The Strategic Teacher

In school everyone learns differently; however, according to the article The Myth of Learning Styles, “The idea of learning styles is based on a theory… developed in the early 1980’s.” (pg 1.) A lot has certainly changed from the 1980’s as we learn new more material in every class we take. With this being said, someone the scientists referred to in the article “assumed” that learning styles challenged the way of the educational system when in reality, it is simply a myth. Students, like myself, only prefer to process information that they find useful or interesting to him or her. Thus giving us the problems of that teachers may take too long to cover one idea, and students may miss out out on information because he or she did not prefer that learning style.

For years, there have been many theorists who have shared their views on how individuals learn. Such research has determined that individuals have different learning styles. It is important for teacher to understand the learning styles of both themselves and their students because it helps them to relay the subject knowledge to the students. The teacher is in a position where they must be able to assess the learning styles of their students. This means that the students and teachers are both in a process of learning.

This assessment is vital and is an integral part in the learner and tutors planning. Ensuring that your learners preferred style is embedded in the lesson plan (differentiation) can ensure that the learner’s motivation is continued. There are no right and wrong answers but in some cases there is not always a clear result, many learners may have a mix. However this could be seen as a positive when teaching a larger group as you can embed all three learning styles ensuring that a larger number will participate therefore keeping learners motivated and achieving goals and also progressing.

i. Understanding the learners learning styles can make my course to be engaging. Flemming (1987) noted three different styles of learning; visual, kinaesthetic and aural. In order to know which method(s) to use to benefit my students the first lesson on my course will centre around discussions on what they already know, the resources they are familiar with, and a learning style questionnaire which will provide me with information on preferred learning styles. Effectiveness can also be enhanced if I adapt my teaching style to give maximum benefit to learners.

“Just as students have different personalities, they also have different ways of learing (Slavin, 107).” Learning styles are another important factor to incorporate when implementing the best learning environment. Learning styles are defined as an individual's mode of gaining knowledge. The most common learning styles addressed are auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Auditory leaners understand information through hearing. Visual learners need more visual aids in the learning process, such as diagrams, webs, or pictures. Kinesthetic learners learn better by using manipulatives or by being physically involved in the learning process. Learning styles is a piece of the “backbone” of differentiated learning. Both are used to individualize instruction to help students achieve the most success.

This almost seems like one of those times that discussing something and hearing about a similar idea later is more than coincidence. In an almost serendipitous turn of events, I have spent the week discussing with teachers the importance of differentiation, and more importantly, the adherence to presenting material in more than one way through our professional learning communities. This was along similar lines to Gardner’s work with learning styles as discussed by Hattie in Visible Learning (2012). The connection stems from Hattie’s assertion that not all learning styles are equal and that visual and auditory are more prevalent than others in our society. This is not to say that others are less important, but rather that some occur as strengths

Education benefits individual mentally, emotionally and physically by placing them in better place than they were previously before. Everybody would agree that learning something new would take place throughout the life. Learning style defined as "A term that describes the variations among learners in using one or more senses to understand, organize, and retain experience" (Reid, 1987, p. 89). Furthermore, Felder and Henriques (1995, p. 21) explained learning styles as "the ways in which an individual characteristically acquires, retains and retrieves information". However, different learners possess different characteristics and different preferred learning styles to perceive, process, take in and understand information.

Learning styles and barriers to learning can be by the VARK to give a profile of learning preferences of how a person takes in and gives out information or Tidwell and Rodgers Practical learning styles Questionnaire. The VARK learning styles determines if the person learns by being a theorist, reflector, activist and/or pragmatist. The practical learning styles questionnaire looks at how people learn by their orientation, whether they are a realistic or creative, by their interaction, are they a doer or a thinker, by how they represent things, either by words or pictures, and how they process information, whether they are a surface or deep processor. There are many other

Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Teaching of Psychology, 42(3), 266-271. doi:10.1177/0098628315589505

Learning styles is one of the ways schools have changed over the past couple of years in regards to diversity. The varieties of learning styles of students have become more

Learning style is an individual's unique approach to learning based on strengths, weaknesses, and preferences.

We were all on different levels when it came to bringing ideas to meetings. For example;

In fact, I realized, as I continued to read, my teachers did a lot of modeling and demonstrations on completing a task. In addition, they had the ability to adjust learning to their students learning need and style, even though learning styles were not part of the system yet (Hamond et al., n.d.). Therefore, much of my teaching mimics how I learned from those teachers. I believe in guiding my students toward discovery on their own; therefore, my lessons were thought out, so they encompassed each student’s learning style. I taught 6th-grade social studies, not an exhilarating course to garner excitement.

Think about a time you may have taken or passed a test, then questioned what you really learned versus what you just memorized for the good grade? In John Taylor Gatto’s “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher” he says “We are not taught to learn, we are taught to remember.” (Gatto, pg.) . As a teen at seventeen years old, I completely agree, as would many other teens I am surrounded by in high school. We have all become professionals in remembering the answers, but in the end not taking any actual, solid knowledge of the teaching. It is not only as teenagers, even adults and elementary students have also picked it up and those elementary students will carry it into adulthood. It is not an age habit, it is society as a whole who choose to remember the instruction of the concept instead of learning, which I too am guilty of.

28. The key for managers is responding quickly when it is obvious that the strategy isn’t working.