You can help them learn more efficiently and this will result in a better grade for the studnet.
Hi Marshall - Thanks for your post to the forum. As you mention, we usually have to lecture, and there are some students who do not do well with lecture, but you are doing a great job at giving those students what they need learn the material.
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Hi Dr. Ude- Thanks for your post to the forum and a very thorough answer to the discussion question concerning the importance of our knowledge of the learning styles. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
By understanding students learning styles you can reprogram your course using aplicable methods that cover a wider spectrum.
What are the instructional benefits of knowing the learning styles of your students?
Put simply and in summary, instructional benefits of knowing the learning styles of one’s students include effective delivery of concepts, increased learning, and active participation. More specifically, as noted in the module information, benefits include:
• Understand and explain the differences among students.
• Ability to build on the different strengths individual students brings to the classroom.
• Help students expand their repertoire of learning strategies.
• Enables both low and average achievers to earn higher scores on standardized achievement tests.
How can this knowledge be used to help you be a more effective instructor?
Such knowledge can be of tremendous help to the facilitator in terms of customizing instructional materials and method of delivery towards the target student group.
Most of the teaching for my course is done thru lecture and demonstration. It is evident which students learn better through the demonstration component as opposed to the lecture phase. I have without a doubt a good idea which students have difficulty learning thru the lecture. They are the ones who constantly ask me questions over and over on exactly what I have just exlained.
Sometimes I feel I am lecturing in a different language from which they understand.
Once I am able to identify these individuals, I make sure important points are directed to them and I also make a special effort to follow up on them more closely during their lab segment of the lesson.
Hi John - Would you be willing to share some of the visual activities that you use in your online classes? Thanks!! Susan
Hi Andrea- Thanks for your post to the forum. You make a great point. We can deliver the material to our students but unless they "learn" it, we have not really "taught" them. So, bottom line, as you put it so well, "we also have an obligation to endure that our students are receiving this information in the best possible manner to ensure their success."
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Hi June - Wow - what great ideas for active learning! You are clearly doing everything that you can to get your students involved in their own
learning. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
The instructional benefits of knowing the learning styles of our students are imperative in the efforts of being successful as a professor. You must be able to service your students by knowing what their specific learning styles are; this is the only way that you will assist them in reaching their academic goals. In knowing this, I can better adjust my teaching styles so that I can accommodate all the students in my classes. I think it will lessen the tension of both the instructor and the student if all aspects of the specific learning styles are addressed throughout the direction of the class.
Hi, Susan! I responded to four other posts but am doing this one too just in case. I was exposed to the existence of different learning styles a few years ago and have tried to incorporate a variety of methods ever since. Sometimes I have the students walk the campus and then return to write observations which we later turn into papers. Sometimes I have them participate in contests such as vocabulary building games. I have guest speakers. We use the school files, etc., in our computer forums. The variety depends upon whether I teach in-seat or online, both of which I do concurrently.
As Instructors not only are we responsible to teach our students the required information and skills for the class, we also have an obligation to ensure that our students are receiving this information in the best possible manner to ensure their success.
I actually wrote my masters thesis on Gardner's MI and thus this is a topic that I find important and a challenge. I teach solely online and thus the written intelligence is the primary tool. To combat that I try to include visuals, activities to do, as well as, the traditional writing.
Not everyone learns at he same rate or has the same way of retaining information,so I have and exercise I like to do with all of my students called (Learning Styles). It focuses on the way in which we learn and is not only enlightening to the students but helps me to access the way in which they learn as well.
Getting to know and understanding learning styles is as useful as learning which key opens the front door to your house. Students are diverse in many ways, and learning styles are unique in many ways for each student. I do not believe that any student is foursquare any one style: no student is all visual or all auditory. Rather, there are percentages of strengths across these categories and that a multiplicity of methods and strategies should be rotationally implemented in my classroom. I think, too, that weak learning styles (or non-preferred styles for any student) can be strenthened with educational therapies and learned strategies and that a complete student can learn across any style.
Hi Cheryl-thanks for your post to the forum. You mention an important point. As we teach ourselves to teach to the diverse learning styles we also learn to learn in different ways! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
This was fun to take, and confirmed what I thought about my teaching style.
Although, considering what I teach, I couldn't really imagaine it coming out any other way.
I teach Fashion courses, and it is very hands on. I find it easy to demo, lecture and use the white board. I have very few students who will read the book. I use questioning before the projects to see who has bothered to read the text before we start, then I use questioning as I go from demo to white board. I belive this helps all types of learners.
Some students are either listeners or visual or that or both so that the instructor can reach the students to be able to learn.
By taking the time to learn how your students learn you are not only becoming a better teacher you are also showing your students that you care. Once you know how your students learn you can create lesson plans to help all your students obtain the information you are providing to them. It will also help you to learn how to learn in other ways as well.
Understanding the learning style of each student allow for more effective delivery of information. Addressing each individual style allocates that information can be readily retained such that each student can perform to their best ability. Knowledge of these styles can make me more effective by tailoring my teaching style so as to aid in the retention of information by each student.
