As teachers, it is extremely important to meet our students where they are. In order to truly help students grasp new information and concepts, a fundamental understanding of learning styles is paramount. While teachers gain extensive practice and insights into various learning styles and strategies, it is sometimes easy to forget that each student is unique, arriving to the classroom with their own set of past experiences and perceptions. Moreover, it can be difficult to accommodate each student personally within the traditional classroom setting.
Fortunately, more and more digital and technological innovations are providing teachers and schools with easily accessible solutions that support a more individualized and inclusive approach to learning.
In general terms, learning styles refer to the ways in which an individual comes to understand and remember information. Learning styles are comprised of an individual’s characteristic way of processing new information.
The most popular learning styles include: auditory, visual, tactile and kinesthetic. Generally speaking, the majority of students tend to embody a combination of these learning styles. Learning style research revels:
- Visual Learners: Includes approximately 65% of learners. Visual learners learn best through pictures, images, graphics, diagrams, charts, models, and video.
- Auditory Learners: Includes approximately 30% of learners. Auditory learners learn best through audible signals, lectures, storytelling, music, verbalization, and questioning.
- Kinesthetic Learners: Display a strong ability to retain information for long periods of time. Kinesthetic learners prefer acting, role-playing, and clay modeling.
Integrating digital technology with course curriculum is a great way to provide accessible learning strategies for all students. Learning software, like XpressLab, provides teachers with innovative, easy-to-use tools that invite students to extend their learning beyond the traditional bricks-and-mortar classroom.
XpessLab’s course authoring and course delivery platform invites both teachers and students to explore and support each learning style.
XpressLab supports visual learners through a wide range of visual elements, including the ability to create interactive presentations and assessments that incorporate the use of photos, videos, and digital computer graphics. As a slide-based course-authoring environment, XpressLab invites teachers and students to add their own visual images to the presentations they create. Students and teachers can create material by simply choosing from colors, fonts, backgrounds, and graphics, or easily importing existing images/files and audio streaming – all from within XpressLab’s user friendly dashboards.
In addition, XpressLab supports auditory learners through the use of audio recordings and playback technology. Teachers and students can record their own voices through the XpressLab platform, adding sound clips directly into digital assessments and/or course material. Teachers can record sound bites, allowing students to play back the recording as many time as necessary in order to grasp the information presented. Students can than record their own answers, listening back to their verbal cues, while also practicing the material presented.
By providing a multifaceted approach to creating, submitting, and delivering course material, XpressLab and other new forms of education-based technology, work to facilitate a more hands-on and all-inclusive approach to education. By embracing each student’s unique strengths and inviting creativity and fluidity into our educational frameworks, more and more students will transform into truly life long learners.
How are you currently catering to various learning styles within your classroom? What strategies do you find most helpful in teaching students new concepts? Share your insights about learning styles, strategies and solutions by joining us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or LinkedIn.