Meaghan Winnans

EDU 211

Learner Education Profile

3 March 2021

Learner Education Profile

School has always been something I struggled with ever since first grade. When I was

younger, I never fully understood why I struggled so much or why I couldn’t be in the same

classrooms with my friends. The one thing that has always ran in my head since elementary

school has been “why can’t I be smart. Starting my second year of first grade I had an

individualized education plan (IEP), mainly because I was very far behind a lot of my classmates

even after being held back and getting help throughout the summer. Having the label of an IEP

made me feel so discouraged about myself and that I wasn’t good enough to get through school.

Even though I was not the only student with one and even some of my best friends have been

met due to me being in those IEP classes, I still felt alone in the education world. It was not until

the end of my sophomore year of high school that I started to gain some confidence in my

education and that was because I had finally outgrown my IEP and was put into mainstream

classrooms. Being able to sit in a large classroom defiantly did come with major setbacks but I

was ready and determined to succeed. Nevertheless, I did succeed but I still lacked that

confidence all the way up through the end of my senior year until I go into college. Getting into

college was the ultimate confidence boost because it finally meant that I had a purpose, and I

could make my own dreams happen as long as I worked long and hard for them and that is

exactly what I have been doing.

 Starting young, I was always the student to learn hands on. Any game/movement, sensory

play, or even getting to write on the smart board has always boosted my learning ability and

memorization. Being able to see things right in front of me instead of trying to picture something

in my head has always been my go-to and still to this day I am a very hands-on student and

teacher. I was also the type of student who needed a strict teacher who would use a higher voice

and even though those types of teachers had scared me while I was younger, I totally understand

why I needed that. I remember my third-grade teacher and how I was completely terrified of her

because she was older and was very strict. All the other parents didn’t want their children to have

her, but my mom was very happy because she was the type of teacher I needed to succeed.

Which that year I progressed so much in all my reading, writing, and math due to her type of

teaching. Of course, having a fun, goofy teacher like my sister had her third-grade year is always

fun, but I needed lots of structure in my education and I still need that with certain professors and

classes.

Test taking, I feel is one of the things that makes me very stressed out and unfocused as a

student. I have been and still am not a good test taker. Days prior to exams I do not sleep and am

up all-night lying-in bed trying to go over everything that I just studied. These feelings don’t just

stop at your simple class exams, but the feeling goes all the way to major tests like the PARCC,

SAT’s, and anything that is needed to get into college majors. I feel if I didn’t have tests, I would

succeed much more as a student because these tests have such a major impact on someone’s life

as in where they’ll go to college and even what they’ll be able to study. I also think that I

struggle on test taking because I focus too much on the little details instead of big ideas. I feel

like I need to know every single little thing instead of just remembering the huge parts and then

just little things that go with it.

 No matter what grade I’ve been in, the teaching style that has always worked best for me is

student-centered approach to learning. In student-centered learning the teacher and children work

equally in the learning process and it isn’t just one large lecture that is being given by the

teacher. There is a lot of area for groupwork and hands- on activities which when I was younger

and still now, I love being able to work with a group or get to be hands on especially with

science because I don’t feel so alone while trying to learn. I feel that I do not learn the best when

the classroom is teacher-centered learning because I get very bored and distracted while just

listening to a teacher go on and on during a lecture. Teacher-center learning also gives a lot less

chance for activities being hands on which is also a way I learn a lot better.

Some difficulties with teaching styles were during my first year at County College of Morris

I took a psychology class where the teacher would lecture for the entire hour and fifteen minutes

and then just end the class. I found it so difficult to learn because all I was learning through was

a PowerPoint with a textbook so when the spring semester ended up being online, I was so

thankful because I was able to find my own way of learning the class subjects. I think it is a little

sad though that I had to find another way to learn a class because the teacher only had one way

of teaching. On the other hand, one of the most amazing classes I have ever had was my senior

year anatomy and physiology class. The reason I think I succeeded so well in a hard class like

that is because the teacher always had hands on activities or group work during ever class. No

matter what we were learning there was always something that went along with it and I felt like

that made me so much more interest in the subject.

Howard Gardner’s Multiple Views if Intelligence was created in 1983 by the developmental

psychologist Howard Gardner. Gardner theory splits different types of intelligence abilities into

sections instead of just labeling someone as intelligent. There is a total of 9 different

intelligences which are naturalist, musical, logical-mathematical, existential, interpersonal,

bodily-kinesthetic, existential, intrapersonal and linguistic. After taking an intelligence quiz my

result stated that my intelligence type is interpersonal meaning that I am very good at

understanding and interacting with people whether it is verbally or nonverbally. This intelligence

is also very good at sensing people’s feelings and motives. I totally agree with the outcome of

my quiz because I am very good with understanding and interacting with people around me no

matter the differences. I am also a people person and can usually feel the mood of most people in

the room. I think this is a great intelligence to have especially with inspirations to be a teacher

because it gives me the ability to interact and communicate with other people and children all

around me. The way I would use it in my future classroom would be to always be checking up

with my students on how they are doing and feeling. Having a relationship with a student is very

important because they need to trust you, but it is also a way to see how well they are learning

and what adjustments need to be made to help them grow. The intelligence that I think would be

my second would be bodily-kinesthetic because I am very active and always love playing games

that involve moving around which also help with being a huge hands-on learner. Also being a

cheerleader for almost my entire life I have developed a love for movement and striving for

perfection which I think comes with almost any athlete. Being bodily-kinesthetic gives me a

great opportunity to get my student in the future up and moving and creating games for learning

subjects. Whether it is playing games or acting out parts of books the children will be moving

around and learning with their body. I think interpersonal and bodily-kinesthetic are two great

intelligences to have and they both can go hand in hand with each other.

The intelligence that I think I am least favorable to is linguistic and musical. The reason I I

think being linguistic is one of my weaknesses is because I am not very good at public speaking
and always finding the correct words to use at the same time. I am also not very good at learning

different languages which is one of the parts of being linguistic. I know being linguistic would be

very beneficial for becoming a teacher because I’ll be standing in front of children, but it is

something that I am still striving to achieve while working as an assistant teacher. The reason I

also think musical intelligence is a weakness is because I am not very good with listening and

dissecting music. Music has never been a favorite as mine and only did it because it was a

require meant but I feel like in order to be musically intelligence you have to love music or

creating music and I just don’t. I do think though that having music in the classroom is very

much needed especially with children who learn the most by putting things to songs or having

motions to songs so even though it is not an intelligence of mine, it is something that will still be

included in my classroom.