1. Learning Styles, Part II: Different Ways of Teaching A KIT workshop

2. Agenda  What is your Learning Style?  Description of different Learning Styles  What is your Teaching Style?  Discovering strategies to match the learning styles of your students  Summarizing comments  Evaluation

3. Introduction  Students prefer to absorb and process information in different ways: seeing and hearing reflecting and acting reasoning logically and intuitively, analyzing and visualizing, steadily and in fits and starts.

4. Different Teaching Methods Instructors may:  Lecture  Demonstrate  Lead Students to Self-discovery  Focus on Principles and  Focus on applications  Some emphasize memory  Some emphasize understanding

5. How can Learning & Teaching Styles help? Mismatches between LS of the student & the TS of the professor can result in boredom, inattentiveness, poor performance on tests, discouragement, changing majors, even dropping the course for the student.

6. For Professors  Professors may be confronted by: low test grades, unresponsive or hostile classes, poor attendance and dropouts.  Professors may become overly critical of their students (making things even worse)  Professors or begin to wonder if they are in the right profession.  Most seriously, society loses potentially excellent professionals.

7. How to Accommodate?  Does not mean to teach each student according to his or her preferences  Strive for a balance of instructional methods  Teach partly in preferred style (to increase comfort level and willingness to learn)  Teach partly in a less preferred style (to provide practice and feedback in ways of thinking and solving problems)

8. Why Incorporate Learning Styles in our Teaching? In summary:  Making Teaching and Learning a dialogue  Responding to a More Diverse Student body  Communicating Our Message  Making Teaching More Rewarding.  Ensuring the Future of Our Disciplines.

9. Models of Learning Styles  Myers-Briggs Type Indicator TM  Kolb/McCarthy Learning Cycle  Felder-Silverman Learning Styles Model  Grasha-Riechmann Learning Styles  McCarthy Model  Multimodal Approach (VARK) 

10. The VARK Approach Neil Fleming, Lincoln University, NZ V - Visual A - Aural R - Read/write K - Kinesthetic, sensory modalities For more information, visit http://www.vark-learn.com

11. Visual Learners like to...  Use visual materials (e. g., pictures, maps, graphs)  Have a clear view of the instructor in order to see body language and facial expression  Use color to highlight important points in the text  Take notes or ask instructor to provide handouts

12. Visual Learners like to...  Illustrate ideas as a picture or brainstorming bubble  Write and illustrate a story  Use multi-media (e.g., computers, videos)  Study in a quiet place  Read illustrated books  Visualize information as a memorization aid

13. Auditory Learners like to...  Attend lectures  Participate in class discussions/debates  Make speeches and presentations  Use a tape recorder during lectures instead of taking notes  Read text aloud  Create mnemonics and musical jingles to aid memorization

14. Auditory Learners like to...  Discuss ideas with fellow students  Dictate their thoughts to someone who writes them down  Use verbal analogies and story telling to demonstrate course material

15. Reading/Writing Learners like to...  Use printed sources (e. g., texts, lecture notes, lists, dictionaries, handouts)  Use the library  Attend classes of lecturers who are articulate and who speak in full sentences  Take detailed notes  Write essays  Use manuals (laboratory, computer)

16. Kinesthetic Learners like to...  Attend laboratory sessions and field trips  See examples of previous exams  Take frequent study breaks  Move around while learning new things (e.g., read on an exercise bike)  Assemble collections (shells, rocks, etc.)  Attend classes of lecturers who give “real world” examples

17. Kinesthetic Learners like to...  Chew gum while studying  “Dress up” their work space with posters  Listen to music while studying  Scan an assigned reading to get a “rough idea” before reading in detail

18. SO...  Traditional instruction focuses almost exclusively on the formal presentation of material (lecturing)  In order to reach all types of learners, a instructor must devise strategies that take different learning styles into account

19. General strategies for all styles (Richard Felder )  Introduce theory followed by problems related to the theory  Balance conceptual information with concrete information  Use sketches, plots, schematics, vector diagrams, computer graphics, and physical demonstrations (visual) in addition to oral and written explanations

20. General strategies for all styles (Richard Felder )  Use analogies and demonstrations to help students relate to concepts  Present students with issues, case studies, experimental observations, and have them work in groups to arrive at their own inferences  Provide class time to think about the material being presented, and for active student participation

21. General strategies for all styles (Richard Felder )  Encourage or mandate cooperation on homework  Demonstrate the logical flow of individual course topics  Point out connections between the current material and other relevant material in the same course, in other courses in the same discipline, in other disciplines, and in everyday experience

22. How can an instructor do all that and still get through the syllabus?  Put most of the material in handouts, and go through the handouts quickly in class  Talk to students about their learning styles, either in class or in advising. (Many students have been coping with LS/TS mismatches since high school (or earlier) and have attributed their scholastic difficulties to their own inadequacies)