What Learning Styles Are In Your Classroom?

Throughout every classroom, different learning styles are displayed and even sometimes overlooked. Understanding each learning style has a very great importance for the performance of each of your students.  Students learn in different ways and incorporating different learning styles can greatly increase the success of your students.

Within this article, we are going to discuss the three main learning styles that are within your school.

Kinesthetic

• They understand and learn things through physical movement.
• They prefer to touch, build, and draw when learning school materials.
• Students who are kinesthetic learners may lose concentration if there is not a lot of external stimulation or action.
• When appropriate, playing music during activities is a good way to hold their focus.
• Kinesthetic learners will often use colors or highlighters when taking notes. By encouraging this, they are more likely to draw out the main points of the material.
• For younger (and sometimes older) students using modeling clay as a learning tool is a great idea. For example, you can use it to create a scenario or to symbolize a word (cat, apple, etc.)
• Having them act out a scenario or preform something they have learned is a great way for them to apply what they have learned.
• Overall, giving your students activities that get them involved directly with the material is a great way to make sure they are engaged in the material.

Auditory

• These students learn best by listening and talking.
• Open discussion are where these students flourish and get involved.
• They may move their lips or read out loud when studying.
• When studying, talking about their course material with a peer is sometimes more helpful than simply reading notes.
• Lectures and videoed/recorded lectures are very helpful within their education.
• Socratic seminars and material summaries are often best when discovering new topics and may get the focus of the student right away.

Visual

• These students learn best by reading or seeing pictures.
• They understand and memorize by associating pictures with what they are learning.
• They often write their notes over and over in order to store them into their memory.
• A good way to get these students involved is to encourage outline making, concept map making, and handouts with blank spaces for their notes.
• Having them draw a certain topic/idea will likely increase their memory of the concept.
• Provide charts, graphs, maps, and other visual aids.

With theVirtual Substitute Teacher Training course provided by the App-Garden University, each substitute will be trained on the various learning styles of each student, making them a more effective substitute teacher.  The Effective Substitute Training program by the App-Garden provides online substitute teacher training that includes topics such as learning styles, diversity, classroom management and much more. Set up a product demonstration with one of our sales representatives today to learn more about what this product can do for your district.