The love for learning is so great that it should be associated with a way of life. Education helps people to be more objective in their approach to life's problems, more analytical in trying to understand them and more aware of the consequences that can arise when handling them. Education can help lead a fuller and richer life and to be more conscious of the economic and social environment. As a lecturer of a post graduate Nursing programme at a local university, the learning style of each student needs well evaluation.
The concept of learning style has gained credibility as a construct that affects individual students' learning preferences and respective successes and failures in schooling situations (Gremli, 1996: 24-27). Over the past few decades, the concept of learning style has gained credibility as a construct that affects not only individual students' learning preferences, but also their respective successes and failures in schooling situations (Krahe, 1993; Lorge, 1947; Tuinjman, 1995). Because student success in developmental education programs relies heavily on learning performance in a variety of large-group, small-group, and individual learning situations, it behooves developmental education instructors and learning assistants to examine the relationships between student learning styles and these instructional contexts.
The term learning style is used to encompass four aspects of the person: cognitive style, i.e., preferred or habitual patterns of mental functioning; patterns of attitudes and interests that affect what an individual will pay most attention to in a learning situation; a tendency to seek situations compatible with one's own learning patterns; and a tendency to use certain learning strategies and avoid others (Canfield, A. 1980 and Delahoussaye, M. 2002). Learning styles, particularly for adults, differ from nation to nation and from culture to culture. Learning styles are simply different approaches or ways of learning.
Learners of this type, as a group, tend to be diverse, and bring a wealth of life experiences to the learning situation. In general view, mature people prefer their learning to be problem-oriented, personalized and accepting of their need for self-direction and personal responsibility. Research indicates that as people mature they develop individual learning styles that reflect personal needs and goals. One conceptualization of learning styles (developed by Kolb, 1985:) suggests that some learning styles rely more on concrete experience, while others focus on experimentation or observation or abstract conceptualization. These differences in style have implications for how training activities and environments should be structured for adults (Delahoussaye, 2002: 34). For example, the prevalence of experiential learning styles among mature people suggests that formal classrooms ought not to be the only environments to be considered by organizations when designing training.
As previously stated, education plays a very important role in the learning process of every individual in the society. It is the foundation of understanding and knowledge, and serves as a basis for the success of each individual (Pedersen & Willians 2004:1). In our case, giving a lecture or teaching these students from different nursing expertise is quite difficult. There is a possibility that some of your student get bored on a certain topic while the others are having a hard time to understand your lecture. Aside from individual differences consideration, classroom management or management of learning environment should be considered.
Classroom management, in terms of a teacher's leadership style and use of power, can influence the classroom climate and affect student learning and behavior. Since most of the students are considered mature students, an autocratic type of is not recommended in this learning situation, the classroom climate might result to negative in which the possibility of learning activities become passive, and students might learn less and the students behavior become against to your instructions. Conversely, if we try to impose a democratic type of learning, the classroom climate is might become positive where learning is active, and students learn more than they would under an autocratic teacher (Pedersen & Willians 2004:1).
Actually, teaching mature individual needs to have a careful assessment of appropriate strategies to be used in class. Teacher needs to consider motivation of students, planning, ways of giving instructions, and mode of environment in the class. Here are a number of teaching strategies to help students take more responsibility for their own learning and enhance the process of teaching for learning. Some of these strategies include lecture, active learning, critical thinking, discussion, cooperative learning, and writing ('Teaching Methods' 2008:1).
Lecture
This method is effective when used with active learning and other teaching strategies. It has many advantages, particularly in large classrooms and can be effective in meeting instructional goals ('Teaching Methods' 2008:1). Its effects to classroom behaviour are varied, depending on the response of students to the lecture of the instructor. For this strategy to become effective, the lecturer must make sure to use stimulating visual aids, with or without the use of advanced technology. As an effect, many students would become more interested in listening to the discussion and become more participative. Another way is to make the discussion more interactive.
