Learning Styles PD

1. Learning Styles PD Debbie Dean & Lorraine Lynch October 2015

2. What are “Learning Styles”? • Information enters your brain three main ways: (1) sight, (2) hearing and (3)touch. • The way a person prefers to learn is called his/her “Learning Style.” • There is no right or wrong, good or bad learning style. • •By examining learning styles, you will become aware of how each person’s brain learns best. • •This awareness gives you and your students the chance to study effectively. • •It is important to be aware of information about learning styles as well as tips on how to teacher students with learning styles different from yours. • •A person’s learning style has nothing to do with intelligence or skills. • •It has everything to do with the way a person’s brain works to learn and store information efficiently. • •Since everyone learns differently, understanding learning styles can help you become a better teacher.

3. How to find your Learning Style? •In order for teachers to know how to work with students of diverse learning styles, they need to know who they are teaching. •Get to know more about particular learning preferences by having students take a Learning Style Inventory quiz. http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles-quiz.shtml •Everyone has a combination of ways in which they learn. •Most people have a predominant learning style. • “Learning Styles Inventory” quiz scores can be used to know how your students most effectively study and learn. •Taking a multi-sensory approach will both help overall comprehension and your ability to retain information through many avenues of learning. Three Types of Learning Styles Visual Learners –learn by sight. Auditory Learners –learn by hearing. Tactile Learners (kinesthetic) –learn by touch

4. Visual Learners • Characteristics • •Prefer to see information such as pictures, diagrams, cartoons, and demonstrations. • •They picture words and concepts they hear as images. • •They are easily distracted in lecture with no visual aids. • •Overwhelmed with intense visuals accompanied by lecture. • •Benefit from using charts, maps, notes, and flash cards when studying. • Teaching Tips – Visual Learners • •Use a blackboard or notepaper for both of you to write questions and answers. • •Encourage the use of color-coded highlighting. • •Use graph paper to help them create charts and diagrams that demonstrate key points. • •Have them use mnemonics, acronyms, visual chains and mind maps. • •Ask them to make flashcards. Then use them during the sessions. The act of writing and viewing them doubles their comprehension. • Good study skills for Visual Learner • •Take lecture notes. • •Underline, highlight, or circle printed material. • •Borrow others’ notes, compare to own. • •Draw pictures in notes to illustrate concepts. • •Use a variety of colors –in pens, pencils, markers, highlighters, paper, etc. for different categories or concepts. • •Write it out! • •Draw out ideas. • •Work with many colors. • •Use outlines, pictures, graphs, charts, and diagrams.

5. Auditory Learners • Characteristics • •Prefer to hear information spoken. • •Can absorb a lecture with little effort. • •May not need careful notes to learn. • •Often avoid eye contact in order to concentrate. • •May read aloud to themselves. • •Like background music when they study. • Teaching - Auditory Learners • •Encourage them to explain the material to you, as if they were the teacher. • •Ask them to read explanations out loud. • •Tell the students they can review audio tapes while they drive. • •Encourage them to make up and repeat rhymes to remember facts, dates, names, etc. • •Make sure they go over all important facts aloud. • •Advise the student to join or create a study group, or to get a study partner. • Study skills for Auditory Learners • •Study in groups and talk things out. • •Work out problems aloud. • •Record lectures, teaching and study group sessions, etc. • •Read texts out loud (into recorder). • •Listen to lecture/text tapes while driving, walking, etc. • •Dictate papers, to be typed later. • •Read questions aloud. • •Use word association.

6. Tactile or Kinesthetic Learners • Characteristics • •Prefer touch as their primary mode for taking in information. • •In traditional lecture situations, they should write out important facts. • •Create study sheets connected to vivid examples. • •Role-playing can help them learn and remember important ideas. • Teaching Tips –Tactile Learners • •Encourage your students to pick up the book as they are reading or talking. • •Have them write while they are reading or talking. • •Advise them to sit near the front of the classroom and to take notes. This will keep them focused. • •Encourage them to use the computer to reinforce learning using their sense of touch. • •Have them write lists repeatedly. • •Ask them to use gestures when giving explanations • Study skills • •Trace letters of words with finger (to memorize spelling, for example) • •Use finger as a guide while reading material. • •Take, and type out or rewrite class notes. • •Get hands-on in science or computer labs, for example –don’t just watch someone else do it. • •Write out everything. • •Use models –of the human brain, DNA, etc. • •Draw charts or diagrams of relationships.

7. Remember!! • •Each student learns differently, at a different rate, using different learning styles. • •Everyone has a learning style. • •Your student’s style of learning, if accommodated, can result in improved attitudes toward learning, as well as increased self-esteem and academic achievement. • •By identifying your learning style and becoming familiar with other styles, you will become a more effective and creative teacher. • •Knowing your learning style, can help you study more effectively. • •It is just as important for a teacher to be aware of other learning styles. • •Teachers should look for clues to how their students think and learn. • •You can conduct an informal assessment without making it obvious to the student. • •You will notice characteristics of their learning styles in the way they take notes, talk about their instructors, react to their assignments, and respond to your questions. • •You can ask your students some of the same questions you were asked on the “Learning Styles Inventory” quiz. • •Once you have an idea about your student’s learning style, you should apply certain techniques that compliment his/her thinking.

8. Multiple Intelligences • The Difference Between Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles • One common misconception about multiple intelligences is that it means the same thing as learning styles. Instead, multiple intelligences represents different intellectual abilities. Learning styles, according to Howard Gardner, are the ways in which an individual approaches a range of tasks. They have been categorized in a number of different ways -- visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, impulsive and reflective, right brain and left brain, etc. Gardner argues that the idea of learning styles does not contain clear criteria for how one would define a learning style, where the style comes, and how it can be recognized and assessed. He phrases the idea of learning styles as "a hypothesis of how an individual approaches a range of materials." • http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-assessment

9. Howard Gardner's Eight Intelligences • The theory of multiple intelligences challenges the idea of a single IQ, where human beings have one central "computer" where intelligence is housed. Howard Gardner, the Harvard professor who originally proposed the theory, says that there are multiple types of human intelligence, each representing different ways of processing information: • Verbal-linguistic intelligence refers to an individual's ability to analyze information and produce work that involves oral and written language, such as speeches, books, and emails. • Logical-mathematical intelligence describes the ability to develop equations and proofs, make calculations, and solve abstract problems. • Visual-spatial intelligence allows people to comprehend maps and other types of graphical information. • Musical intelligence enables individuals to produce and make meaning of different types of sound. • Naturalistic intelligence refers to the ability to identify and distinguish among different types of plants, animals, and weather formations found in the natural world. • Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails using one's own body to create products or solve problems. • Interpersonal intelligence reflects an ability to recognize and understand other people's moods, desires, motivations, and intentions. • Intrapersonal intelligence refers to people's ability to recognize and assess those same characteristics within themselves.

10. Why Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences are Important • Providing students with multiple ways to access content improves learning (Hattie, 2011). • Providing students with multiple ways to demonstrate knowledge and skills increases engagement and learning, and provides teachers with more accurate understanding of students' knowledge and skills (Darling-Hammond, 2010). • Instruction should be informed as much as possible by detailed knowledge about students' specific strengths, needs, and areas for growth (Tomlinson, 2014).