Applying Learning Styles: Visual, Auditory and KInesthetic
Learning Style Specific Teaching Approaches
Other than how you use language, there are a wide range of different ways you can apply visual, auditory and kinaesthetic teaching strategies, which will differ depending on the resources you have available to you the subject content and the age of the student.
Auditory Learners: Auditory learning may simply involve verbally describing and discussing topics, as well as getting the student to actively participate in discussion by verbally €thinking out loud'. Auditory learners may respond well to visual and kinesthetic language, as they may prefer to listen to information they are taking in, but process and store it by generating feelings or pictures in their mind (whereas they might find real pictures unhelpful).
Visual Learners: Whilst seeing numbers and words written on paper involves visual perception, there are visual strategies that can be used to make numeracy and literacy concepts €appear' more visually understandable. Examples may include:
* Drawing a picture to illustrate what is being written about in a text.
* Using diagrams, graphs, concept maps and other visual representations to visually demonstrate the relationship between various concepts either in literacy or numeracy.
* Highlighting or underlining keywords in a text to make them stand out visually.
* Using different pen colours to to differentiate constants and variables in mathematical formulas (you can also use colour coding to separate concepts that might otherwise 'blur together' in the student mind).
Kinaesthetic Learners: Whilst kinaesthetic approaches are typical with subjects such as science, art and PE, most tutoring happens in literacy and numeracy. Kinaesthetic approaches to literacy and numeracy may prove more difficult at high school level, but are more practical with primary school children. Some examples of kinaesthetic approaches to words and numbers include:
* Using three-dimensional letters to create words.
* Putting words on cards, then moving the cards around to create sentences.
* Using a tape measure or scales to measure the size or weight of objects.
* Chopping up an apple into halves and quarters to learn about fractions.
* Using an iPad to play electronic literacy or numeracy games.
Howard Gardeners Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Whilst the NLP model of communication gives us a starting point when analysing the different ways that people learn and communicate, Howard Gardeners theory of Multiple Intelligence goes into more detail. Gardeners theory also identifies the areas of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning, however the well accepted Multiple Intelligence theory goes a step further by breaking down learning styles into 8 separate areas of intelligence.
As mentioned above, when it comes to the most common things your student's need tutoring with (such as literacy and numeracy concepts) there is a limit to how these things can be taught. Gardeners theory looks at more than just 'senses' but areas of awareness as well. This means that areas of litteracy and numeracy can still be taught using standard resources, so long as the background context or 'theme' appeals to the relevance of the learners strongest intelligences.
For example, let's say you had a student who was struggling with maths, though they had a high €naturalistic' intelligence. You might not necessarily be able to take them out into a natural park and calculate the number of ants they find in the grass, however you can still use naturalistic concepts when teaching them. For example, asking a year 1 child to subtract 5 from 15 might be made more €relevant' if you asked them to subtract 5 leaves from 15 leaves on a branch. If they are both naturalistically and visually strong, you might even draw 15 leaves and then rub out 5. If they are both naturalistically and kinaesthetically strong, you might even place 15 real leaves on the table and ask them to physically remove 5.
A musical person might understand literacy concepts better by analysing lyrics to a song they like or a poem that has a particular rhythm. If they are visually strong it might be helpful for them to draw a picture of what they're reading about. If they're logically strong, it might be helpful to analyse the concepts by breaking them down categorically into lists, mind maps or concept maps. A linguistic person might perform better in maths if the process is written out word for word.
By doing this, we are essentially arming the student with their most powerful strengths in the battle to overcome their weaknesses. Whilst there are limits to how this can be done, the biggest limitation in most teaching situations is ability to adapt for everyone's strengths and weaknesses in a class full of different learners. In a one-on-one setting however, the biggest limitation is the teacher's imagination.
Other than how you use language, there are a wide range of different ways you can apply visual, auditory and kinaesthetic teaching strategies, which will differ depending on the resources you have available to you the subject content and the age of the student.
Auditory Learners: Auditory learning may simply involve verbally describing and discussing topics, as well as getting the student to actively participate in discussion by verbally €thinking out loud'. Auditory learners may respond well to visual and kinesthetic language, as they may prefer to listen to information they are taking in, but process and store it by generating feelings or pictures in their mind (whereas they might find real pictures unhelpful).
Visual Learners: Whilst seeing numbers and words written on paper involves visual perception, there are visual strategies that can be used to make numeracy and literacy concepts €appear' more visually understandable. Examples may include:
* Drawing a picture to illustrate what is being written about in a text.
* Using diagrams, graphs, concept maps and other visual representations to visually demonstrate the relationship between various concepts either in literacy or numeracy.
* Highlighting or underlining keywords in a text to make them stand out visually.
* Using different pen colours to to differentiate constants and variables in mathematical formulas (you can also use colour coding to separate concepts that might otherwise 'blur together' in the student mind).
Kinaesthetic Learners: Whilst kinaesthetic approaches are typical with subjects such as science, art and PE, most tutoring happens in literacy and numeracy. Kinaesthetic approaches to literacy and numeracy may prove more difficult at high school level, but are more practical with primary school children. Some examples of kinaesthetic approaches to words and numbers include:
* Using three-dimensional letters to create words.
* Putting words on cards, then moving the cards around to create sentences.
* Using a tape measure or scales to measure the size or weight of objects.
* Chopping up an apple into halves and quarters to learn about fractions.
* Using an iPad to play electronic literacy or numeracy games.
Howard Gardeners Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Whilst the NLP model of communication gives us a starting point when analysing the different ways that people learn and communicate, Howard Gardeners theory of Multiple Intelligence goes into more detail. Gardeners theory also identifies the areas of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning, however the well accepted Multiple Intelligence theory goes a step further by breaking down learning styles into 8 separate areas of intelligence.
As mentioned above, when it comes to the most common things your student's need tutoring with (such as literacy and numeracy concepts) there is a limit to how these things can be taught. Gardeners theory looks at more than just 'senses' but areas of awareness as well. This means that areas of litteracy and numeracy can still be taught using standard resources, so long as the background context or 'theme' appeals to the relevance of the learners strongest intelligences.
For example, let's say you had a student who was struggling with maths, though they had a high €naturalistic' intelligence. You might not necessarily be able to take them out into a natural park and calculate the number of ants they find in the grass, however you can still use naturalistic concepts when teaching them. For example, asking a year 1 child to subtract 5 from 15 might be made more €relevant' if you asked them to subtract 5 leaves from 15 leaves on a branch. If they are both naturalistically and visually strong, you might even draw 15 leaves and then rub out 5. If they are both naturalistically and kinaesthetically strong, you might even place 15 real leaves on the table and ask them to physically remove 5.
A musical person might understand literacy concepts better by analysing lyrics to a song they like or a poem that has a particular rhythm. If they are visually strong it might be helpful for them to draw a picture of what they're reading about. If they're logically strong, it might be helpful to analyse the concepts by breaking them down categorically into lists, mind maps or concept maps. A linguistic person might perform better in maths if the process is written out word for word.
By doing this, we are essentially arming the student with their most powerful strengths in the battle to overcome their weaknesses. Whilst there are limits to how this can be done, the biggest limitation in most teaching situations is ability to adapt for everyone's strengths and weaknesses in a class full of different learners. In a one-on-one setting however, the biggest limitation is the teacher's imagination.
