Teaching Tips for Different Learning Styles

Excerpt from: Teachers, Schools, and Society: A Brief Introduction to Education p. 37

Many educators believe that students have preferred learning styles and that teaching to these preferred styles will increase educational success. Following are three learning styles frequently mentioned in the literature. (Do you recognize yourself in any of these categories?) Since all of these students are typically in class at the same time, as a teacher you will be called on to use a variety of instructional approaches to reach all of them.

Visual Learners

About half of the student population learns best by seeing information. They are termed visual learners.

Teaching Tips

• Textbooks, charts, course outlines, and graphs are useful instructional aids.
• Ask these students to write down information, even rewriting or highlighting key points.
• Ask students to preview chapters by looking at subheadings and illustrations before they read each chapter.
• Seat these students up front, away from windows and doors (to avoid distractions).
• Encourage them to ask for comments or directions to be repeated if they did not understand directions the first time.
• Use overheads and flip charts.

Kinesthetic Learners

This is another popular learning style, which is also called haptic (Greek for "moving and doing") or tactile. These are "hands on" learners, students who learn best by doing.

Teaching Tips

• Try to plan for student movement in class presentation, as well as independent study time.
• Movement should be planned to avoid distracting others.
• Memorizing information can be enhanced if these learners are encouraged to physically move about the room.
• Providing students with a colored desk blotter or a colored transparency to read a book is called "color grounding" and can help focus their attention.
• Ask them to take notes and encourage them to underline key points as they read.
• Encourage them to take frequent but short breaks.
• Try to use skits and role-plays to help make instructional points.

Auditory Learners

This is a style used less frequently than the previous two. These students learn best by hearing; they can re-member the details of conversations and lectures and many have strong language skills.

Teaching Tips

• Provide the opportunity for auditory learners to recite the main points of a book or lecture.
• Encourage these students to study with a friend, so they can talk through the main points.
• Audiotapes of classroom activities can be helpful.
• Suggest that they read class notes into a tape.
• Encourage them to read the textbook out loud.
• It can be helpful for these students to say out loud the meaning of the illustrations and main subject headings, and to recite any new vocabulary words.
• Group work can be a useful class activity for auditory learners.

Reflection: Choose a subject or topic that you want to teach. Describe three learning activities (visual, kinesthetic, auditory) that you can use to reach students with different learning styles. Which of these learning styles appeals to you? Why?