Learning Styles: Teaching Not Just to the Masses

I was really interested this week in learning how to approach teaching to kids with different learning styles. I was discouraged about teaching for the tests and I thought that when teachers did teach for the test, they only taught by using practice tests and lecturing to students. I didn't believe that this method would be particularly effective. I thought about all my classes and when we would study for tests. For the OGT, we took countless practice tests in order to get comfortable with the format and so that we could understand the kind of questions that would be asked of us. However, besides becoming more familiar with the style of the test, we didn't do any learning. There was no intake of fresh knowledge. I remember in one of my field observations having talked to a teacher about learning styles and instructional selection, so I decided to read up on that topic.

The article I read (link at the bottom of the page) is about how teachers were trying to understand the reason that kids would drop science related majors like biology. I thought back to all my science classes that had been taught very much in the same way: lectures, one teacher, long, visuals, monotonous. I hadn't enjoyed any of my science classes and I was happy when I didn't have to take anymore for my major. This author researched learning styles and discussed many theories describing the various learning styles. She explained how teachers have to acknowledge that students learn in different ways, so teaching in one way only reaches some of the students. In order to have learning happen for all students, then many learning styles must be involved. Kinesthetic, visual, aural, reading and writing, musical, etc. must be teaching styles so that students with various learning styles can understand better the material. She said that inherently this causes more work for the teachers and educators, however it benefits the classroom and brings more interest in the fields of biology and other science subjects. Increasing the interest in the subjects will increase the field of science because more people will be able to access the information, especially if they access it in their learning style and fully understand it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC533116/