Luthfi’s Review: Understanding Student Differences Part 2

Hallo there, fellow English Education Students! Today, I will tell you the second part of Understanding Differences review; yup, this journal indeed will be the best journal for you if you are planning to become a teacher someday, especially if you are going to manage large classes; this remarkable journal written by Professor Richard M. Felder shall give you a new perspective of handling your students one by one and in the end, we hope you guys will able to optimize your students’ potential.

Well, after we had talked about the introduction of this paper, which was the declining interest of senior high school students into engineering, then we are going to talk about the next part which would be the theories or literature review; overall this part we will talk about the orientation and introductory details of this paper which would be explained on the next review.

The first thing you should know according to this journal that there are 3 key points which differs students thus determining their differences; the three key points are:

1.      Learning Styles

2.      Approaches to Learning and Orientation to Studying

3.      Intellectual Development

However, spoiler alert, even though you have manage to understand every single of the key points, this journal stated that it would be unrealistic to use an adapted teaching strategy in order to suit your students’ preferences in learning styles to intellectual development; teacher should use a variables method in every learning session and shall not be rigid in the terms of learning method, which means that teacher should change his teaching method regularly, by regularly changing it, it would help your students who have preference on particular learning method and will give a new challenge to those who believe such learning method is quite difficult for them.

Learning Styles

Learning styles include:

·         Cognitive aspect

·         Affective aspect

·         Psychological behaviours aspect

Which will determine how our student shall respond to learning. For example, some students are:

·         Comfortable with theories and abstraction

·         Comfortable reading alone

·         Comfortable with active learning

·         Comfortable with lectures and visual presentation

·         Comfortable with discussion

However, all of the learning styles indeed have their own strengths and weaknesses and if one student being served with a comfortable leaning style; it would be a pleasure for him, if one student being served with a contrary learning style; it shall be a challenge for him.

Approaches to Learning and Orientation to Studying

In terms of learning there are 3 options for students to approach them, which are:

·         Reproducing Orientation

Student who has this orientation will only learn by memorization, mechanical substitution, and note; there will be no creativity in this approach therefore student would have a slight chance to comprehensively understand about the learning material; this approach called Surface Approach

·         Meaning Orientation

Student who has this orientation will try to explore every branches and possibilities about one particular learning material, thus he will try to ask any questions in order to comprehensively understand about the material; this approach called Deep Approach

·         Achieving Orientation

Student who has this orientation will indeed do anything in order to get the highest grade they can, taking a deep approach or a surface approach; depends on the situation which will determine their approach; this approach called Strategic Approach

Intellectual Development

Every student has their own unique in terms of intellectual development. However, this development could be put simply as how students’ think whenever they received a learning material; will they just simply agree or will they ask a question and try to explore any options for that material rather than solely relying on teacher’s explanation? Spoiler alert, it is mandatory for teacher to develop their students’ development into the level where they have an urge to explore and ask any possibilities about one particular material.

Well, that is all the 3 key points of student differences, I hope it shall be helpful for you, especially if you want to understand your students even better. Next, we will explore learning styles more deeply. Good luck!

*This writing is just review and has been paraphrased; disclaimer would be all belong to Professor Richard M. Felder

References

Felder, M. R. (2005). Understanding Student Differences. Carolina State University. ResearchGate