Learning Styles Blog

My class averages on my learning styles inventories were almost exactly the same for each category (with less than a .04 difference in one class). There were two exceptions to this rule. One was in my class that talks all the time. The students in this class were overall more "People Smart". That could be the reason they are constantly trying to talk. The second exception was in my one freshman class. The students in this class were more "Picture Smart" or visual learners. These two exceptions confirmed my earlier suspicions. The "People Smart" class is better at groupwork and constantly tries to help each other, even when it should be independent work. The "Picture Smart" class is horrible at reading or writing, but loves to look at pictures or do any kind of assignment involving colored pencils. It's amazing how they walk into my room out of control, but after 5 minutes with colored pencils in their hands, they're like angels (I think that has something to do with other issues too, but I won't go into that here).

The most notable result on my inventories was that the students with the lowest grades in my class are each in only one or two learning styles categories, whereas the students who do well in my class are equally distributed between the categories. The students who do poorly are not any one particular learning style as a group, but each individual has certain learning styles where they fit. This confirmed my earlier suspicions that the high achievers will do well in my class whether I lecture every day, or not. It's the ones who have low grades that will suffer if I don't vary my teaching techniques.

Since I gave the tests and calculated the results, I've tried a couple of different things. First, we did a very interactive groupwork activity where students had to act like newscasters and give the "breaking news" of England in the 1700s. As expected, my "people smart" class loved it, as did a couple of other classes, but 2 classes really struggled because of certain individuals who refused to work with their groups. I've also tried to hit more than one learning style in each lesson I teach. I always hit visual and auditory, but I'm trying to involve more kinesthetic and peer-interaction activities. Of course, these bring up classroom management issues in certain classes, so I'm still struggling with that. My lesson plans for next week include passing around some pictures for kids to see and touch and various activities where kids actually get to move and do things. I know that different activities will reach different kids, so my major focus right now is varying things enough that each student can learn. If I figure out how to do that, I'll be the next Harry Wong. :)