Learning Styles

I am a very visual and logical learner, hence becoming a math teacher!  It was always a lot easier for me to learn when teachers had things clearly written out, color coordinated, used visual representations of things, made posters, provided diagrams, flow charts, and notes to follow along for key points. To me, math was a very visual class, so of course I enjoyed math class because of the logical thinking and problem solving skills you used.  I think that it was always very hard for me to listen without being able to see things, because I am not an auditory learner, therefore straight lectures with no visual representations were very hard for me to comprehend. 

These are struggles that we possess as teachers, because there is no way to always accommodate to all the learning styles within our classroom, but it is our job to try our best and use multiple strategies.  I think that we should always be differentiating our teaching styles to accommodate for the multiple intelligences within our students and within every lesson, you should have some accommodation for multiple learning styles.  In my classroom I try to differentiate my instruction to accommodate for my different students.  For the active and sensing learners I try to have problem solving activities that allow them to work through the problems and use real-world activities for them to be able to discuss.  For my intuitive learners, I always try to ask the question "does your answer make sense" and try to encourage all of my students to always be rechecking their answers to see if they can make the connection as to why the answer fits the problem.  The verbal learners I always talk through my lessons to allow them to take notes how they wish, but still have the visual representation for my visual learners.  I think for me it is easiest to teach to my visual learners, because I am a visual learner, so I often color coordinate my visual representations, use videos with my lessons, have printed notes to allow for easier detection of key points, and have my students up at the promethean board often to demonstrate their understanding.  Within a lot my lessons, I try to get the students up and moving around.  Whether it is stations around the room or up at the promethean board working on collaboration of solving problems, all students need to be up and moving to be engaged, but this is especially important for any kinesthetic learners.  At the end of every class, we have a journal entry of what we understand and what we are still struggling with.  My hope is to allow for my reflective learners to have time to think about what material they understand and reflect on what they are still having problems with so I can format my lessons from their responses.  I think that having multiple ways to approach a topic, such as visually, auditable, logical questioning, intuitive, journal entries, collaboration within the class, etc. can help reach the multiple types of learners within your classroom.  


I think of course that is a lot easier said then done, but if we want to get our material to the students and have them actually understand what they are learning, we need to try to reach a range of learning styles.  It is always easiest to teach the way you learn, however, I think that as much differentiation as you can have will always help reach the most students within the classroom.