Reflection of Week 9

Woow ... Extraordinary models of Learning style we learned this week.
I read some articles about learning styles and their implications for teaching, and Multiple Intelligences. 

1) Learning Styles

http://www.ian-bradbury.com/documents/

Montgomery and Groat (http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no10.pdf) proposed many reasons why we need to incorporate learning styles in our teaching process. There are five reasons they stated: 1) Making Teaching and Learning a Dialog; 2) Responding to a More Diverse Student Body; 3) Communicating our message; 4) Making teaching more rewarding; and 5) Ensuring the future of Our Disciplines. In relation to my own teaching, those five reasons are very logic, particularly the reason of making teaching and learning a dialog. To avoid the boredom and boring activity, we are as teachers must be able to shift teaching methods from the boring method to the interesting one. Making dialog is one of the interesting method of teaching translation I did. This method does not create teaching situation passive, students do not only listen to me explaining translation theory and just sit on the chairs sleepily, but they are active answering and discussing problems and giving comments one another.This is one example way of incorporating learning styles based on the students' mood and interest. This way can make students active and reflective. It is in accordance with Felder and Soloman (http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm) that have ideas in incorporating learning styles for active and reflective learners.
Then, talking about learning style models discussed by Montgomery and Groat (http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no10.pdf) that introduced four models of learning style: 1) Myers-Briggs Type Indicator; 2) Kolb/McCarthy Learning Cycle; 3) Felder-Silverman Learning Styles Model; 4) Grasha-Riechmann Learning Styles, I do agree with all learning style models that can be incorporated in teaching, but not all models can be appropriate for teaching translation.
In my mind, the learning style model that is appropriate with my class of translation is Kolb's Learning Style that has for valuable aspects that can be matched to the teaching and learning process. In this model the teacher is as the assimilator, converger, accommodator, and diverger. Those roles can be played in some students' activities based on the concept of WHAT, HOW, WHAT IF, and WHY.

http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no10.pdf

The students' activities can be derived and implemented through some activities based on the following model of activities. 

http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no10.pdf

Practically I incorporated this Kolb's Learning Style in my classroom translation activities as follows:

A) WHAT (Teacher as an assimilator/expert in)
1) Lectures of translation theory;
2) Students' textbook reading activity;
3) Doing translation practice;
4) Student's independent research in translation;
5) Making objective exams of translation.

B) HOW (Teacher as a coach/converger in)
1) Doing and solving homework problems;
2) Using computer simulation for doing assignments (through blogs and class site);
3) Making individuals' reports by posting on learner blogs;
4) Demonstrating translation exercises.

C) WHAT IF (Teacher as an evaluator/remediator in)
1) Ending problems;
2) Student presentation;
2) Designing projects of translating;
3) Holding subjective exam;
4) Doing simulation.

D) WHY (Teacher as a diverger/motivator in)
1) Motivational stories;
2) Group discussion;
3) Group projects;
4) Subjective tests;
5) Doing field research.

2) Multiple Intelligences

http://greeneyezwinkin2.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/dr-howard-gardner-on-multiple-intelligences/

In relation to the Multiple Intelligences cited on http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html, I have an opinion that translating activities in translation classes tend to:
1) Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence that leads students to be smart in understanding linguistic problems in translation;
2) Interpersonal Intelligence that makes students being responsive on all problems of translation;
3) Naturalist intelligence that forms students to be smart in classifying, analyzing, and categorizing translation problems based on the real facts in daily life.
That's all what I can summarize from what I read through some suggested articles.

Best regards,
Rudi Hartono