Brittany's Classroom Management Kit

The European Learning Styles Information Network (ELSIN) defines learning styles by saying they represent: ‘an individual’s preferred way of responding (cognitively and behaviou- rally) to learning tasks which change depending on the environment or context . . .’ To get a better sense of the manner in which I “respond” in a general way, I took the Memletics Learning Styles Test. Here are my results:

 

Your results

The scores are out of 20 for each style. A score of 20 indicates the style is used often.

StyleScores:

Visual -11

Social- 15

Physical-12

Aural-15

 

 

 

 

My Reaction: The style that got the highest score was Verbal, which makes sense considering that I have skills in writing and am rather adept at presenting or taking out an issue. I was surprised at how low my logical score was in comparison to my physical score, considering that I feel that I am more of a thinker than a doer, meaning that I sit back and dissect something rather than jumping into the fray. Other than that my scores were all relatively even and I really think that my Aural (musical) score was better tested in this one than the learning style test that I took in Dr. Grace’s class. I feel that much of whom I am comes from my love of music and my ability to memorize things by the cadence in someone’s voice.

 

No one’s learning style is exactly the same and in its unlimited natures and levels learning styles models are incomplete yet give an useful model of reality. In terms of education, Richard Felder’s Article Are Learning Styles Invalid summarizes it as, “characteristic cognitive, affective, and psychological behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment.” When teachers have awareness of different learning styles they can craft their lessons to maximize student’s learning through a student’s given preference. For example, if I were to craft a lesson for myself, a verbal learner, I would be sure to include class discussions into the learning to meet that preference.

 

However, learning styles models are not infallible truths about how skilled a student is, but moreover is concerned with how they response to certain teaching methods to gain new skills. Moreover, as Richard Felder’s article puts it, “Learning styles are not mutually exclusive categories but preferences that may be mild, moderate, or strong…” Just because my learning style is highly verbal, doesn’t mean that I only learn that way. In fact I am highly aural and social, but to different degrees in regards to my verbal learning style. Thusly, learning styles are more a spectrum and less of pegs to be put into given holes. Regardless, since the model is incomplete due to the mere number of learning levels, people tend to differ in how they format a learning style model. For example Neil Fleming divides the learning styles into Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic, and Multimodal. Much of Fleming’s learning styles address something that had been addressed in other models such as Howard Garner’s Multiple Learning Styles or the vest test that I took above. In Fleming’s model however, there has been built in the Multimodal style, which addresses the truth of people having multiple preferences in learning and how they use them in tandem to reach a goal.

 

How does one use learning styles in the classroom though? Felder argues that the notion of balancing the learning styles within your classroom isn’t the main point. Instead, one should strive to balance the styles by, “making sure that each style preference is addressed to a reasonable extent during instruction.” However, also that balance is an elusive term and alters due to the classroom’s differences in subject, students, and resources. However if teachers become aware of how their differences interact to create the learning styles of their classroom, they can find that balance. Lastly, a teacher should not stress over creating a perfect formula to do so, as none exist. Richard Felder reminds us that students will need all attributes in all the learning styles categories, therefore we should attempt to cover a wide net within that balance.

 

Much of the aforementioned trouble finding balance comes from the increasing diversity of students. Carol Evasa’s article Learning in Higher Education – How Cognitive and Learning Styles Matter talks about how students being informed by learning styles can enhance their understandings. As Evasa quoted, “…styles do matter [as] they make a difference in behavior and performance in diverse domains of our life” Thusly, more and more learning styles awareness is becoming an important piece of a student’s education. Moreover, Evasa mentions that our era is full of rapidly growing information and leaners must be taught to navigate/cope with that volume. By knowing how you think and learn, one is able to self-regulate their learning and choose the best strategies to meet a goal. To achieve this self-regulation, which can improve intrinsic motivation and create life-long learners, one must have the ability to incorporate/ act on feedback to their work and thusly having a method to share that feedback effectively falls to that student’s learning styles.