Impacts on Teaching

Learning Styles
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o
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Visual – learn by seeing
Sometimes divided into visual and read/write o
Auditory o
Kinesthetic

Learning Styles
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“Good” learners pick up and remember new material quickly – most likely, you are a good learner!
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Which do you think is your learning style?
o
Write your name under your predication.

Learning Styles
 o
Test your learning style: http://www.varklearn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnair e
 o
Did your result match your prediction?
Write your name under your test result.

Learning Styles
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What did you think about the assessment tool?

Learning Styles
 o o o o
Potential Issues:
Wanting to select multiple options
Not feeling that any options fit
Situational – a test that leans toward reading will produce a different style than one that leans toward calculation
Real-life scenarios don’t necessarily correspond well to academic situations

Learning Styles
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Problems with Learning Styles Assessment Tools: o
Low reliability (~0.6)
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Expect to get the same results each time you administer it, but this happens just over half the time
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Why?
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Test may not be a reliable measure
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Learning styles change based on interpretation of question, age, and experience

Learning Styles
What cognitive research tells us:
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Help students more by presenting them with multiple modalities o bolsters weaker areas o draws on multiple memory pathways
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“Preferred learning modality” changes based on the type of material.
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Material is typically stored independently of any modality.
Memories stored in terms of meaning, not if you saw, heard, or interacted with information.
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Attempts to match material to learning style may benefit some students, but will actually harm others.

Learning Styles
Case Study:
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Lesson – Molecular Structure
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Class #1 – build ball & stick models
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Class #2 - read text and look at pictures
How would kinesthetic learners and visual/verbal learners score on a later test in each class? What is your prediction?

Learning Styles
Case Study:
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Results: o
•
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Class #1:
Kinesthetic – 95% (enjoyed lesson more)
Visual/verbal – 80%

Learning Styles
Case Study:

Results: o
•
•
Class #1:
Kinesthetic – 95% (enjoyed lesson more)
Visual/verbal – 80% o
•
•
Class #2:
Kinesthetic – 70%
Visual/verbal – 70% (enjoyed lesson more)

Learning Styles
Interpretation of Results:
For a given lesson, one instructional technique turns out to be optimal for all students – the one that best fits the content!

Learning Styles
Fitting Modality to Content
Example: Understand dynamics of carbon cycle
I’ve tried:
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Static images and talking through
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Static images with students reading and asking questions
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Images that students have to connect with arrows
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Narrated animation
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Walk through cycle with each student being a “carbon atom”, then diagram their pathway & compare with those of classmates

Learning Styles

Learning Styles
Vexing Topic to Present: suggestions?
How could this topic be presented:
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Visually?
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Read/Write?
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Auditory?
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Kinesthetic?