Making learning personal; getting students invested
Movement can help kinesthetic learners retain what they've learned
Setting goals for both individual students and a class as a whole is something teachers have to do every year—but obtaining student “buy-in” to meet those goals can be more of a challenge.
So how do HISD teachers do it?
They make learning personal, by building relationships with students to find out what interests and motivates each child. They also use strategies geared to different types of learners, such as:
- posters, charts, and pictures for visual learners;
- chants, sayings, and songs for auditory learners;
- and movement, gestures, and signals for kinesthetic learners.
Finally, they help students develop ways to track their own progress, so that incremental victories can be celebrated along the way.
“I start off every year by presenting my own personal goals for the class,” said Iris Tian, a teacher at Sterling High School. “Whether they’re related to STAAR or to a specific objective, I want to make it really clear, that this is why it’s important.”
HISD’s Professional Support and Development department explores these topics and more in the fourth installment of its planning video series.
To learn more about the planning video series, please see this related article from the Nov. 22 edition of eNews. To see all planning videos, visit the PSD website. A downloadable flyer (.pdf) containing step-by-step instructions on this topic is also available.
