Teaching And Learning Cycle ( Six Stages )

|The initial assessment pin-points the learners individual needs. This can lead to additional support being

The boundaries between the teaching role and other professional roles including points of referral to meet the needs of learners

Confirm achievement with the learner and plan the next assessment by returning to stage one. Identify any implications for learning, assessment and progression.

For years, there have been many theorists who have shared their views on how individuals learn. Such research has determined that individuals have different learning styles. It is important for teacher to understand the learning styles of both themselves and their students because it helps them to relay the subject knowledge to the students. The teacher is in a position where they must be able to assess the learning styles of their students. This means that the students and teachers are both in a process of learning.

From the time of birth, individuals are constantly learning. Individual learning styles vary from person to person. It is essential to the education of the individual to learn the particular style of learning that best serves them. One particular analysis tool is the visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic or V.A.R.K. tool (VARK, 2011). This tool allows the individual to identify their particular learning style which will better prepare them throughout their education.

Recognising that the learner’s needs are important so gathering as much understanding of the learner is important. Gathering information of student’s knowledge/understanding through an initial assessment. Learners can have literacy, numeracy and ICT skills tests prior to being accepted on the course or during the course so that understanding of any learning needs can be determined.

Our first step to identify the individual learning style of the learners’ (ergo to identify their needs), is performing ‘VAK’ (visual, aural, kinaesthetic) assessment. Francis and Gould (2013) describe it as a model of

“Just as students have different personalities, they also have different ways of learing (Slavin, 107).” Learning styles are another important factor to incorporate when implementing the best learning environment. Learning styles are defined as an individual's mode of gaining knowledge. The most common learning styles addressed are auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Auditory leaners understand information through hearing. Visual learners need more visual aids in the learning process, such as diagrams, webs, or pictures. Kinesthetic learners learn better by using manipulatives or by being physically involved in the learning process. Learning styles is a piece of the “backbone” of differentiated learning. Both are used to individualize instruction to help students achieve the most success.

Education benefits individual mentally, emotionally and physically by placing them in better place than they were previously before. Everybody would agree that learning something new would take place throughout the life. Learning style defined as "A term that describes the variations among learners in using one or more senses to understand, organize, and retain experience" (Reid, 1987, p. 89). Furthermore, Felder and Henriques (1995, p. 21) explained learning styles as "the ways in which an individual characteristically acquires, retains and retrieves information". However, different learners possess different characteristics and different preferred learning styles to perceive, process, take in and understand information.

Wilson 2009 states that the teacher cycle should be a structured process, so it is split into five sections placing the teacher roles and responsibility into various groups. The cycle can begin at any given point and is designed to show improvement. These five stages consist of,

Learning styles and barriers to learning can be by the VARK to give a profile of learning preferences of how a person takes in and gives out information or Tidwell and Rodgers Practical learning styles Questionnaire. The VARK learning styles determines if the person learns by being a theorist, reflector, activist and/or pragmatist. The practical learning styles questionnaire looks at how people learn by their orientation, whether they are a realistic or creative, by their interaction, are they a doer or a thinker, by how they represent things, either by words or pictures, and how they process information, whether they are a surface or deep processor. There are many other

Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Teaching of Psychology, 42(3), 266-271. doi:10.1177/0098628315589505

 It is important that you identify the needs of your learners so you can design the course to reflect individual differences. Although this is usually described as the first stage in the teaching/training cycle it is a process that may have to be deferred until you meet your learners for the first time and usually should be a continuing requirement throughout the learning journey. However, some organisations interview their learners before the course, or there may be an application process where learner needs can be identified.

Learning styles is one of the ways schools have changed over the past couple of years in regards to diversity. The varieties of learning styles of students have become more

Learning styles describe the way in which an individual or student uses different methods in the way they acquire, scrutinize, understand and remember knowledge or information (Kharb, 2013). The VARK questionnaire is a tool through which one can identify his/her learning style and is based on how individuals interact and respond to their learning environment. After undertaking the questionnaire, the scores for visual learning was 10, kinesthetic was 12, Aural was 10 and read/write was 16. The preferred learning style was, therefore, determined to be Multimodal which means that multiple strategies can be in cooperated to enable sufficient learning. Read/Write had the highest score followed closely by kinesthetic, aural and visual. This implies that the adequate strategy to acquire and convey information or knowledge is through printed or written words. With Kinesthetic having the second highest score, it shows that learning is also adequate through gaining experience and engaging in practical activities or processes that give real-life examples. Visual and Aural strategies had the same score meaning that learning can also be achieved through presentations in visual formats, drawings or diagrams as well as observations and taking of verbal instructions or listening.