Knowing the learning styles of your students
What are the instructional benefits of knowing the learning styles of your students? How can this knowledge be used to help you be a more effective instructor?
The instructional benefits of knowing the learning styles of your students will alllow the instructor to modify and adjust the teaching style to enhance the learning process. As an effective instructor, the importance of assessment of the students learning styles is always ongoing.
Knowing the different learning styles of your students will help you be able to teach them according to how they learn.
Knowing what learning styles your students prefer allows you to tailor your teaching methods to those styles. If you are unsure of what styles your students learn best by, trying to incorporate all of them will allow each student the opportunity to learn.
This is a great idea and something I have never done before. I plan on using it soon and have to think it will be a great help to me and in return to my students.
Knowing the various learning styles of your students will enable you to present the material in such a way as to make the student want to respond.
I teach a night class and not only am I concerned about my students learning styles but it is a little harder to keep them engaged... I find the more animated that I can be through role playing or other fun ways of keeping the class awake works best for me.
The main instructional benefit I see to knowing the learning styles of your students is catering to how they wish to receive the content. Students time is precious so another benefit is guiding them to know which way they learn best to help students succeed.
One way to gauge this outside of observing students is using a beginning of the semester survey which includes a few questions of which way they prefer to learn. In addition, students sometimes think they know what works best for them, but it is not so it is good to include learning style inventory questions that are freely available.
There are many instructional benefits to knowing this including tailoring your instruction, becoming more aware of your students, etc. Once you know your audience it is important to not just cater to the majority, but also provide individualized resources for all students and guide students to the appropriate content. During in-class sessions I try to provide a variety of methods that focus on the majority of way students learn including visual and auditory. I try to get all my students to use their written modality by taking notes; however, I truly emphasize this to the students with this preference before class. To break up instruction, I then provide breakouts where kinesthetic learning takes place and I walk around the room for guidance.
One of the ways to make the process of "Teaching and Learning" successful is utilizing a differentiated approach in both concept delivery and assessment. This will provide an avenue in addresing & reinforcing the learning needs of students with different learning styles.
IF you understand your students learning style you will be able to vary your method of instruction to reach all of your students
By knowing your students learning styles you can better direct your efforts in a more focused way.
It will also create a more dynamic environment which will benefit all students (and instructor as well)
I have not used a learning assessment tool but plan on starting next quarter. It will allow me to identify my students styles early in the quarter. Thanks!
Knowing the students learning styles helps you plan your instructional material better. It allows you to be able to reach each student and insure they all understand the information and that no one is being left behind.
Hi Mary, Tanks for your post to the forum. Knowing the learning styles of our students early is a great advantage as we prepare lesson plans. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Knowing the learning styles will help you know which way the students learn the best. The students will be more involved in their success. It makes teaching much easier and efficient.
If I know the learning styles of my students, I can be more effective in presenting the information to them. I like the idea of giving a test to assess their learning styles; that's not something I thought of doing.
agree. students nowadays know whats the best style. I once do night class and I learned to deliver an upbeat class considering they all had a long day
Knowing the learning styles of my students will give me a road map of my class preperation
Hi Lee, Thanks for your post to the forum. It really takes carefully planning your lessons to include delivery options for each of the styles. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
using different learning styles help keep student focused
