Hi Gerald - Thanks for your post to the forum. You point out that we can help our students to adapt to other styles while still accomodating their preferred styles. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Knowing the learning styles of my students helps me understand them better and their learning needs. This rich understanding then enables me to develop diverse teaching strategies that fit how they learn as individuals. This fit then improves their chance of achieving academic success. In addition, it also helps me help my students develop learning strategies that are very comprehensive such that they are able to adopt and use other learning styles to retain the content that is delivered in various formats other than their preferred one.
By kknowing the learning styles of my students I can better prepare my lectures to challenge all my students rather than 50-60%. I can incorporate visual, oral and interaction with equipment to stress different points.
If you know the learning style of your students you will know what instructional method(s) you should use in order to get the material across to them in the most effective way.
There are a couple of reasons to understand how the students I am teaching will learn the material I am presenting.1) it shows the students I am vested in their learning 2) it helps me put my lessons together. I can use a variety of instructional methods depending on my class. If I have mostly adult learners who have a lot of work experience I might use more hands on and short lessons.
By knowing how the students learn I can present material to them in that manner. This will allow them to become more engaged in the material, they will be more interested and wil WANT to learn it more likely.
It is vital for you to be aware of the manner that your students learn - otherwise you risk being unable to enable their learning. However, the challenge may be that the students have a large range of learning styles, challenging you to adjust the course material to it, so what to do?
Learning styles not only allow me to reach my students with the information, it also allows me to learn more about them. I find this interesting for me when I teach to their individual creativity.
Hi John - Thanks for your post to the forum. My best advice is to use an online learning style assessment that will get you the info that you need about the learning styles of your students quickly. Here are two that I like to use.
http://people.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learning-style/stylest.html
http://www.ldpride.net/learning-style-test.html
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
I encourage students to share what has helped in the past to learning new subjects. This helps me understand each learning style. Trying out new learning styles can be helpful to some students. Most feel comfortable in 1 or 2 styles. A few can discover new talents. Covering the same subject in different styles reinforces the material. This works best in small classes.
Knowing the learning styles of your students allows the instructor to incorporate different teaching methods and/or styles and techniques, which in turn keeps students engaged
Is it possible to be able to learn the preferred styles in a short course? I conduct a three week session and bring in guest speakers, I present some of the lectures and we do a great deal of Practical Exercises (so we touch at least two styles), but I was wondering if I can do a reasonable assessment of style in a short course?
Knowing your class is the first step in instructing them correctly and transfer your knowledge to them. It will facilitate and keep your students interest in learning by adjusting your teaching style to match their learning style.
We sometimes start a class taking an online learning style accessment exercise as a homework assignment to be turned in and then discuss the results with the students.
By awareness of learning style one can mmotivate & reinforce student learning
As an instructor the goal is to reach each student, by being aware of their leaning styles I can facilitate this to the fullest.
you can deliver differnet types instructional methods
