Mr. Hale's Education Corner

Understanding the learning-styles of each student in your classroom can be extremely challenging and often seem like daunting task. One way in which to help facilitate differentiation of instruction to meet the need of all students is to gather data on the students’ learning preferences. Research shows that students have different preferences when learning new materials (Cherry, 2023).

The following table shows four 5th-grade students after the completion of the learning style inventory. It shows the that two of the students, Parker and Harvey’s primary learning style is auditory with one of those two students, Harvey having a competitive learning style mixed in. Then Stacey is primary learning style is visual. She does well with using manipulatives. Often times Stacey talks through problems in order to better understand math assignment or assignments in other content areas. As you can see from the table below the learning style for Anthony is very much logical learning. If he can reason problems out he can very much understand assignments very well.

Student	Learning Styles
Anthony	Logical
Harvey	Auditory mixed with Competitive
Stacey	Visual
Parker	Auditory

Interconnection

While very little research indicates teaching to certain learning styles increases students learning, research has shown that student preferences increases engagement an interest level throughout the lesson (Cherry, 2023). Due to increases in student engagement, there have been a correlation between learning styles and the cognitive, linguistic, and social/emotional, and physical development of students. A child’s development in occurs at the same time across the four development domains; cognitive, linguistic, social/emotional and physical (Darling-Hammond, Orcutt, Cheung, & James, n.d). In order for the four students to be successful they will need to very engaged in the learning process.

It is important that teachers focus on providing lessons in all the different learning styles. Using all elements of the learning different learning styles will help students develop in all skills, not just one or two skills. One example, might be using a kinesthetic approach in order to develop the physical skills. The auditory approach to a lesson will help develop students’ linguistic skills (speech). A visual approach to teaching will help build students’ cognitive skills (thinking). Teaching that incorporates all learning styles will help students to become more well-rounded and aids in whole-brain learning.

The Influences of Learning Preferences on Planning

It is important to understand that teachers need to incorporate a well-balanced approach in providing instruction to students. By providing different types of instructions is helpful to some students. Healthcare profession is incorporating learning style analyses to their profession (Baker JD 3rd, 1985). Education is not only profession to understand the need to incorporate the different learning styles into the learning environment. In order to ensure that I am teaching a well-rounded student, I would look at the learning style inventory to see where I need to incorporate the different learning styles in my lesson.

For auditory leaners, I would ensure to have time for speaking and discussing of important concepts. Being able talk and discuss about the important concepts being taught. For example, if I were teaching unit on the Bill of Rights, I would probably start by discussing the importance of each of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. Perhaps giving students time to debate about which of the ten amendments to the Bill of Rights they find most important for help students learn the importance of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.

For my students, who are visual leaners I would ensure that many types of visuals around the classroom. Again in teaching the Bill of Rights, I might put posters around the room with the ten amendments to the Bill of Rights so students have a visual connection. Also, providing students with PowerPoint emphasizing the key points to each of the ten amendments would be very helpful for visual leaners. Providing videos explaining the ten amendments could be very useful for both visual and auditory learners.

Kinesthetic leaners might need to engage in acting out the ten amendments in order to understand the importance of the Bill of Rights. Students could create skits in which they act out each of the ten amendments. This helps kinesthetic say engaged in learning. Last year for spelling, I took my students outside to the school baseball field and played spelling baseball with my students. This a fun way to engage my kinesthetic learners in learning.

Providing students with opportunity to work in groups and alone is also important. Some students prefer to work independently and students need to able to build that skill in the learning process.

Instructional Change

It is important for teachers to consider the different learning styles and make appropriate changes based on the students’ needs. Learning about each student is important and being able to adjust teaching according to a students’ individual needs to very important. While not all lessons will necessarily connect with every students, it should try to connect with most learning styles present in the classroom. Parker’s learning style lies in math and science. While Harvey’s learning style shows great strength in science and math. Anthony’s learning styles seems to show a strength in math while Stacey tends to enjoy reading and writing. Understanding the different learning styles allows me to make the necessary adjustments to lessons in order to teach to the most students.

Learning Styles in Assessment

There are many different types of ways to address learning styles in assessments. For auditory learns a summative assignment such giving an oral presentation. Kinesthetic learners need to move to show learning .While a visual learner needs visual prompts in order to assess learning. There many ways to address learning styles in assessment.

References

Baker JD 3rd, W. C. (1985, December). Analysis of Learning Style. South Med J, 78(12), 7. doi:10.1097/00007611-198512000-00021. PMID: 4071179.

Cherry, K. (2023, November 27). How a Learning Style Inventory (LSI) Can Help a Student Learn. Retrieved April 2, 2025, from VeryWellMind: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-learning-style-inventory-2795159

Darling-Hammond, L., Orcutt, S., Cheung, M., & James, C. M. (n.d.). Learning As We Grow. Development and Learning, 2. Standford School of Education. Retrieved from https://www.learner.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/The-Learning-Classroom_Development-and-Growth.pdf