Hi Audrey, Thanks for your post to the forum. Yes, when a class is made up of diverse learning styles, it is vital to vary our delivery. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Hi Susan,
I'm really not sure. When my dean starting talking about learning styles I took a peek into the literature and did not find much in the way of good research. I admit that I started out biased since my grad school teaching instructor was strongly opposed to learning styles (she stated emphatically that there was no research supporting this idea), but I found little evidence to back up this approach when I looked for it myself. Most of the research was merely of the type that showed that students consisently answered learning style inventories in the same way. I'm not sure about the external validity of the concept, however. I know learning styles fits our folk psychology well, but I remain a skeptic. Most of what I found did not seem to support the use of this theory at all. Do you have any research papers you would recommend?
I do believe that using a variety of content delivery methods improves instruction, but I don't know that this has anything to do with the preferred style of my students. Varied content is more interesting and some types of presentation will be more effective for some topics.
Hi Joseph, Thanks for sharing a great example of mixed delivery! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Understanding how your students learn will enable you to help each one meet their goals. Everyone has different learning styles and you need to be able to have a vast amount of learning tools to reach each type of students. Having a successful class depends heavily on meeting each type of style and need.
Hi Amy, Thanks for your post to the forum. Learning in different ways while in school will pay off when our students are in the workplace. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Hi Joe, Thanks for sharing a great summary of the benefits of teaching to the learning styles! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
By identifying the learning styles of the students allows the instructor to develop different teaching strategizes in order to maximize the learning potential of all students in class. An example would be if one were teaching a kinesiology class with a mix of audio and kinetic learners in class I could play a recording of the muscles being named as the students worked on their manikins. As the instructor learns more about their students learning styles it allows for the instructors job to become easier as the students have an easier time understanding and retaining the information. It also allows the instructor to reach out to more students and to enrich more lives.
By identifing the learning styles of your students, an instructor can set the students up for success. By developing content with different learning styles in mind, presentations can include more students than a single methodology. Students can be incouraged to explore different styles and become more proficent with non prefered styles while playing to the strenght of a preference. Instructors become more effective by reaching more students, allowing more learning to occur and preparing students for real life situations. Most of us have to get information from listening, from reading, from doing or seeing during normal dailey routines. Let's set our students up for success.
I like to use all 4 learning styles when teaching my class. This way, it gives each student a chance to feel they can master a skill, new topic, etc... Plus, I think it can actually help all the students when they can learn from each other different ways of understanding new information.
Identify the style lerning from each student,
So, I have right tools for teaching.
It will help with the deliver of the materials
Hi Steven, Thanks for your post to the forum. The extra effort we need upfront as we plan for diverse delivery absolutely pays off in terms of learning outcomes! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
I believe that the more you know how your students learn and remember content, the eaiser it will be for you to reach everyone in your class.
This knowledge will help you in planning how you are going to prepare and deliver your lectures and your lab courses. It will aid you in reaching a larger portion of your students.
Hi Nicole, Thanks for you post to the forum. So many of our students take evening classes after working all day or have been up all night with sick children. The extra effort to diversify our teaching really helps keep their attention and engagement. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
When I am familiar with the learning styles of my students, I can better prepare how my material gets delivered. For example: If I have a predomiance of visual learners, I need to have more photos. Being a pastry chef instructor, I keep dozens of books on hand to reference what I'm discussing. Students additionally have access to these books so they can look at the photos.
I can remember being in a 4 hour Economic lecture class while doing my bachelor degree and I struggled to stay awake. I couldn't even take adequate notes because I just couldn't concentrate for more than 10 minutes. As an Instructor, I never want one of my students to feel such a way in my classroom. I make sure to implement several teaching strategies that address different learning styles thus ensuring my student's atttention.
Knowing the learning styles of our students allows us to provide an environment where every student in the classroom has a better chance to succeed. I think it's important to note that the students also have to recognize and support the learning styles of their classmates as well. For example they may hate Powerpoint presentations, but other students really enjoy and learn from them. Students have to accept that the time spent in the classroom encompasses a variety of learning tools, and they need to be respectful of the time spent on methods that they may not personally think is useful.
Hi Jeffrey, Thanks for your post to the forum. Yes, information on our students' learning styles can definitely assist us in our lesson planning!
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Hi Donna, Thanks for your post to the forum. Excellent that you know about your students' learning styles! The impact on our lesson planning is amazing!
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
It will help student retain the information that is being delivered. It will also help an instructor grow by being able to deliver content in many different ways.
When the instructor understands the learning style, it is much easier for the instructor to plan classes. My students in their first term actually take a learning styles assessment and this helps me to plan out any additional resources I may need for class. It helps the class run more smoothly, for both the students and myself.
