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It has become more important than ever to know your students and for students to understand how they learn most effectively. Knowing and improving teaching - style may be most important.
Every teacher I spoke with agrees with you Beth - knowing your students' learning style is most important.
I always say I use three "I's" in training - intuitive, integrity, inspiring.
Intuitive is much like Bruce described here as "follow your instincts."
What integrity means to me in this context, is that I am willing to learn from everybody in the group, I won't pretend to know something if I don't and I will consider the fact that I'm working with individuals who don't all learn in the same way. So I relate to what he said. "When training your team, present material in a variety of formats. Supplement the talk with a slide show. Distribute handouts that team members can touch, notate and take home for reflection." etc...
To me "inspiring" means that I want to inspire my learners or delegates to go out and be inspired to learn EVEN MORE of what we did in a workshop or class. In part, that will happen because of interesting presentation, involvement and good quality materials. So once again, I feel Bruce is spot on when he asks, "What materials do you have for your session? If you have a fabulous image, a sticky expression, web-clip, demonstration, or exercise – use it!"
I appreciate the kind words, Yolande, and your additional thoughts are excellent.
In workplace learning in large orgs it is virtually impossible to know & tailor your learning style to students. More important for people to know *their own* learning styles/preferences & use that to shape their own learning, after all, so little of it happens in a formal setting.
And as learning facilitators I think "leaving the arguments to academics" is terrible advice! We should be using evidence-based research to help us get the best from people.
Although I agree with the rest of your advice 🙂 Tailor the style to the material, make it varied & engaging.
Everything is well said what remains or what pulls all these beautiful strategies is implementation
The sage on the stage and guide on the side has also expanded to the meddler in the middle , which is a provocative and interesting role. I think the 2008 meta analysis you cite really gives the clearest answer.
I don't think its absolute but, the notion of learning styles gives the teacher an insight into their learner and I for one have seen great benefits from using it with my learners.
The point is that through inital and formative assessment, teachers develop a better understanding of their learners and use this information to create our profiles. Enabling each learner to contribute to the learning process.
Learning styles have their place, but they are not what you should hang a whole session on. Its about having great resources, blending teaching and learning approaches as well as the appropriate use of technology
Good point there Matt! When designing a training session there are many factors that need to be considered to cater to all styles and approaches. Having a mix in one's approach is usually best.