Learning Styles

Tonia Brown

Gemma Ollerenshaw

Naomi De Steunder

Tania Comber

Objectives

Trainees will:

• Become more familiar with the main theories of learning styles relevant in schools today.

• Understand how they might impact on planning and development as a classroom practitioner.

• Become aware of the complexities and subtleties of learning style theories.

Brain Gym

Learning styles can be classified in many different ways:

• They are the overall patterns that provide direction to learning and teaching.

• A set of factors, behaviours and attitudes that facilitate learning for an individual in a given

situation.

• The process by which people perceive and process information.

• It is individual.

Styles influence:

• How students learn

• How teachers teach

• How the two interact

Definition of learning styles

How do you like to learn something new?

• Learn by listening to somebody explain?

• Learn by reading?

• Learn by seeing a demonstration?

Fun and games

Find a partner

Sit back to back

One person has a picture

The other person a plain piece of paper and a pencil

The person who has the picture describes it to the person with paper and pencil

The person with paper and pencil draws what the person with the picture describes to them

You have five minutes …….

Fun and games

Look at the next slide for 20 seconds

rabbit water blue newspaper

Jupiter

cake comma divide cocoon

four

torso

villain

France

Gruffalo hour

You have two minutes ……

Write down all the words you can remember

And

A definition

Origami

You have five minutes to

make your model

How did you find the activities ?

We all learn in different ways ..

Some of us are visual and remember what we see

- learn by looking so remember pictures, words and what we

see

Some of us are auditory and remember what

we hear

– learn by listening so remember sounds, discussion and what

we hear

Some of us are kinesthetic and remember what we

touch and feel well

– learn by doing so remember action/hands on learning

activities

Some prefer to use the left

side when learning, some

prefer to use the right

Words, reading,

language

Numbers

Logical, ordered

Makes plans

Likes facts

Follows rules

Tidy, organised

On time

Prefers black and

white statistics

Art and being

creative

Needs big picture

Takes risks

Music rhyme and

rhythm, movement

Has ideas

Imagines, role-play

Disorganised

Prefers pictures

Left brained? Right brained ?

Each person has certain tendencies towards a

particular style.

These can be influenced by culture, personal

experiences, maturity level and

development.

BUT

although we tend to have a ‘fast lane’

– a sense we prefer to use

- we learn best when all three are engaged.

Brain Gym

These exercises are designed to synthesize the visual,

auditory and motor skills

In other words get the right side and the left side of

the brain working together

Questionnaire

• What sort of learner are you?

(go to corners of room , aesthetic, visual,

kinaesthetic, discuss why chose that learning

style. Given questionnaire at tables. Group

discussion are you surprised by the results?)

Gemma’s bit

Learning styles in the last twenty

years

(Naomi )

To learn we also need : To be in a happy, safe, secure environment

To drink water

To have breakfast and a healthy diet

To have enough sleep

To have oxygen

To have no worries/stress/baggage

• Just a thought, should we hand out some

biscuits at this point …. And have a couple of

bottles of water ??? Ready for the group

discussion ……

Group discussion

Based on the learning styles you have just used,

how would you integrate these into the

classroom in different subject areas?

(A3 sheet paper, marker pens, brainstorm ideas.

Give each group one subject area)

(Gemma)

Feedback.

Plenary!

• Not sure what we will do here …

Learning and the Senses Effective teaching usually combines several approaches, or multi-sensory instruction, so

the child uses more than one sense at a time while learning.

Multi-sensory approaches work well because of the way our brain is organized.

When we learn, information takes one path into our brain when we use our eyes,

another when we use our ears, and a yet a third when we use our hands.

By using more than one sense we bombard our brain with the new information in

multiple ways.

As a result we learn better.

Rief (1993) says that students retain:

10% of what they read

20% of what they hear

30% of what they see

50% of what they see and hear

70% of what they say

90% of what they say and do

History (handout possibly?)

• 1904 Alfred Binet (French psychologist) developed first intelligence test.

• 1907 Dr Maria Montessori invented the Montessori method of education. She began using materials to enhance the learning styles of her students. Believed that students demonstrate mastery through their actions.

• 1950 – 1970 The study of learning styles declined for around fifty years due to the emphasis on IQ and academic achievement.

• 1956 Blooms Taxonomy (Benjamin Bloom) a step towards defining learning style differences.

• 1962 Isabel Myers-Briggs and Katherine Briggs developed Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

• 1976 Dunn and Dunn learning style model was introduced, generating diagnostic instruments for evaluation.

• 1984 David Kolb developed learning style that believed learning skills are closely related to cognitive skills.

• 1990’s Emphasis placed on teachers addressing learning styles through curriculum adjustments that include each style. Allowing each student equal chance to learn.

Stuff that tonia has put together

for handout