Mr. Ted Reed, an adjunct faculty in the Elementary and Early Childhood Education Department, was a dynamic speaker on learning styles. It’s perfect timing that he conducted a workshop today on learning styles for our junior practicum students, who were about to design their unit lessons. He started the workshop asking students to imagine a picture: You woke up in the morning and looked outside your window and found an elephant in your yard. Describe the elephant you saw and talk what you would do with the elephant. This hook activity quickly got everyone’s attention.
He then passed along a worksheet for students to score themselves to match the descriptions of different types of learning styles. (After listening to each description in a given type, students will decide the scores, with 4 matching exactly me, with 2 showing me sometimes, and 0 for definitely not me.) At the end, students would tally up the total scores for each type. The learning style is a consistent way in which a person perceives, conceptualizes, organizes and recalls information as they feel most comfortable with and prefer to use.
Here are some descriptions for each unique type.
Type One:
- Need to know why they are learning something.
- Learn by listening and sharing ideas.
- Need to be personally involved.
- Like harmony (peaceful surroundings/ good feelings between friends.)
- Like discussions
- Have good imaginations and ideas
- Are cooperative
- Are team players
Type Two:
- Need to know what they should learn
- Learn by thinking through ideas
- Need to know what the experts think
- Want to know facts and details
- Like to be accurate
- Are organized
- Enjoy school
- Are dependable and patient
Type Three:
- Need to know how things work
- Learn by testing out ideas
- Enjoy solving problems
- Like to experiment
- Like to get to the “heart” of the matter; can be blunt
- Like hands-on activities
- Are practical – if it works, I’ll use it
- Like to work along and finish the task
Type Four:
- Need to know what can be done with things/ ideas that already exist
- Learn by trial and error, do things because it feels right
- Believe in self-discovery
- Are risk-takers
- Are excited about new things or changes
- Like to be the leader or influence the leader
- Feel comfortable around people
- Like different ways of teaching choices in their assignments
After the exercise and other activities, students were able to identify their own learning styles, understand how others may use different learning styles to process information, and develop good strategies to work with people with different learning styles.
Learning styles matter very much because we tend to turn our learning styles into our teaching styles. When we communicate with others or when we make decisions in our life, our behaviors are governed by our styles.
When researching online for more information, I found many good web sites addressing the learning styles. However, there are many different ways of addressing the learning styles. Mr. Reed’s workshop materials match what Bernice McCarthy (1980) described students as innovative learners, analytic learners, common sense learners or dynamic learners. It’s been around for decades but the information still apply for today’s learners. It’s worth noting and using.
Here are some references:
