Diverse Learning Styles

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The way a person best retains information is considered to be their preferred learning style (Irvine & York 1995). Knowing what learning style best fits with a student inside your classroom is important. Being conscious of how a student best learns will help the teacher plan how to provide the student with the knowledge that is needed to be learned in ways that best suits each student. Knowing students’ learning styles can help in many ways to enhance both learning and teaching. Plenty of research has been done about how people learn and how the information is relayed to them. In result of the research, different tools have been created to categorize these learning styles and help people understand what style best fits them.

There are two main points to look at when discussing learning styles. The first point is being able to assess what kind of learning style your students prefer and if that is the best style for them to retain the knowledge you are teaching. Secondly, teachers have to address how to teach students who are a certain learning style or combination of styles. There are many options out there for teachers and those in the education field to adapt their curriculum for any type of learner.

Each learning style has its own specific characteristics. If a person’s learning personality match what the assessments believe to be the characteristics of a particular learning style that person will labeled as a visual, auditory, tactile and/or kinesthetic learner. A visual learner prefers to see the material in front of them. When they are thinking about information they are thinking in terms of pictures or images (Vincent & Ross, 2001). An auditory learner is a person who best learns from hearing things. This person would be...

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...n the court will help both you and the students. The benefit of a student understanding what learning method may work for them the best is if they are struggling with grasping an idea they know there are other ways to understand the information. Once the students have a better understanding of the different ways they learn this will make learning more fun.

As a teacher if you are teaching to a group of students who do not understand the information you are wanting them to learn you are wasting both your time and theirs. When you are teaching material in a particular way and a group of the students do not understand it, be flexible with your lesson because these students may be the different style learners. Making sure each learning style is met within the teaching methods will make for a smoother experience with education for both the teachers and the students.

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