Learning Styles for Teens, and all ages

Having been a former elementary school teacher, it was stressed to us to present the material to our students in the ways that worked best for them. This may seem to be a "no-brainer" on an individual basis; however, in a classroom this was no easy task. Everyone has a different learning style and I found it so interesting as well as useful when, after teaching a lesson, a student may approach me privately and tell me they didn't understand it. Based on the way they learn best, according to their learning style, I was able to help the student in an individualized and personal manner, in their own learning style.

Totally confused? Don't be. http://www.metamath.com/lsweb/dvclearn.htm is the website I have used to best explain the concept.

Your learning style is the way you prefer to learn. It doesn't have anything to do with how intelligent you are or what skills you have learned. It has to do with how your brain works most efficiently to learn new information. Your learning style has been with you since you were born.

There's no such thing as a "good" learning style or a "bad" learning style. Success comes with many different learning styles. There is no "right" approach to learning. We all have our own particular way of learning new information. The important thing is to be aware of the nature of your learning style. If you are aware of how your brain best learns, you have a better chance of studying in a way that will pay off when it's time to take that dreaded exam.


Visual, Auditory, or Tactile/ Kinesthetic Learner.
To get you started thinking about your learning style, think about the way in which you remember a phone number. Do you see, in your mind's eye, how the numbers look on the phone? Or can you "see" the number on that piece of paper, picturing it exactly as you wrote it down? You might be a Visual Learner. Or, perhaps you can "hear" the number in the way that someone recited it to you. In this case, you might be an Auditory Learner. If you "let your fingers do the walking" on the phone, i.e. your fingers dial the number without looking at the phone, you may be a Tactile/ Kinesthetic Learner.

This way of looking at learning style uses the different channels of perception (seeing, hearing, touching/moving) as its model. This is a somewhat simplistic view of a very complicated subject (the human brain). However, looking at learning style from a perceptual point of view is a useful place to begin.


Match Your Learning Style and Strategies
While there is no "good" or "bad" learning style, there can be a good or bad match between the way you best learn and the way a particular course is taught. Suppose you are a Visual Learner enrolled in a traditional lecture course. You feel that the instructor drones on for hours and you can't pay attention or stay interested in the class. There's a mismatch here between your learning style and the instructional environment of the class. As soon as you understand this mismatch, you can find ways to adapt your style to ensure your success in the class. You might start tape recording the lectures so that you don't have to worry about missing important information. You might decide to draw diagrams that illustrate the ideas being presented in lecture. You might go to the Media Center and check out a video to help provide some additional information on course material you're not sure about. What you're doing is developing learning strategies that work for you because they are based on your knowledge of your own learning style.

Parents: Learning styles can best be applied in so many ways. Our children have a way that they best learn, and no matter what idea we are trying to get across to them, if we get that blank stare that kids can often give ;) before frustration hits all of us, think if we are communicating according to the way that they will best understand. It is so difficult to be in a situation, whether child or adult, where you are so lost that you don't even know what questions to ask! (been there!) Sometimes it's simple enough to fix just by changing the way you may present it. As teachers, we had to make sure, also, that we did not present things only in OUR learning style. The student is first, and it's easy to slip back into our own comfort zone. The same with our children.

Homeschooling and teachers: Teens, kids, adults all have a learning style. Do you find that you need to take copious notes? Do you learn best by listening? Combination of both? Do you need an experiment to make your science lesson come to life? Do you need an experiment to be done before you feel comfortable teaching? ALL different styles of learning and presenting.

I recommend all of us take the learning survey. If you are homeschooling, find out your child's learning style, as well as your own! Use them together so that your child can better understand your style as well. After all, we know he/she will not encounter people that only have their learning style. But to recognize it and be aware is enlightening for all. So on your leisure time (what?? ;) go to the website and enjoy finding out the ways your child best expresses herself. From early homeschool through teens, it can all be applied. Find your style also. Enjoy, and learn while knowing the style of those you live with, work with, and/or present to.

