How a Teacher Should Adjust to Their Students’ Style of Learning

Everyone learns differently, each of us with our own distinctive style. Here are some tips on assessing your students learning styles and how to effectively incorporate these styles into the classroom.

How to assess learning styles

There are many ways for you to assess your learning styles and that of your students. If you are the type of person that likes to visualize things, would prefer to meet someone in person and prefer to use visual aids when completing assignments, you are most likely a visual learner. If you are the type of person that would prefer to have a conversation with someone on the telephone or you would prefer audio instructions rather than written ones, you are most likely an auditory learner. And finally, if you are the type of person that would jump right into a project without reading the instructions or you like to engage in activities when meeting someone, you are most likely a tactile learner.

Using Learning Styles in the Classroom

An ideal situation is to make use of all three styles in the classroom. This however, would make teaching a lot more difficult. It is very easy to incorporate audio and video in your lessons. Writing instructions on the board and reciting them aloud is one way to achieve this. It is not always easy to include the tactile learning style. Unfortunately, most students are tactile learners. Find natural ways to include tactile learning in your lessons. One way to achieve this is via role playing. Concerns

When Incorporating Learning Styles

Many teachers today, do not understand the importance of incorporating different methods of teaching in the classroom. The have held on to their traditional teaching methods. This error can result in higher illiteracy rate. Some teachers and also some students tend to not be receptive to a lesson if it does not cater to their style of learning. This is also an error that can increase illiteracy rate. In life we will encounter materials suited for many different learning styles. If teachers do not help students to adapt and develop all the learning styles, this can affect their ability to learn in the future. It is only through adaptation that students will succeed.

Examples of ways that students can adapt:

• Tactile learners can make it a habit to write down the information that they need to learn.
• Visual learners can create diagrams and other materials for study use.
• Auditory learners can study effectively by reading aloud.