Apr 17, 2020

Learning Styles and A Paradigm Shift

As an educator and a Mom, one thing I know for sure is that I want to equip my teens with everything they need to manage their own learning. Understanding how I learn best and how my kids learn best makes a HUGE difference in the way I teach – whether in the classroom or at home – AND it puts them one step closer to becoming independent, lifelong learners.

Now, when I was in the classroom, that shift came about as the result of a project my entire team did at the beginning of one school year. And to be clear, after that first time we did it, it was part of our interdisciplinary curriculum every year after.

For the assignment, every kid had to use a guided journal, and detail different life experiences they’d had, using 8 categories that were based on Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. At the end of the project, students did a presentation sharing which intelligences they were strong in and those where they were challenged.

It gave us a lot of insight into our students and helped us get to know them.

Bringing Learning Styles into Lessons

Our challenge after the project was figuring out how to incorporate that insight into our lesson planning.

If you’re a teacher, you know exactly what I’m talking about – putting together a one-dimensional lesson plan is a big challenge when you’re first starting out. And creating a one-size-fits-all assignment is certainly the simplest way to do things, but is it the most effective? To create eight different assignments – to fit ALL the different learning styles – that’s a recipe for crazy-making.

The trick was to find efficient ways to hit as many learning styles as we could – and to recognize when our own learning styles were biasing us.

Eventually, we got into a great rhythm, offering projects with a choice for what kinds of end products students could submit. Mixing up lesson formats to present information in a variety of styles and letting students have some freedom in how they worked in class.

Learning Styles in the Time of Coronavirus

Now, obviously, teachers don’t have a whole lot of wiggle room when it comes to the kinds of assignments they’re giving. During this coronavirus quarantine, the constraints of e-learning are definitely at play.

But parents? Discovering your own learning style and your students could be a game-changer. Because while it’s literally impossible for a teacher to tailor instruction for each individual student (it gives me a panic attack to think about that level of work!), a parent can.

Am I suggesting that parents need to know how to teach Algebra or French or Statistics or AP English? Absolutely not. What I AM saying, is that knowing your teen’s learning style can give you another tool to share with them; another way to support their learning.

What It Might Look Like

Imagine being able to show your visual learners how to turn class notes into visual symbols, then back into words again, to better study for a test. You could have your auditory learners explain the new math concept to you. Your read/write learners could condense class notes into a bulleted list. Or you could role-play taking the test with your kinesthetic learner, so they can practice.

You get the idea – you can see how knowing those specific learning styles can be super helpful. (I’ve shared links with more information about this in the “Referenced in this Episode” section below.

Different Ways to Look at Learning Styles

Having said that, what I want to do next is share some different ways to look at learning styles.

There are a ton of ways to “categorize” yourself – and your teens – but for our purposes, we’re going to explore 3 different ways to look at the way you learn.

Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

First, and this is the one I used with my students in the project I mentioned earlier, is Gardner’s multiple intelligences.

Here’s what they are:

• Linguistic intelligence
• Logical-mathematical intelligence
• Spatial intelligence
• Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence
• Musical intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Naturalist intelligence

Multiple Intelligences Learning Styles in Action

The link between the intelligences and learning is that you process and learn optimally when new information is presented in the area of your strongest intelligence. For instance, if I was a history teacher talking about the American revolution, I might have someone with a strong

• linguistic intelligence read primary documents from the time period
• logical-mathematical intelligence put together statistics about the time period – population size, number of people in the armies involved, etc.
• spatial intelligence read (or create) a graphic novel detailing key events
• bodily-kinesthetic intelligence act out one of the key events or create a dance that represents key events
• musical intelligence study music composed during the time period and relate it to the events of the day
• interpersonal intelligence have a group discussion about key events of the time period and cause/effect between them (taxes & Boston tea party, etc.)
• intrapersonal intelligence journal as if they were someone from that time period experiencing a key event
• naturalist intelligence research how the natural terrain, animal population, etc. helped or hindered the American and British militaries

Bernice McCarthy’s 4MAT

Okay, the next kind of learning style structure we’re going to look at is the 4MAT model. This is something I dabble with as a teacher, but also as a speaker. The idea is that everyone has a question they need to have answered when they're in a new learning situation. (Go to http://theishgirl.com/ep75 to see the visual.)

Type 1 likes self-reflection and looks for personal meaning. They learn by making connections.

Type 2 likes facts. They think through ideas, research what the experts say on something. They learn by examining ideas.

Type 3 likes doing. They experiment, build, and tinker. They learn by applying.

Type 4 likes creating. They look for hidden possibilities, explore new ideas, and create and adapt. They learn by trial and error.

How I’ve Used the 4MAT Learning Style

The way I’ve used this, specifically, is by trying to draw in my audiences by answering the first three questions at the very beginning of the talks I give. For instance, with this blog post, I let you guys know in the beginning that my goal is to equip teens with everything they need to manage their own learning (that’s the why) and that one way to do that is by understanding different learning styles (the what) and that we’d be exploring how to use learning styles if you’re a parent who’s homeschooling or a teacher who’s creating e-lessons. (that’s the how.)

The What If, I don’t really have to address, because there are those of you out there who are already thinking about, what if I used it this way with my kids? You know who you are!

The VARK Guide to Learning Styles

The last type of learning style structure we’ll look at is the VARK format. It was developed by Neil Fleming, and it’s an acronym for Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic. If it sounds similar to the multiple intelligences – well, it is. But there are a few nuances. This is from the website vark-learn.com/ and it outlines what each category represents

• People with a strong visual preference for learning like:

different formats, space, graphs, charts, diagrams, maps, and plans.

• People with a strong aural preference for learning like:

discussions, stories, guest speakers, and chatting.

• People with a strong read/write preference for learning like:

lists, notes, and text in all its formats, whether in print or online.

• People with a strong kinesthetic preference for learning like:

senses, practical exercises, examples, cases, and trial and error.

You Can Use the VARK Guide to Learning Styles Right Now

The reason I’m including the VARK theory is that they offer a great questionnaire to help figure out where you land in their version of learning styles – plus, they have a resource page that walks you through learning and communication strategies that work best for your style.

How I’ve Used VARK with My Family

Just to give you an idea of how we’ve used them in our family; my son is an aural learner, and he was on the Academic Decathlon team this year. They had multiple reading guides on a variety of subjects that they started studying last summer. He used my podcast equipment to record himself reading the guides and downloaded them to his phone so he could listen to them all the time.

My daughter, on the other hand, is a list-maker (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – she comes from a long line of list-makers) and she puts everything down on paper or in her remind or list apps on her phone to keep track of all her things.

Do You Want to Equip Your Teens to Manage Their Own Learning?

This isn’t something that you have to be perfect at. In fact, it’s a whole lot of messy trial and error – for parents AND for teachers. But the bottom line is this: Are you the kind of parent and/or the kind of teacher who wants to equip your teens with as many tools as you can? The kind who is teaching your teens to manage their own learning?

I’m a linguistic, quadrant 4 What If, Read/Write learner. What are you? What are your teens? I’d LOVE to know! You can grab graphics for each style on my show notes page and post them on your own social media – just be sure to tag me and use the hashtag #ishlearningstyles!

And teachers, I’d love to know how you’ve incorporated learning styles into your classroom – pre-COVID and now. Go to the link on my show notes page to leave me a voicemail and tell me what you’re doing. You might be featured in an upcoming podcast episode!

Head to my show notes page for more resources.