Have you ever been faced with a situation where you could not learn something one way but could learn it another?

Education Laws/acts

Since we are talking about government and schooling I thought it would be effective, if not, at least relevant to talk about a few educational laws and acts.

No Child Left Behind Act
Like I mentioned in my last blog post, the No Child Left Behind Act was approved by George W. Bush in 2001 and it aims to "close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice so that no child is left behind." Yet, the level of academic achievement on state assessments must be reached even for disabled children. Because of this a large amount of testing must be done.

Education of Handicapped Children Act 1975
This act has four principals behind it. The first is FAPE -- free and public education, every child with a disability will receive educational services that fit their specific needs for free. The second is that those children and their parents are protected. The third is is to help the states give education to disabled children. And the fourth is to make sure that the efforts to teach children with disabilities are successful.

Individuals with Disabilities Act
This act states that all children should receive FARE. All evaluations and assessments done must be done with the purpose of helping place a child and measuring their progress. IEPs (individualized education plans) are available. The child must be placed in the least restricting environment. And the parents and students take a role in all decisions.

FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act)
Parents and students are allowed to view their personal records.

Emergency Immigrant Education Act 1984-1999
This act helped states give educational services to immigrant children in primary and secondary schools at no cost to their parents. In 1994 the government paid $38,992,00 the majority of the money went to supporting instructional programs. This law was amended in 1999 because it was too costly and unfunded school districts were ineligible to receive money.

Question: Is there something missing? What laws or acts should be passed by congress in order for Americans to receive a better education?

Equal Education?

Yesterday in class Johnson asked us to focus on how education can become equal. I really enjoyed Brittany's comment on how we should be concentrating on making an equal education by offering the same quality of education throughout the united states. As Ed mentioned, richer towns have better school districts because more tax dollars go into them. So the solution to this problem is to have the the tax dollars divided state-wide instead of town-wise. Yet, that would take a long time for the government to make that change.
There are options that are available now that we have not yet talked about in class yet. One of those is school choice. George W. Bush aproved The No child left behind act in 2001. It aims to, "Close the achievement gap with accountability, flexability, and choice so that no child is left behind." This act, although picked on by many people allows parents to choose where their child gets their education regardless of where they live.
If a parent feels that their child is not getting an education that they deserve in their current district, they can choose another so long as that school is not at capacity. The only catch is that the parent has to provide their child's transpertaion to and from the school.
Question: Does school choice make education more fair/equal?