ESTA September 2004 LEARNING STYLES AIM: to look at how students learn by considering our teaching and perhaps develop ways to support them better.

Aysgarth Falls

INTRODUCTION You will have about 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire If you haven’t already started….. now complete the questionnaire! 10 mins Verbal instructions

Llandwyn Island, Anglesey

LEARNING STYLES QUESTIONNAIRE Standard questionnaire, many of you may have seen it during Inset training It’s been slightly modified here to take on more relevance SCORING: See separate sheet, and tally up your totals of each letter (V, A, R and K)

Gaping Ghyll

At Yale College of Wrexham… We use this with students during personal tutor sessions, and is one of our monitoring tools. Our students are also monitored on how many hours employed work they do, financial responsibility (or lack of) etc.

Holt Castle, near Wrexham

What do V, A, R and K mean? V – Visual A – Aural R – Read/Write K – Kinesthetic See separate “SWOT” sheets, APOLOGIES that they are aimed at learners!

STRENGTH or PREFERENCE The questionnaire alerts students and teachers to the variety of different approaches to learning. The questionnaire is NOT intended to “box” or “diagnose” you! It should stimulate you to think about learning preferences Many results show “multi-modal” preferences and results may change through experiences and maturity. The website gives more detailed explanations

Study With Out Tears (SWOT) Advice to students how to study to suit their particular style Gives them ideas on how to study through the course, how to revise and how to give the information to the examiners

Goredale Scar

GEOLOGY LINK It’s interesting to see the preferred learning style of your groups…. And also how you prefer to teach! Perhaps it accounts for your exam results? (Your teaching style might really suit the way they learn, or vice versa!). Or it explains students who opt to “do” your subject? (Aural students perhaps chose to study languages)

Good practice? Well, all HMI will tell you that your lessons need to have “a little bit of everything” This can give you a better reason for doing this! Or it could explain why the lesson the inspector is observing has been designed to meet the needs of your group based on their scores.

Above Malham Cove

Topics and teaching styles Certain topics lend themselves to particular methods of teaching Eg. Minerals – kinesthetic – a practical approach; Stratigraphy – reading/writing and research perhaps Mapwork – visual studies Essays – suit reader/writers better?

Fairbourne, North east Wales

In particular, Geology is very VISUAL From showing photographs of features, to looking at fossils/rocks/minerals etc, from watching videos It’s also KINESTHETIC – practical Mapwork, fossil/rock/mineral identification, field and laboratory investigation work

So what about Geol A level assessment? Do exam questions penalise or help any particular students? Visual Visual stimulus (diagrams, graphs etc) in data response questions; picture based learning resources (eg. remembering class lessons with PowerPoint presentations, mind map/spider diagrams, whiteboard diagrams) Aural “hearing” the teachers voice, repetition from class Read/Write Reading questions, essay writing, background reading for preparation; text based learning resources (books, PowerPoint presentations) Kinesthetic Practical assessments (coursework – GL2b/GL6 and examination – GL2a/GL4 mapwork); asking/answering questions during lessons; interactive resources

So what about A level teaching? Do WE penalise or help any particular students?

Malham Cove

VISUAL SWOT

Nant Ffrancon, Snowdonia

AURAL SWOT

READ/WRITE SWOT

Crookdale Crags, A6, Lake District

KINESTHETIC SWOT

OVERALL Students become successful if they develop a range of skills The questionnaire can help you to understand your groups a little more, or how you deliver information, or why some students soak up knowledge on some topics and not others

Thank you for your time…. There’s loads more information on VARK on the website… If nothing else – you can pick out and use the photographs!! (all copyright free!). Thanks to Pete Loader for being a guinea pig!! Jo Conway, Yale College of Wrexham