Are you aware of your student's learning style?

Young adults are able to thrive because their classroom and the people around them at school make it easy for them to succeed. Research shows that the quality of a child’s environment is a prerequisite for overall brain development and that a stimulating and effective learning environment will positively affect all other learning areas later on in life. 

Children need space, time, materials and an accommodating environment that nurtures their sense of security – an important emotional need. Understanding the way that your students learn is also critical. 

That’s why I’d like to introduce you to a great resource for the older child (13yrs plus) called the Learning Styles Assessment with a report that can be completed online.  All learners are not equal and many teachers tend to treat their students the same way when it comes to supporting them to learn, depending on their personality style.  

Some students like to process information through text, while others want visual support and images. Some assimilate information individually, while others prefer to work in groups. Some grasp information intuitively and quickly, while others prefer to see a strong sequential path and time to reflect. In the end, the only thing you can say for sure is that every individual learns in their own particular way.  

The Learning Styles Questionnaire simply helps students to understand their relative preferences as they learn.  It is intended to help determine where people’s general preferences, or natural learning biases, might lie. Although this is far from an exact science, the simple view is that the more we can understand about how we perceive new information or new learning, the better and more successful our learning transfer will be. The report introduces four categories of learning:

1. Attending – This category looks at an individual’s motivation to learn in the first place, and the levels of commitment or concentration they tend to give when new information is presented to them. 
2. Translating – This category looks at who an individual relies on most in managing the transfer of learning, for making sense of what they see, hear, or sense. 
3. Relating – This category looks at an individual’s perception of data or information, and how it is related to existing knowledge. This has three subscales: “Visual”, “Auditory”, and “Kinesthetic”. 
4. Understanding – This category looks at an individual’s preferences for synthesizing data or information they receive. This category has two sub-scales: “Global” and “Analytical”. Global means a preference for understanding at a conceptual or “big picture” level. Analytical means a preference for understanding at a detailed or step-by-step level. 

Click on this link to purchase a Learning Styles assessment for each of your 13yrs plus students, and the good news is that it’s on sale, AND it also comes with a Educator's Debrief Guide: Learning Styles Assessment with Report

You also might like to apply these three tips I share with the parents I coach, for encouraging and supporting your teens to learn:

1. Frequent Breaks. The Pomodoro Technique has a five-minute break built-in after every 25 minutes of work.  Just like adults, your students will feel less overwhelmed when they know they won’t have to work continuously for a long time.  Their brains need a chance to stop concentrating and to rest.  Afterwards they are more motivated to get back at it and are able to work more efficiently.
   
2. Encourage them to plan their own study time when doing homework and when working on projects. Teens, especially, hate being told what to do. Yep, I remember those days, don’t you?  It’s not that they don’t want to listen; they just want some say in how they go about things.  
3. Acknowledge them.This is a BIG one, and many of us don’t do it enough with children.  Some styles are good at giving instructions, not so good at telling their students what they have done (or are doing) well.  “Wow, now, that’s excellence, what a great essay, well done!  You have a way with words, and have given your best to writing it!” Just make sure when you give an acknowledgment that it comes from the heart and you mean what you say. 

For those Teachers that would like to join our Educator's Facebook group you can go here Educators Are Amazing...Even Us! Please share with others if you have found this post helpful. Together we can create a more kind and peaceful classroom culture and world.  Also we would love to hear your comments.