Effective Schools #4 - A Personalized Learning Environment

Effective Schools Point#4

According to New Visions for Public Schools an effective school has knowledge of each student learning style, social and family conditions, strengths, aspirations, and needs. Each student enjoys strong relationships with other students and a close continuous relationship with one or more adults in the school environment. This relationship should be supported throughout the high school years to prepare for higher education, employment, or other productive future plans to get the "Best Education Possible".

Parents and students should know their learning style. It is so important because that is the way the child will remember information. There are three basic learning styles and usually on learning style will be more dominate:

1. The Visual Learner- This child learns best by seeing and reading the information

2. The Auditory Learner- This child learns best by hearing the information

3. Body Kinesthetic Learner- This child learns best by moving or manipulating information.

To read more about learning styles go to my blog and read the series I did on learning styles.

Questions and Things to Do:

1. Do you know your child's learning style? If not, I have a series of blogs about learning styles. Read the series and you should be able to determine your child's learning style. Perhaps your child's teacher has already figured out the learning style. This will be truly helpful throughout your child's educational and employment experiences. The learning style is how a you learn and retain information best.

2. It is really important for the school to know as much personal information about your child as possible or as you feel comfortable in revealing. This is because the principal and teachers will know how to handle certain or sensitive areas. If you want to tell the principal or teacher things in confidence, the school should always handle those situations professionally.

3. There should be a mentoring program at the school. This is where an adult will get involved with helping the student improve in academic or social matters. Hopefully, the relationship will continue throughout high school. Many times there are missing parents or single parent households and there needs to be additional influences in a child's life. Sometimes it is just good to have someone else involved in helping with the development of a child.

4. Every child should feel apart of the school family and there should be someone they can go to that they feel comfortable talking with. The guidance counselor is usually a person students will go to, but sometimes it will be a favorite teacher or older student. Hopefully, there are positive role models and concerned adults helping all children having difficulty.