ESTA September 2004
• LEARNING STYLES
• AIM: to look at how students learn by
considering our teaching and perhaps
develop ways to support them better.
Aysgarth Falls
INTRODUCTION
You will have about 10
minutes to complete
the questionnaire
Verbal
instructions
10 mins
If you haven’t already
started…..
now complete the
questionnaire!
Llandwyn Island, Anglesey
LEARNING STYLES
QUESTIONNAIRE
• Standard questionnaire, many of you
may have seen it during Inset training
• It’s been slightly modified here to take
on more relevance
• SCORING: See separate sheet, and
tally up your totals of each letter (V,
A, R and K)
Gaping Ghyll
At Yale College of Wrexham…
• We use this with students during
personal tutor sessions, and is one of
our monitoring tools.
• Our students are also monitored on how
many hours employed work they do,
financial responsibility (or lack of) etc.
Holt Castle, near Wrexham
What do V, A, R and K mean?
•
•
•
•
V
A
R
K
–
–
–
–
Visual
Aural
Read/Write
Kinesthetic
• See separate “SWOT” sheets,
APOLOGIES that they are aimed at
learners!
STRENGTH or PREFERENCE
• The questionnaire alerts students and
teachers to the variety of different
approaches to learning.
• The questionnaire is NOT intended to “box”
or “diagnose” you!
• It should stimulate you to think about
learning preferences
• Many results show “multi-modal” preferences
and results may change through experiences
and maturity.
• The website gives more detailed explanations
www.vark-learn.com
Study With Out Tears (SWOT)
• Advice to students how to study to suit
their particular style
• Gives them ideas on how to study
through the course, how to revise and
how to give the information to the
examiners
Goredale Scar
GEOLOGY LINK
• It’s interesting to see the preferred
learning style of your groups…. And also
how you prefer to teach!
• Perhaps it accounts for your exam
results? (Your teaching style might
really suit the way they learn, or vice
versa!).
• Or it explains students who opt to “do”
your subject?
• (Aural students perhaps chose to study languages)
Good practice?
• Well, all HMI will tell you that your
lessons need to have “a little bit of
everything”
• This can give you a better reason for
doing this!
• Or it could explain why the lesson the
inspector is observing has been designed
to meet the needs of your group based
on their scores.
Above Malham Cove
Topics and teaching styles
• Certain topics lend themselves to
particular methods of teaching
• Eg.
• Minerals – kinesthetic – a practical
approach;
• Stratigraphy – reading/writing and
research perhaps
• Mapwork – visual studies
• Essays – suit reader/writers better?
Fairbourne, North east Wales
• In particular, Geology is very VISUAL
• From showing photographs of features,
to looking at fossils/rocks/minerals etc,
from watching videos
• It’s also KINESTHETIC – practical
• Mapwork, fossil/rock/mineral
identification, field and laboratory
investigation work
So what about Geol A level assessment?
• Do exam questions penalise or help any
particular students?
Visual
Visual stimulus (diagrams, graphs etc) in data
response questions; picture based learning resources
(eg. remembering class lessons with PowerPoint
presentations, mind map/spider diagrams,
whiteboard diagrams)
Aural
“hearing” the teachers voice, repetition from class
Read/Write
Reading questions, essay writing, background reading
for preparation; text based learning resources (books,
PowerPoint presentations)
Kinesthetic
Practical assessments (coursework – GL2b/GL6 and
examination – GL2a/GL4 mapwork);
asking/answering questions during lessons;
interactive resources
So what about A level teaching?
• Do WE penalise or help any particular
students?
Malham Cove
VISUAL
SWOT
Nant Ffrancon, Snowdonia
AURAL
SWOT
READ/WRITE
SWOT
Crookdale Crags, A6, Lake District
KINESTHETIC
SWOT
OVERALL
• Students become successful if they
develop a range of skills
• The questionnaire can help you to
understand your groups a little more,
• or how you deliver information,
• or why some students soak up
knowledge on some topics and not
others
• Thank you for your time….
• There’s loads more information on VARK on
the website… www.vark-learn.com
• If nothing else – you can pick out and use the
photographs!! (all copyright free!).
• Thanks to Pete Loader for being a guinea pig!!
Jo Conway, Yale College of Wrexham