Learning Styles - Mix it up and watch them learn !!
When I teach a class I use the multi pronged approach to learning. Being a chef instructor there are many dishes / techniques of cooking that need to be taught,for this I take it as follows :
1. I talk about what we will be doing tomorrow, this is done at the end of a class, and tell the students to read up for the next day.
2. The student reads about it as his home work.
3. The next day I talk about the dish as a theory lecture and discuss the dish in detail.
4. I do a demo of the dish while talking about the methodology and covering points that were discussed.
5. The students now make the dish keeping in mind, the procedure discussed and what was demonstrated.
6. I critique the dish made ( Individually ) and at the end of the class we do a general discussion on the challenges in making the dish and what could have been done better by the students to make the dish better.
7. The next day before class we discuss what we made yesterday.
By this approach I cover all styles of learning and the students do wonderfully well, enjoy the cooking class which can be challenging but is a class they look forward to !!!!
I think that this style of teaching will work for many different classes. I teach public speaking and I think I will adapt to this method. Thanks!
Hi John - I think that is a great exercise! It involves the students in learning to adapt themselves to other styles which is something we all need to do to some extent. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching! Susan
In a College Success course, we discuss learning styles with the students. As an in-class activity, students are divided into three groups (we only focus on auditory, visual and kinesthetic). Each group is assigned 1 learning style and told to prepare course instruction for "making a pbj sandwich" for the group they have been assigned to. All students then evaluate and discuss the effectiveness of the other groups and the practicalities in adapting to all learning styles. They learn from each other!
