Addressing Individual Differences Inside the Classroom

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No two persons are exactly alike. There are billions of people in the world with different personalities and different interests.

Inside a classroom, teachers should expect that students with different family background and life environment may also differ in terms of interest and how they comprehend their lessons. Each of them has different characteristics that make up their own learning style. For a successful teaching-learning experience, teacher should cater these individual differences. Thus, teacher should be aware of these differences and aligned their lessons to the different learning styles of these students.

VARK (Visual Auditory Reading/Writing Kinesthetic)Learning Styles

A teacher from New Zealand Neil Fleming conducted the VARK survey to find out the learner’s different learning preferences. He reached these following conclusions:

• The preferred modes of learning (also called ‘modal preferences) influence behaviors of individuals.
• Both teachers and students can provide examples of their preferred learning styles.
• Using one’s preferences, strategies can be developed for improving learning in that person.
• Matching strategies for learning of a person with his learning style preferences can be highly motivating for him.
• This matching would also lead to deeper approach to learning, consistent learning efforts and effective metacognition.
• In order to improve one’s learning, knowledge of his learning styles and acting on them is important

It is studied that students have their own preferences to learn. According to Neil Fleming’s VARK Model, learners are classified into 4:

1. Visual Learners
This kind of students prefer seeing images, drawing, graphics to better comprehend the concepts.
Teachers can use or present examples of image to represent the subjects.

2. Auditory Learners
Learning experience of this kind of students should be more on listening or speaking.
Teacher can present the subject matter by having a lecture, seminar, debate, or a discussion.

3. Read/Write Learners
These learners prefer to study ideas by presenting it in a written way.
Teachers can make use of books, printed hand-outs, readings or taking notes.

4. Kinesthetic Learners
Prefer examples, laboratories, field trips, role play, hands-on approaches, trial and error, solutions to problem, guest lectures, using their senses etc.
Teachers may expose their students to the real-setting of their subject or organize an event that will allow the students to practice on their own the concepts presented to them.

For example, your lesson is all about the Parts of the Earth.

For visual learners:

Visual learners prefer to be presented with an image that shows the Parts of the Earth. In here, teacher can make use of a big picture labeled with the name of each part. He/she can also use video presentations that will show how each parts look like.

For auditory learners:

This kind of students prefer to listen in a discussion about the subject. The teacher may present the topic by discussing it and engage students to participate through brainstorming until the class can generate ideas that will lead to a general conclusion.

For Read/Write Learners:

These students prefer to read about the subject, make generalizations of their readings. Once their mind has processed the information, they can write it down or make an outline of what they understood about it.

For teachers, you can introduce to the students the subject matter which is “The Parts of the Earth”, make sure to give them objectives so that their research will be connected to the topics. Let the students themselves research about the topics. Give them the opportunity to explore the subject by researching their own materials and come up with an output on how they understood the subject.

For Kinesthetic Learners:

These learners prefer application and exposure and experiences. In this specific topic, teachers can use objects to represent the parts/layers of the Earth.

For a more interactive learning experience, teacher can make use of clays to mold the different parts of the Earth together with the students. You can also present them real objects like bringing in the classroom the kinds of soil that represents each part of the Earth.

Addressing their individual differences can be a hard task but this will help the students to have equal learning opportunities in terms of provision of learning experiences and environment.

There are many ways to make your teaching more applicable and interesting to your students. As long as you have dedication to your profession every effort you give as a teacher is worth doing.

As we celebrate Teacher’s day, always remember that, we, teachers no matter how stressful and overwhelming our responsibilities, we should never give up on our students. Let’s help them to reach their own potential, they may not understand for now our intentions but time will surely come that they will do.

Happy Teacher’s Day to all the teachers in the world!

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Thank you guys for reading!

References:

http://www.educationdegree.com/articles/different-types-of-learning-styles
http://futurehumanevolution.com/vark-learning-style
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Fleming
https://teach.com/what/teachers-teach/learning-styles/

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