Learning Styles

Each learner has their own style of learning. As a teacher it is up to us to adapt to the learners learning style to teach them in a meaningful way. Traditionally, things have been taught in one style and if that does not correspond to your way of learning then you are disadvantaged.

The most commonly used model is based on Neil Fleming’s VAK model:

·         Visual

·         Auditory

·         Kinaesthetic

Visual learners learn through seeing things written down, or similarly organised. These people need to see what you are talking about, our exercise traditionally helps such learners by the way we show our information, blue lines and circles of work are perfect examples  of how they take information that is best for them. For such ringers once they are method learning they are in the best place. So for instance they will best learn a 3-4 down dodge through seeing it written down and how the two bells doing the dodge interact.

Auditory learners learn through hearing and speaking things to understand. These will hear and often repeat information given them in order to organise it. So talking to the learner about what they do is the best way for them. For instance they will learn best a 3-4 down dodge through explaining that they are hunting down and need to hold all the way up into 4ths and then quickly back down to 3rds and to the lead.

Kinaesthetic learners are ones who learn through doing. These will feel what needs to be done, though without a visual or auditory element it is often difficult to get them to feel it, though we all use this to some extent, like learning where the balance point on the bell is, we can’t be told where it is, we can’t hear or see when it is there but we can feel it. For these learning the 3-4 down dodge will be done by feeling what the different pulls are like to understand what the dodge is like.

While the model itself has many opponents, it is certainly easier if you are able to teach using all three techniques then they will get information from each source.

Planning for the Individual

When deciding what each person will ring requires four questions to be answered:

·         What is the learner’s long term goal?

       ·         What is the learner’s short term goal?
       ·         What did the learner do last time?

·         How well did the learner do last time?

In the early stages of ringing quite often the long term goal isn’t applicable, after all if you are handling the next goal is rounds, planning further ahead might be a bit excessive. But if you are ringing plain hunt, the longer term goal could be trebling to a method.

The questions really need to be answered in reverse order, how well did they do last time?

·         Got it! (Time to move on; do the short and long term goals need to be changed?)

·         Almost there (Some more of the same until they get it)

·         Still a little way off (What is it that they are not getting, are there intermediary steps that can be brought in?)

·         Nowhere near (Is what they did last time appropriate? are there intermediary steps that can be brought in? Has the exercise been explained to them in a way they understand?)

Then based on how well they did you can then decide what they should be doing this time. Some people can remember what people did and how well they did easily and so they are very easily able to plan for the next thing for others this is quite difficult. Do not be afraid of making notes about what people are doing and where they are supposed to be going, that way you can easily see what is being done and alert you if someone has been at “Almost there” for the same task for the last 6 weeks; maybe that is a sign that there is something fundamental about the task which they are just not able to grasp.

The other thing to consider is making sure that the learner is not bored at doing the same thing each time. It might be possible for them to learn the same skill in another way, for instance using Mexican waves to help with moving their bell into the right place instead of just called changes.

Planning a Practice

It seems that we are all living increasingly busy lives, and because of that we are all trying to get the most out of everything that we do. It is a frustration of mine when at the end of a touch or piece of ringing there is a 10 minute discussion about what to ring next. That time could be filled with a quick touch of something, or ringing something else for someone. The key to make the most out of your practice night is to plan in advance, like the old phrase says “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”. It doesn’t need to be down to the detail of band placement for each thing rang, but it could do.  However, there should be an overall plan and structure to the night. Some ringing masters make this seem effortless and seem to be able to do this on the fly; others will have it all written down.
In its simplest form it is a list of who you have coming to practice and what you want them to ring that evening, that way everything will have a purpose and you have identified what you want as your prime rings.

Ringer	Prime Ring
Dave	Rounds with call changes
Eric	Plain hunt on 5 from the treble
Fran	Touch of Bob Minor
Etc.	Etc.

TIP:

To help you plan your practice, consider having a sign-up sheet, that way you know who to expect and what to plan to ring. After all there is no point planning to ring surprise major if you know you won’t have enough ringers. Similiarly, there is no point in planning to ring Plain Hunt for another learner if they are on holiday.

This sign-up sheet can also be used so you know who is available for Sunday Service ringing, that way if you are going to be short you know about it in advance and can either cancel ringing or call round to get one or two extra ringers.

Prime Ring

One practice I visited were ringing plain hunt on 7 for their learners.  I have no objection to ringing stuff to help learners, what I did object to was that there were four learners in it. So we had learners on the 2, 3, 4 and 5. There were some lumpy rounds and we went into the changes and it starts ok, and gets worse until the point where the 2 is somewhere up near 11ths place the 3^rd never got higher than 5ths and there is a lot of shouting and it stands up. We tried again and again the slow decay set in until it stood. On the next attempt we actually got round, well that’s all was called at the end so I guess that that was progress. The next attempt was just the same as the first. I thought there has to be a better way than this.

And there is.

There is a concept called the prime ring, a term I first heard coined by Pip Penney, though I have experienced this beforehand elsewhere. The idea is that for each learner they have (at least) one piece of ringing where they are the only learner. This has the huge advantage that, say in the plain hunt, the learner could rely on the rest of the band to be right, and even give those tell-tale winks and signals so that the learner knows who they should be following. The consequence of this is then that the learner is able to learn things quicker because if they are for instance following the third in fourths place they will always know that that is in the right place instead of suddenly holding up because the third is too high. They will be able to see the gaps, if they have rope sight and certainly hear if they are wrong.

It is not always possible to give each learner a prime ring, for instance, in the first example if there were only eight people in the practice then to learn plain hunt on seven all learners would have to ring at once. If it is not possible to have one learner per attempt then look at making sure that they are not on bells that course each other, say the three and the four, that way they head out in opposite directions.

Not every ring needs to be a prime ring, but I would suggest that the learner should get at least one piece of prime each night if possible.