Learning Style

Learning styles... this is something that I have been reminded of time and time again as I have attended Differentiated Instruction (DI) conferences this year. On a personal note I am more closely aligned to a visual learner than to any other learning style. From a multiple-intelligences angle I think that I would have a close tie between visual and verbal. That said, I remember in my days as a student doing just fine with information that my teachers gave to me either through lecture or with visual representations. One thing that I realized though was that I had to take notes; I was not one of those students who could just listen and retain everything (my wife can vouch for this). Personally I liked lecture more than projects because I could create visuals in my notes if needed and I could short-hand notes so that they better suited me. Where I really struggled was when my teachers tried to shake things up by having us move around the classroom (kinesthetic learning style) in an attempt to make some grandiose point. 


As a teacher now I am now attempting to make sure that I do not overload one learning style over another because I realize that not all students learn best the way that I did/do. That is where DI comes in... one of the points is that you identify how students learn best and then come up with periodic lessons/activities that allow students to explore the content using the learning style that best suits them. Here is an example below:

•      we all have key vocabulary we want students to learn but instead of making them copy down the term from the back of the book, you can allow them to explore the word through their preferred learning style...
• Visual learners --> create a picture that depicts what the word means.
• Kinesthetic learners --> create a body movement that depicts what the word means.
• Audio learners --> create a brief song that depicts what the word means.

This is one way that I can periodically address different learning styles in my classroom. The one thing that you must keep in mind is this (and some people may disagree with me and that is fine)... you do not need to address all the different learning styles with everything that you do. First, this would take way more planning time than there are hours in the day (if it is going to truly be good instruction). Second, students still need to be able to operate/learn outside their comfort zone. As teachers we would not be preparing them for college and for the real-world if we  never made the kinesthetic learners write a paper for instance. Also, one must take into consideration that students most often fall under the visual or audio categories. Therefore, we should at least make sure that our lessons connect to one or the other, if not both.

That said, teachers still do need to kick their habits from time-to-time and be more creative in the classroom. My first semester teaching after my student teaching year was disastrous. I entered into a school that was on block scheduling and one of my classes met for four hours on Fridays! As a new teacher I was stuck in lecture mode because in my head I thought I had to know a lot more than my students and I was terrified of the "I don't know" response to questions that they may have had. So by lecturing the students were often too busy writing to ask any additional questions. However, those Friday classes were awful! By second semester I wised up and realized that I did not have to know everything, nor was it my job to know everything. My job was to teach students how to learn (they can look up facts on-line), they needed to know how to find connections and think critically. So I began mixing things up, creating more projects/assignments which allowed for different learning styles to thrive, and I saw improved student performance/attentiveness. 

So to sum things up... addressing different learning styles is definitely the way to go, but do not stress out over trying to do it every single lesson! The average student falls under either the visual or audio category.