Learning From Students

Hi there. In this education post, I talk about learning from students. Education is largely about the students learning from teachers but teachers and educators can learn from students.

Information from this post is mostly based on experiences and observation from my Mathnasium work (private sector learning services).

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Topics

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• Learning About Student Personalities & Behaviours
• Student Feedback & Criticisms
• Short Notes On Student Work Ethic

 

Learning About Student Personalities & Behaviours

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The educational services sector (public or private) is a part of the service sector. Educators, instructors and teachers are mostly involved with working with people and young students. When it comes to people relations the experiences and interactions do vary. This variation is from the various personalities and behaviours from all kinds of students.

Some students like to talk a lot, some not so much, some are focused and some students need more guidance. There is no one size fits all solution when it comes to helping students. Solutions in helping students do vary between students and over time.

 

Students With Conditions/Disabilities

There are students who have certain physical or mental conditions along with those with disabilities. Some may not be able to write properly, some students may take longer with learning and retaining information and there are those who have conditions that affect their behaviour. Solutions for these students have to be customized.

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Student Feedback & Criticisms

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Teachers and educators can definitely learn from students when it comes to student feedback and criticism. Some of the feedback can be obvious as some young students can be a bit too honest. Some feedback is not as obvious as it would require reading the body language of students.

Students can show boredom by yawning, sleeping, head on arms on the desk or trying to stay awake. Signs of boredom could mean that the teacher may not be energetic, the topic being taught is not interesting for the student or the student knows the topic already.

Although tests and assignments are not popular with student in general, they give a snapshot measure of the student's understanding and memory of material. Low scores on a test or assignment could indicate a lack of understanding of the material. It could also be that questions could be too difficult. A high score from a student could indicate that the student knows the material being tested. With tests and assignments scores, it is important to look at trends and longer term averages for a student (Law of Large Numbers & sample size considerations) for more information on a student does in learning and retaining school material.

 

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Short Notes On Student Work Ethic

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I do think that there is a connection or correlation between student habits & student work ethic along with grades and success. The only thing is that I can say this from my own observations with math students from my Mathnasium work. It would be more informative if there was more data to analysis from.

The tendency is that many students with the high grades do have a good work ethic. Homework is done on a regular basis to build skills, understand material and in some cases improving speed with certain skills (algebra, calculations, etc). For me, I find it inspiring to see how hard some of these students work. Some of the students that I have witnessed are not only fast learners but they do demonstrate a lot of effort into their work. Plus there is not much complaining. They just do it.

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Thank you for reading.