MILWAUKEE - No two people are alike. They have different ways of talking, eating, walking and learning.

Some people learn better by listening to the teacher, some learn better by taking notes, and some people learn better by hands-on activities.

The King’s Page (a Milwaukee King High School student newspaper)  surveyed 82 classes taught by 24 different teachers to see how students learn best. An overwhelming majority of students had similar responses about teaching and learning, both positive and negative.

Good Teaching Strategies

Hands-on learning: Many students said that they learned better through hands-on experiences, which differ from class to class. It is easier to learn from a real life situation than read about it in a textbook.

Repetition: Repeating lectures and lessons are always good to help drill information into students’ heads. Students said that they learn better when, at the beginning of class, they review material that was taught the day before.

One-on-one: Some people believe that a student can learn material taught in an hour-long class better or more efficiently when they are taught one-on-one by the teacher in a shorter amount of time. At Rufus King, most classes have about 30 students, which means teachers do not have the time to give students much, if any, individual attention. Because of this, students may not learn as well or as efficiently.

Bad Teaching Strategies
Other Students: Many students mentioned it is not necessarily the teacher who is the problem, but other students in class. In almost every single class, there is at least one student who does not want to be in school and is a disruption. Teachers sometimes focus more on getting those students to pay attention, rather than on teaching the class. Because of that one student, the whole class is affected.
“It doesn’t always depend on the teacher, the subject or the way of teaching, but it depends on how much the student wants to and is committed to learning,” one student wrote.

Lectures: Many students complained about teachers who do not interact with their students, but stand in the front of the room lecturing while the students hurry to take notes. While some teachers have few notes and go into depth during their lectures, others just have a lot of notes and speak briefly about what students are supposed to learn.

When teachers lecture, they can do one of two things: walk around the room or stand in one spot the entire time. When teachers walk around the room, students are less likely to pull out cell phones to text because the teacher is standing close by. When teachers stand in one spot the entire time, then students feel that they do not have to pay as much attention.

Zero Feedback: There are teachers who always seem to have too much to do. They have students correct each other’s homework, which is sometimes a good thing for students who did not completely finish their homework. Most of the time, however, that is not a good idea.

 When students correct each others’ papers, they only mark down when something is wrong, and they do not include the correct answer. When the students look at their own work, they know they did something wrong, but they might not know how to correct it.

Based on the survey’s findings, students tend to favor student-centered learning techniques. In our current system, however, if a student does not learn well from certain teachers because of the way they teach, the student must either adjust or fail.