importance of learning styles essay

importance of learning styles essay

The Importance of Learning Styles

1. Introduction

Understanding learning styles is important for both students and teachers. To begin with, students can use this knowledge to identify strategies that will make it effectively easier to learn new information. By knowing what their learning style is, a student can adapt better to certain methods that are more applicable thus increasing the efficiency of their study time. Teachers can also benefit from understanding the learning styles of their students. If a teacher understands the variety of learning styles in their class, they have the opportunity to design a curriculum with various methods in order to reach all students in their class. An example of this is often seen in the sciences. Many concepts can be taught using visual aids and hands-on lessons that will accommodate many learning styles and be more effective than a simple lecture.

The way we absorb, process, and retain information is complex. While the process will differ for each individual, it is also educational to apply a concrete method to see if one style of learning is better than another. Throughout this essay, I will reflect on my own learning styles and articulate as to when I have been most successful in absorbing new information. I will also discuss learning preferences in relation to motivation and identify how awareness of learning styles can in turn help a student better balance their education and personal life.

2. Understanding Learning Styles

A learning style refers to the means in which a person takes in, receives, processes, comprehends, and retains knowledge. Everyone has their own preferred way of learning due to their personal experiences inside and outside of the educational environment, along with the cognitive skills they possess. With reference to the VARK learning styles model, there are four basic learning styles: visual learners, auditory learners, reading/writing learners, and kinesthetic learners. VARK is also about the preference of an individual’s learning style; it does not determine the right type of learning or have strict conditions on how a person learns. A person with a single learning preference may use all the styles; it just means they have a stronger tendency to use one. Always remember that learning is a diverse process.

Insight into what a learning style is can be suggested by going through the VARK (an acronym for visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic sensory modalities) questionnaire. This is a great, quick self-analysis tool that will help you find out what your learning style is by presenting you with 16 simple multiple-choice questions. After completing the test, your scores are presented as a bar graph of your preference levels for each style. You will get a single score for each learning style. It is also encouraging to use this tool if you’re a student, as there is a separate questionnaire for young people (8-13 years old).

So learning is one thing everyone does, but the ways in which people learn are often very different. Learning styles is the term used to describe the variations in how a person learns based on their preference, strengths and weaknesses, and habits. You probably have a pretty good idea of what your preferred learning style is. However, it’s important to consider your learning style in order to optimize your learning. This section will help you identify your learning style and also unravel some facts around the topic.

3. Benefits of Recognizing Learning Styles

Helping students recognize their learning styles gives them insight that is beneficial for a lifetime. All people have preferences in the way they receive and process information. When these preferences are identified, it is possible to plan study strategies that capitalize on strengths and minimize weaknesses (Grasha, 1996). For instance, if a student is an auditory learner, he may perform best in classes where there is extensive lecturing. However, if he is a reading/writing learner, he may become impatient and may not perform as well. If he is a kinesthetic learner, he will become very restless. If the young man knows that he is an auditory learner, he will understand why he may become restless and will be able to take steps to prepare for this. It is unlikely that he will change his learning preference, but knowing this provides insight on how he can adjust his study habits.

4. Implementing Learning Styles in Education

Much of the work on learning styles describes the mismatch between teacher and student learning/teaching styles. This can be a detrimental factor in the learning process. It is suggested that teachers take account of learning style differences in their planning and classroom delivery. By incorporating a variety of teaching methods, teachers have the potential to match their teaching styles to the learning styles of their students. This, in turn, can lead to an increase in student understanding and knowledge. Honey and Mumford identified four main learning styles: activists, reflectors, theorists, and pragmatists. They produced a questionnaire to enable teachers and students to identify learning/teaching styles. Kolb developed this by linking learning styles with problem-solving and decision-making abilities. Unlike Honey and Mumford, Kolb is more focused on the process of learning and has developed a theory consisting of a learning cycle and learning styles inventory. Once teachers are more aware of the learning styles of their students, they can tailor the learning process to a manner that is more effective for the majority of the class. It is crucial to avoid stereotyping the preferences of learners on their learning style. It should also be noted that it is healthy to encourage learners to adopt other learning styles that may not come naturally to them as this will help the overall development of an individual’s cognitive skills. By making a small change to the layout of a classroom, it can have a significant impact on understanding for visual/verbal learners. Other examples may include a change in the pace of the lesson, different use of questioning. With the increase in student-centered learning, there is ever-growing potential for learning style-based pedagogy to improve the effectiveness of education at all levels. This could be seen as an alternative to the current disparity of special education needs teaching. Heavily criticized in some areas, the teaching methods are designed to aid the learning of students with ability problems, most of which are learning style-related. The implications also cross international boundaries with the potential to adapt teaching methods to suit different cultural learning styles.

5. Conclusion

As you have read through this essay, you should now be able to recognize just how important learning styles can be to a student. Using what you know about theories of learning and considering the range of learning styles can also help develop a student’s ability to learn, improve a student’s grades, and make learning easier. Visiting schools, chatting to a number of students, and observing teaching and learning in the classroom, I have discovered that students will have a preference in how their teacher will teach them and in how they are expected to learn. Although it is difficult to accommodate for a class of 20 or so students, it is necessary to try to reach a broad range of learning styles. If a teacher focuses on one style of learning, it is likely that they will lose some of the class in their teaching. By using a variety of teaching methods, the teacher can cover different aspects of the same topic, thus reaching a wider audience. This can be observed firsthand as I have seen from my practicum experiences. Considering the variety in learning styles, I have seen success in teaching when the teachers make the effort to use a number of methods, as they are trying to accommodate for everyone. An example of this was during an English lesson on poetry. The students were expected to learn how to write a particular style of poem. The teacher recognized that the class had a mix in learning styles. Some students were verbal learners, some visual, and some kinesthetic. The teacher made an effort to accommodate for all learning styles. For the verbal learners, the teacher wrote an example of the poem on the board and talked the students through the process. For the visual learners, they were able to read through the example and then attempt to write their own poem. For the kinesthetic learners, the teacher provided the most flexibility in allowing them to give it a go and then provide feedback at the end. The teacher’s effort to accommodate for the wide range of learning styles was able to keep the entire class focused on the task and gave them all a better understanding of what was expected.