Student Learning Types

Student Learning Types With the rise of technology and a greater understanding of how students learn, teaching is rapidly changing. The traditional school environment in which students are given a book and lectured for the entire duration is quickly disappearing. Instead, it is becoming more and more critical for teachers to have more personalized learning plans tailored to each of their students' learning styles for them to reach their full potential. In order for a teacher to succeed in today's classroom, they must not only understand the four main learning styles (read/write, auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) and how to teach to those learners but also how to teach students to learn on their own based off of their style for lifelong success.

Read/Write Read and write learners are, without a doubt, the ones that have been set up the most for success in the traditional classroom environment. All they need for success is a textbook, a writing instrument, and something to write on. Individuals with this learning style can succeed by making flashcards, creating detailed outlines, and making notes throughout their textbooks. For a teacher to put this type of learner in the best position for success, they should ensure that they get as much pertinent material in front of this student as possible. This includes making sure that all lecture slides are printed out, and handouts are used whenever possible. You could even consider having additional materials available for them to explore on their own. One last thing to consider with this type of student is that they typically do not perform well in groups as they are better solitary learners. There may be group activities where this type of learner would be better off taking notes on the activity rather than participating in it.

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Auditory The auditory learner makes up approximately 30% of the population. Like the read/write learners, these students succeed in the traditional classroom environment, as they can soak in lectures by auditory means. However, one common misconception about this learning type is that they reach their full potential in this classroom format by just listening to a lecture. This is far from the truth, as auditory learners still need an active learning environment to reach their maximum level of knowledge retention. This includes things such as hearing themselves and others talk through group discussions and adding rhythm to learning with things such as songs and rhymes. Furthermore, you should make sure that you use advancements in technology to get them more material they can listen to, such as audiobooks and recordings of lectures.

Visual One learning style that has dramatically struggled in a traditional classroom environment is the visual learner. This type of learner struggles to recall readings and lectures. They need pictures, videos, and other images to remember the material. This does not mean that you need to completely stray from lectures and readings, as a variety of tools can be used to incorporate visual learning styles into your everyday teachings. These visual learning styles could include videos, diagrams, quick sketches, flashcards, and anything that may help trigger recall. One simple but highly beneficial thing to do with this type of learner is to teach them how to create mind maps.

Creating mind maps of each chapter as they read their textbook will help them better recall what they have read.

Kinesthetic Out of all the learning styles, kinesthetic learners are the do‐ers. Rather than being the ones who want to sit around and hear about various ecosystems all day, they want to wade through a creek to find different organisms to understand the ecosystem.

However, everything does not have to be some big experiment for this type of learner to succeed. Instead, they need something physical while they learn, which can come in many forms: walking around, dancing, or even shooting a basketball. With this type of learner, look to get outside from time to time and give them a chance whenever possible to feel things. Group work is also beneficial for these types of learners.

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Many of these learners require very different learning techniques, and figuring out how to teach to all of them is not trivial. The important thing is to make sure that each lesson has something for each learning style. At times, you can even combine different learning types in an activity, such as having auditory learners write a song about a topic and kinesthetic learners come up with a dance to go along with it.

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