Exploring the Visual, Auditory and Physical Styles of Learning: The Benefits of Various Teaching Styles
Simply put, learning styles are the different ways in which a person intakes information. While there are multiple ways to analyze this, one of the easiest ways to break this down is through our senses.
Simply put, learning styles are the different ways in which a person intakes information. While there are multiple ways to analyze this, one of the easiest ways to break this down is through our senses. Students learn through seeing, hearing, and handling the subject matters taught to them. Some children are more prone to retaining information when presented in a certain way, and thus one student may learn more quickly through hearing a teacher’s lesson while another may better grasp the concept if that same information is formulated into a graph. With that said, here is a quick breakdown of some of the learning styles and how they can be used.
Visual: Here are some ways in to use visualization to your advantage: Use multiple colored pens when taking notes to color-coordinate certain ideas, create graphs, charts, webs, and illustrations to depict the information you were taught, make a mind-map to see how various ideas connect to each other, or put facts on images and make a review collage.
Auditorial: Some people prefer learning through hearing the information, so here are some study ideas: Listen to energizing but not distracting music while studying, memorize facts by putting them to the tune of a popular song, download lectures and re-listen to them in the car on the way to soccer practice, read through your notes out loud, or take turns with a study partner re-teaching each other the information by putting it in your own words.
During a lesson exploring the digestive system, students participate in hands-on experiments to guide their understanding of the course material.
Physical: Get moving! This style of learning requires you to use your body: Act out what you are trying to learn as if rehearsing for a play, read your notes while walking or chewing gum to keep your subconscious busy with movement to help your mind focus on what you need to memorize, put choreography or dance moves to the information you are trying to memorize, or place index cards of facts around the room and connect them with string. Anything that gets your body moving in sync with your brain as you digest the information can be beneficial for a kinesthetic style of learning.
For rather obvious reasons, the smelling and tasting methods are rarely used. While delicious, writing your notes in icing on a cake and then eating it is neither practical nor efficient, even if you do technically digest the information.
What’s a way to wrap all of this into one useful study tip: draw your notes. Edutopia explains how drawing while notetaking can increase retention rates by utilizing multiple learning styles at once. The student is intaking the information audibly by listening to the lecture; by depicting the information in charts, symbols, or pictures, they are constructing visuals; and by using their hands to draw, they are keeping their body physically active.
While certain learning styles may come easier to some than others, we should avoid pigeonholing anyone to a specific style. If not understood correctly, a student may lay blame on the way a topic was conveyed rather than trying to take responsibility for trying extra hard to understand the concept. Rather than looking to strengthen a weakness, they may turn it into a handicap. This may be why the developer of the multiple intelligence theory, Howard Gardner believes it best to leave behind the term “learning styles,” even though he does highly encourage educators to “pluralize” their teaching methods.
SOURCES:
Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. (2020). Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. In Instructional guide for university faculty and teaching assistants. Retrieved from https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide
“Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences.” Northern Illinois University. (visited 24 March 2022)
Cherry, Kendra. “Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences.” VeryWellMind.com. July 28, 2021 (visite 24 March 2022)
https://www.verywellmind.com/gardners-theory-of-multiple-intelligences-2795161
Terada, Youki. “The Science of Drawing and Memory.” Edutopia. 14 March 2019. (visited 4 April 2022)