Every student needs to feel included and they want to learn or they would not be there. A good instructor will attempt to reach all the students in the class and as such must employ all the learning styles to reach everyone. By varying the delivery methods, each student takes in at least some of the material in their preferred learning style.
If we want to reach every student with new information, it is important to incorporate different teaching styles to support the varying learning syles of our students. Auditory students can be reached through lectures and verbal reviews, visual learners can be addressed with a PowerPoint Presentation, writing on the whiteboard, and/or displays; kinesthetic learners can be reached by taking them into the lab for hands-on learning. This might be challenging for intructors for some subjects but it is extremely important that instructors do the best that they can to try to support the different learning styles of our students.
Hi Niels- Thanks for your post to the forum, Your strategies for addressing the learning styles are excellent! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Incorporating multiple delivery methods ensures that different styles are accomodated. We have a sizable number of visual and tactile learners and need to ensure we utilize not only PowerPoint lecture but also things like situational role playing, simulations, and reading to reinforce the material covered in class.
Some material that is to be presented does not allow you to vary into other styles of learning. This happens with some concepts of math,when an Instructor has both time shortage and concept to cover.
It not only helps the student but challenges the instructor to incorporate variuos means of getting the information to the students. Your students don't get bored.
If not all of the students, I will reach most of them.
I want the students to leave the course with as much knowledge and know how as possible
The more often I can use different learning styles, the more I will achieve my goals and the students goals.
Variety in presentation will best meet the different learning styles of the students. By being exposed to different methods of presentation, students will also be able to improve their ability to process material presented in new ways.
I feel it is important that success is an opportunity that is afforded to each student. As teachers we must meet the child's learning abilities in order for them to be successful.
It is important to provide approaches and resources that complement the learning styles of my students so that they can search for things outside of class to learn from as well as in class from myself.
It's important to address varied learning styles because you want to appeal to your students' strengths. College-level work can be challenging enough for many of our students, so working to make it an "equal playing field," so to speak, can make it that much more manageable for the students in our class to progress through the curriculum successfully. We should never become complacent about our responsibility as instructors to do our best to help our students learn. That's the key!
Hi Stacie- Thanks for your post to the forum. You are covering all the bases needed to address the learning styles. I'm glad that you shared that making that effort can be really fun!
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
As an educator it is my goal to get as much information retention as possible for my students, so using a variety of teaching styles helps me teach to a variety of learning styles. I teach in a technical program so I am able to utilize a lot of hands on lab teaching which is very beneficial to the students. I like to use videos to show things I can not and ppt is a great tool as I put in many pictures so students can get visuals. I like the variety too as it tends to present fun challenges for me.
Stacie
Hi Todd- Thanks for your post to the forum. You have the right idea - the more resources we give our students the more times we address different learning styles and as yo say - "the more they learn"! Best wishes- Susan
Having resources available to the students is critical. They can be powerpoints, lecture notes, or the hands on equipment that they need to use.
By providing these items, you support the students learning style. It also gives you the oppotunity to give students resources that are not their primary learning styles. I think that the more we use multiple forms, the more they learn.
It is important to include activities from all learning styles into every class because students in the class will represent every learning style preference.
Students benefit from learning from a variety of techniques because they will be faced with having to do that in the work world. It is our responsibility to prepare them for the "real world." Having students "practice" learning from non-preferred learning styles helps them be more successful learning from those styles in the future. It helps stretch their minds.
HI Claire - Thanks for your post to the forum and for sharing a great idea to assist non-auditory learners! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
If we don't, we wont achieve the results we want. In ther past, I was surprised when I'd reviewed for a Quiz or test by going over every single question and answer, and many students still missed many questions. This was when I realized that these students didn't learn by hearing. I created practice tests so students could do matching exercises, multiple choice questions, etc., which were similar to those on that would be on the real test. For students who learned by reading and by doing, this helped them master the material much more effectively than listening to me review.
It is important to facilitate all styles of learning in your classroom. Many subjects can be reinforced by any combination of learning medium. Sometimes an auditory learner can graps a concept easier by seeing the object and manipulating it as you are speaking as an example.
