Are there methods to learn and teach?

I am a firm believer that best way to learn is to teach.

When I was in 12th, I had a teacher by the name Joseph. He used to teach us chemistry. I have never come across a person who used to teach Inorganic Chemistry as good as him. More than a teacher, he was a friend to us.

I asked him once - “How come you are so good at Chemistry?”. His response was “because I teach it”. He used to say “To master a subject, you need to teach that subject.” I didn’t understand the enormity of the statement then but just went on with my life. He was the guy who inspired me to become a teacher.

Later I completed my post graduation and chose teaching as my profession. I used to engage Graduate and Post Graduate Computer Science in an engineering college in Bangalore. It was during this time when I came across Kolb's Learning Styles. When I came across this I realised that though it is true that you learn when you teach. But it is also true that you teach the way you learn.

What is this Kolb’s learning model?

According to this model, broadly speaking, there four ways in which humans learn.

Activist: These people like doing things practically to learn anything. These people like doing things practically, even at the risk of going wrong. They don’t mind failing. They rather fail trying to doing something rather than spend hours reading something. These people are more interested in “how” part of knowledge.

Theorist: These people like reading lot of theoretical material to learn anything. They like understanding and assimilating each and every theoretical aspect of a concept to finally connect the dots and make sense of what they are learning. They are more seekers of “what”.

Pragmatist: These people like going through case studies and see how a concept is applied in a real world scenarios to make a sense of what they are learning. These are the people who ask the question “why” a lot. Why should I learn differential equations - where is it used. You should give them lot of examples, case studies to convince them that “why” something that is being taught to them is important. You can’t inspire them to learn by showing them “how” or “what” aspect.

Reflector: These people are really careful observers. They rather stand back, observe other people do what they are doing and then learn based on other’s experiences. They prefer noting down all their observations diligently and then they need time out to go through these observations. Based on these observations they will make lot of questionnaire and spend time doing analysis. These the people who don’t raise hand in class room when teachers says “Any questions?” They would rather process the whole information and later visit staff room with lot of questions in their head/notebook.

What I have written here is not exactly how it is written in Kolb’s learning model. But this what my understanding of Kolb’s model is - as of now. I am not a psychologist. If any one can help me improve my understanding of Kolb’s model, I welcome it. So let’s continue further.

Please understand that any one doesn’t learn using only one of the methodologies described above. Every one of us has a bit of activist, theorist, pragmatist and reflector in us. We keep continuously switching between these characters to assimilate and process information and learn.

However we all have some inherent stronger biases towards some of these methods of learning. The reason for these biases could be our cultural & social upbringing or even the way we are wired in our head and combination of multiple variables. But, fact of the matter is, we have stronger biases to some of these learning methodologies. Some one might be more of a reflector. Some one might be more of an activist - inspite of using remaining three methodologies to learn anything.

So this explains how we learn. But what does it got to do with teaching?

It has got everything to do with teaching.

Don’t forget that even teachers are humans and they have their own learning biases. This influences the way a teacher teaches. If a teachers is more of a Activist - then while teaching also he would teach by doing lot of practical stuff.

No awards for guessing what this will lead to. For students whose learning bias is in alignment with teachers’ learning bias - the class seems to be really going great. They are in tune with what teacher is doing in clasroom. But for others - they are in a boring lecturer. Other student’s don’f feel stimulated enough by the lecture at all. Their learning biases are making it difficult to enjoy what going on in class room.

So how to solve this conundrum. It’s not that difficult as many good teachers do it. I am sure you might have met at least one teacher - who every one used to like (because of their teaching ;-) ). Students want to attend their lecturers. What are they are doing is - they cater to all four learning biases. They show how to do things practically. They talk theory. They stimulate discussion in classroom. Ask lot of questions. Answer most of them and leave some of them unanswered for curious seekers to seek the answer.

I am not saying that good teacher do it because all of them know Kolb’s learning model. Rather I would say they their natural teaching basically caters to all four learning biases. Teachers who are really good and loved by their students are quite natural at this. But it helps for any teacher to know this and incorporating certain changes in their teaching style to make it more effective for students.

That is why I say, though it is true that you learn when you teach. But it is also true that you teach the way you learn.