Class of 13 students and there are about 4 different ways to instruct them on the material I have to get to them.
Dealing with students from 18 to 41 they do not like the material presented the same way.
You hvae to know your student body
If you know the learning styles of your students
you can modify your teaching to accomidate those styles and improve the students ability to learn the material.
Hi Sharon - I'm glad you've gotten some value from this class. You had some excellent posts!
It will allow me to assess how my students learn, so i can help them understand more completely the information they need for my course, and apply what i have taught them in the field.
Susan, thanks for asking, I feel that it is important to know the difference in learning styles in order to be an effective instructor. I know that I am a visual learner and do well with this technique while others are more auditory or hands on. I have learned through this course that by using different techniques it will keep everyone involved and keep the course interesting. It is a great way to shake things up.
That's a good point, Donna. It does often mean "stepping out of our comfort zone", but it also mmakes us try new things that inevitably make us better teachers.
By knowing your students' learning styles you can better serve the student. If you know how a student preceives information you can change the way you instruct to satify their needs. This will also teach you to step out of your own comfort zone and learning style to approach learning and teaching in a different manner.
Exactly correct, Scott! They can more easily grasp the information we are giving them when it is presented in the laerning style they prefer.
one benifit is in that knowing the styles helps get the information across more efficiently instead of losing them and they feel that the information is not relevant to what they are learning.
Hi Glenn - it definitely takes more effort to incorporate the different learning styles into your teaching, but the pay-off is terrific - engaged students!!
That's an interesting question Tim! Actually as you thought the mixed teams work better together or at least the results they achieve are generally better. Here's an interesting article about forming teams of students:
http://www.foundationcoalition.org/home/keycomponents/forming_team_decisions.html#responsibility
knowing this helps me connect with each student.
The benefits or knowing your students learning style will allow you to tailor your instruction. This has many benefits, I spend a lot of time in one to one or one to two explanations. If I understand how a student processes information not only is my instruction clearer to the individual it makes the delivery more efficient allowing me to circulate through my students more often.
This makes me a more effective teacher, not just to the individual I am working with but to my entire class.
I would imagine that the mixed teams did better as they are processing the information in a multi-faceted way. One individual may understand or grasp the concept in manner that the others did not. When they work out the details together their group may come up with a more holistic approach.
Are there learning style that work more efficiently together?
Hi Tim - you have beautifully described the learning styles in the terms of your discipline - wood-working! I think that putting together teams of diverse styles makes for great success as well as exposing the members to the usefullness of sometimes using the other styles. e.g. the hands-on folks see how much time can be saved if someone knows how to read the manual! I have in the past used team building exercises with faculty/administrators that experimented. We use two teams that were diverse and two homogeneous and we compare how successful the teams wer at completing tasks. Can you guess what the outcome was?
I Think just the act of identifying a students learning style would assist an instructor in tailoring that individuals instruction. I am going to try this at work. I teach at a wood working school and I spend a lot of time giving individual or team instruction. I have not used these labels before but I know that there are some individuals who just need to hear it, some who need me to draw the steps out, some need to see me do it and others who just have to do it themselves. That pretty much covers the four types of learners.
I wonder if when I am teaming up individuals on a project should I try to partner similar learning style or is it beneficial to mix the group?
It can help you to leave no one behind, in the learning process. you can add to or redirect the class material to get everyone involved and start conversations that brings the class and course together, making it alive and creative.
I deal with a variety of learning styles on a daily basis. The instructor has to be able to instruct all of there students weather they are book smart or a hands-on Student.
Learning to identify the learning style of my students allows me to have a more interactive class. Some will progress faster then others, and this allows me to mix and match so to speak,I'll put a visual learner with a Auditory learner and they usually make up a good team as one will pick up on something that the other did not and vicea versa. It seems to work well most of the time
Knowing about learning styles may help you understand and explain the differences you observe among students.
You may want to develop a range of teaching strategies to build on the different strengths individual students bring to the classroom.
Knowing how students differ may help you help your students expand their repertoire of learning strategies
