Learning Styles
Class Profiles
Whether it is a start to a new school year in
September or a fresh new semester, almost every one of these classes
will begin with a diverse set of new learners each possessing their own
unique learning styles, strengths, needs, and challenges. To determine
what stage each learner in the classroom has reached, a class profile,
first and foremost, will collectively identity these areas in a students
academic career (Education for All, 2005). Gathering information on the
students in the class can be accomplished in several ways as an ultimate
means of assessing a students academic background. For instance,
teachers can have their students fill out interest surveys, have their
parents fill out questionnaires, and/or simply observe the levels of
interaction amongst the students during a whole-class activity at the
beginning of the school year. Regardless of how the information is
collected, an effective student profile questionnaire should
successfully identify the students' interests and talents, their current
place in the learning process, and their thoughts on learning (Education
for All, 2005). This valuable information will help teachers modify the
curriculum accordingly and make appropriate accommodations to their
educational plan where needed.
Figure 1. Class Profile Flowchart,
modified from (Education for All, 2005).
There are six critical steps to follow when
developing a class profile (Education for All, 2005) (Figure 1). Using
the information provided from parent and student questionnaires,
teachers can start to make diagnostic assessments of student
achievement. Recall that for high school classes, interest surveys
should include questions pertaining more to the course being taught than
on a general level. Next, the teacher would have to summarize the
information by organizing it into categories. Categories can be divided
according to each student's strengths and "areas of need related to
literacy, numeracy, and social-behavioural issues" (Education for All,
2005, p. 32). The third step involves selecting for instructional
strategies and resources based on the strength, needs, and interests of
the students. For instance, if a grade nine math teacher discovers that
the majority of his/her students characterize themselves as being
visual-spatial learners, a teacher would have to review available
resources like Unifix cubes (Figure 2) for geometry class. Moreover,
after the teacher has considered the curriculum, instructional
strategies, and the patterns in the classroom using the individual
student profiles, the teacher can plan their lessons where
differentiated instructions are required. The fifth step is to monitor
and review the students progress to see whether it has helped improve
the students academic performance, and finally, seek further assistance
by consulting with colleagues the effectiveness of the implemented
teaching strategies (Education for All, 2005).
Figure 2. Unifix blocks and other
such math cube sets are commonly used to help students learn number and
math concepts - ideal for visual learners.
Class profiles are essential for educators to
implement in their classrooms for several reasons. By having students
fill out a questionnaire in terms of their interests, strengths,
challenges, and past academic grades, it reveals an important part of
the student's academic history that may not have been recorded in their
student record. A student who has done poorly for the past five years of
their life, for instance, may be due to a more serious issue, which past
educators failed to recognize in the student. Therefore, a class profile
may help an educator be the first person to suspect that a student has
special needs that have not been addressed before. Knowing each student
at a greater level from the start of the school year may also encourage
an educator to develop more comprehensive lesson plan that targets areas
that can be stimulated or improved based on their suggested interests.
For instance, if a grade nine teacher's class profile depicts that most
student in their classroom dislike the concept of astronomy, one way to
accommodate for this would be to make the unit short, but at the same
time, concentrate on making the lesson plans very interesting by
including material that will overly exceed their expectations.
Organizing the information gathered from the students can also help
teachers choose the right partners for each student or make an
appropriate seating plan that will help students perform to their
fullest learning potential. For instance, if a question on the
questionnaire asks for the student's birth order in their family, the
teacher would most likely want to pair up a first-born with a last-born,
since a group of two last born students could result in less work being
completed as a result of their joyful characteristic attitudes (see
Birth Order).
This way, the teacher can "help the students ... work together and
cooperate with one another" (Education for All, 2005, p.32).
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