By the way: Before 50, that glazed look of one of my children might have driven me up one side of the wall and down the other (hah!) and now I can work with situations more effectively in dealing with them in the way that would better work for them. It doesn't come over night, but it works!

Denise

New Beginnings

I must start out saying I have been MIA for a bit. Sometimes we just have to take a little time and get off the "roller coaster" and experience things in a different way. Refreshed now, I am ready for new beginnings for all of us.

The first days of school seem so filled with hope and excitement. A feeling that cannot be explained but just must be lived. For me, it's quite similar to the feeling I get after New Years and even Easter. I can mess up, but I am a part of something great out there, and have times I can start again. After Easter, the hope is compounded with the fact that there is a God who loves me enough to send give his son, but that's a whole different post. :) Plans are made for school, schedules done, with the knowledge in her heads that we will have times where all organization will fall by the wayside for a day or so, and that is where God often works in magnificent ways. We have hopefully figured out what worked last year and what didn't, and made all of our necessary tweaks. For homeschooling parents, we have planned, adjusted curriculum choices, all new beginnings. For those of us who work at home, the routine changes when the children are in school or homeschooled. MORE new beginnings. Excitement. Possibilities.

Guide your children and encourage their areas of strength. Challenge yourselves as I'm challenging myself this year (another new thing!). Take their area that may seem like a weakness to you and help your child use it as a strength. For example, the child who may seem to take a long time with work and be very detail oriented may exasperate a parent in this rush-rush society; yet, there are many professions where a detail oriented person is considered to be of extreme importance. We must help our children see these things as we prepare them on the path they will ultimately choose.

This day, or whenever you are starting, take time to be thankful for your child, no matter how little or even a teen. You gave birth to an awesome person there and now they are relating to you. They have opinions on things from fashion to politics and everything in between. Think of your favorite qualities about your child. Even share them. One of my daughters is able to see the humor in anything and will often bring a smile to our face in the midst of what we might think is a mess. The other one is a deep thinker and often challenges us. Something good for a parent, also! I'm thankful for them and can laugh with my husband that we gave birth to awesome kids!! God is good.

So, send your kids off and in school knowing they are loved for who they are, and they have qualities that we really find endearing. Enjoy this time of new beginnings and possibilities.

Enjoy your new beginnings in work, life, and allow God to work through you-
Denise

Teens Plan and Mom's Plan- Part II

To make a plan work we have to figure out the limitations of the plan before starting and then work from there. For our family, we start out knowing the order of our subjects has to be arranged with dad's subjects first. He is Mr. History and Science, as well as PE, and he leaves for work at 1:30pm. Limitations can be used to help, because, in our case the plan starts to work itself out. Combine that with mom working at home and that part of the day is taken care of. During dad's time with our daughters, I am free to do some transcribing, cook if I need to. I try to save major cleaning for the weekend, and cook ahead of time or use my slow cooker. (notice I say try as there are exceptions and we cannot beat ourselves up over them. We're not good for our family when we're black and blue :) So now we are ready to operate with the school morning plan and I am able to combine this with my own plan and digest it. I try to take on easier work, or transcribe for a company that will allow me to have my own hours so that I can work and still be free to be involved if necessary. For our state, I need to be considered the "supervisor" over homeschooling as I have the teaching degree.

It's important for me to take the time and take a few days to just live with the plan we are working on and think the morning through before I continue. We stop and eat our main meal (dinner) at about 12:30pm, so that hubby gets a main meal before going to work. (it helps with cooking and budgeting also, so that he doesn't have to have his main meal at work. He then can take either sandwiches or leftovers to work).

The time to digest the plan is also necessary for my own sanity as well. I leave you with the reminder that we are not helpful to others unless we have taken care of ourselves, as we can all think of the flight attendant saying to put on your oxygen mask first before helping others.

Have a great day-
Denise