Surveying the students at the beginning of a course is a great way for them to tell you their preferred learning style. While an instructor may not be able to address each style each day, it serves as a reminder to vary content delivery to meet each of the four styles of learning.
There are big rewards to understanding and accessing the different learning styles of your students. To take the initiative and the time to learn those styles shows the students that you really truly care for them and their education.
Taking the learning styles into account will allow an instructor to tailor the class to the various ways students learn. One may find that in a classroom that a few may be visual learners while others are auditory learners. This helps in structuring the class through proper planning to include both these styles while introducing others that may be applicable in areas of opportunity (e.g employment) that students will be applying to. The way one company addresses learning may be in stark contrast to the way another does.
HI Huseyin- Thanks for your post to the forum. You are teaching to the learning styles very effectively! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Knowing the learning styles of your students, especially a new class, will provide you with a perspective of which delivery method is going to be the most affective for the majority of the class. From their an Instructor will have an idea of which students may require a little more help or a different method of delivery.
Of course using several types of teaching methods will hopefully benifit all of the students and add a level of redundancy for better over all retention of the material.
By knowing the different learning styles, it helps me understand the background of my student and utilize the appropriates learning style
Hi Roemarie- Thanks for your post to the forum. You might want to consider adding some "get up and move" activities routinely. Get students up to the board, or put them in groups to discuss a topic. All styles appreciate some diversity!
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
One of my students ocasionally gets up during my lecture and stretches or walks to the back of the class and then sits back down again. Sometimes when he does this I ask the rest of the class to follow suit and stretch themselves also. It wasn't until reading this module that I recognized that this was a part of his learning style. Very interesting.
By knowing the different styles of your students, you can make your class presentation more effevtive.
Hi Veronica- I hope that you continue to get good results by varying your delivery to reach all the learning styles! Susan
This week was the first week of school, I used different delivery methods to find out how they will learn. Questions and answers were very good for the first day.
Hi Summer - Yes, once students understand how they learn, they can play an active role in their education by finding the tools that they need to learn in the best way. Best wishes - Susan
By knowing the learning styles of students an instructor can decide how to present the content of the class. It may not be possible to provide the content for the maximum benefit of each learning style, but providing the content in more than one style will maximize the ability of the most students to learn the content. The instructor then might be able to make suggestions to individuals about how that specific student's learning style can be used to enhance learning. In my on line class, material is presented in a variety of ways and the students can choose how to access it. There is also standard reading, discussions and lecture time. By presenting the material in a variety of manners, the student can choose the method which is most beneficial.
Thanks so much for sharing this. This is a great tool and I plan on sharing it with others as well.
One of the things discussed in the points for this section was the idea of teaching how we learn and whether or not that is the best strategy. When I was answering some of the questions on the Teaching Style questionaire, it made me reflect upon the teachers I most connected to and felt I learned the most from. I can see their dominant teaching style also being similar to mine.
However, regardless of our own learning and teaching style, our jobs require us to impart knowledge to students in whatever way helps them understand it. I do think ensuring all student understand their learning style is key to their success, so even if they feel they are not getting what they need from an instructor, they are able to articulate what they do need. I have asked students, "What else do you think would help you understand this [a concept, etc.], or how else can I explain this to you?" Students who are aware of their own learning style are able to articulate what works and doesn't work for them and assist you and themsevles.
The instructional benefits of knowing the learning styles of your students provides you the ability to plan the method of delivery you can use, such as reading, powerpoint presentation, hands-on, auditory. These methods will provide the students various styles of receiving and retaining information. These methods/styles will reach all of your students to process the information that helps them to understand.
In my class I begin with a PPT presentation after a few slides, I have about a 5 to 10 minutes discussion on the slides that were presented or after the PPT presentation, we break up into individual or teams of 2, and do case studies in which they have to do a presentation.
Understanding the students' learning styles can be the difference between learning or not learning. As an instructor, I am constantly making sure that I prepare class content that involves as many learning styles as possible. I try to always have a lecture, multimedia elements, to make my point, and small group discussions.
By knowing the learning styles of your students, learning will be more effective and succesful. It make seem difficult identifying each of the student's learning styles but it will ultimately be rewarding and satisfying for you.
In nursing as in other professions it is essential to evaluate & understand variations in learning styles. Understanding the variety of learning strengths of our students is the basis for their success in the achademic arena as well as in meeting their ultimate goal of passing the nursing boards. Most importantly it is our goal & responsibility to prepare students for a succesful transition from student to professional nurses. In order to meet these goals our understanding of learning styles of our students helps in directing & focusing our achademic & skills learning.
Hi Robert- Thanks for your post to the forum. It is always good practice to vary our delivery as often as possible. By doing this we reach all the styles over the course of the class. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
I’m an auditory learner, if I don’t know the learning styles of my students; I’d spend most of my time just lecturing at them. Instead, what I try to do in order to cover as many students as possible is combine lecturing, with power point, reading assignments, games, and as much hands-on doing as possible in class.
