Learning Styles

Everybody learns in different ways. Some people like a strict learning environment, and others like a looser one. Also, some people like to learn visually, while others work better by listening. This week we learned about learning theories, and learning styles. According to the pdf file we read for class, “a learning theory is an attempt to describe how people and animals learn.” It is also very helpful for understanding how learning occurs. There are three different theories that can be used to explain learning theories: behaviorist theory, information process theory, and constructivism. The first, behaviorist theory, focuses on cause and effect relationships through the observation of behavior. The information process theory focuses on the change of the information, and everything that happens during the change in the universe. This theory also states that humans have three different memory stores that work to register, process, store, and retrieve the information. The last theory, constructivism, states that people construct the knowledge in their minds by participating in different experiences. If a student is part of an activity, they will learn things on their own that are considered knowledge. There a plenty of arguments against this theory because students may not know how to learn from experiences, and also they might go about an experience the wrong way, which would end up with them not learning anything. People have different learning styles. The main three are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. If you are visual you learn by watching, if you are auditory you learn by listening, and if you are kinesthetic you learn by doing activities. I know that I don’t learn well from just listening to a teacher, so if they gave me an activity where I needed to listen, I would not learn as much. I took the learning style test, and like I thought I would, it told me I am mostly a visual learner, then kinesthetic, and lastly auditory.

This video shows how everybody has different learning styles that help them succeed. In the beginning of the video, the speaker says that everyone has been told that the best way to study is at a desk in a quiet place, but not all students learn best that way. Learning about these styles this week has helped to understand why people succeed in different ways.

It is extremely important as a teacher to understand the different ways that students learn. If my classroom is only geared towards one learning style, my kids won’t all succeed. Learning styles are probably most important for teachers to understand. If they have a child who is not succeeding when listening to lectures, they would know he/she is not an auditory learner, and can find different way to help. I know that I succeed when taking notes, or reading in silence, but not all of my students in the future will succeed if use my learning style into the classroom. Teachers need to know how to be open to all different styles. They can do activities, give lectures, and read along with students, that way all three learning styles are being used. The best kind of teacher is one who can work with all kinds of students, no matter what learning style they have.