Learning style and strategies... Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!

I just completed a reading about learning styles and learning strategies, and it made me think of the movie The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy, the Tin Man and Scarecrow are talking about the Eerie Forest... but enough about my childhood LOL

Here's my view and interpretation of what I've learned on these topics. Learning styles are personal, may or may not be shared by others around me, and help me cope in learning situations.

However, not all people who share the same learning style will adopt the same learning strategy in a given situation. That's because we have a tendency to adopt the learning strategy that best suits our learning style, motivation, desired outcome, and so on.

So what is a learning strategy?

I can best identify this as the group of tools we implement in a learning situation.

Let's say I want to assemble a piece of flat-pack furniture. Because of my Multimodal learning style, I'll probably take the pieces from the box and examine them, then maybe see if I can lay them out in an arrangement that will let me put them together. If this fails, I'll likely move on to checking the instructions and follow the step-by-step. I'll probably also adapt my learning from the first couple of steps in the instructions into instrumental learning. I'll try any universal assembly techniques that I've identified and see if they apply to assembling the rest of the furniture. If I succeed, the instructions will probably be ignored until I hit a snag or successfully finish putting the furniture together. If I really can't figure it out, I might invite a friend who has put this together before to show me how they did it, and learn by observing. Or, if they can't come over, I'll ask them to talk me through it over the phone.

One thing is for sure, I will put the furniture together... because I'm also a tenacious learner. I don't quit just because I don't 'get it'. I keep going and going, like the Energizer bunny, because I know that eventually the light WILL go on.

So, as a teacher, what can I do about the varied learning styles in the classroom? Should I do anything about it? What if, instead of adapting multiple, varied classroom delivery units and teaching strategies, I simply focus on the learning strategies shared by the 5 learning styles, and deliver material that incorporates common learning strategies rather than multiple learning styles? (Told you the light would go on eventually LOL).

Maybe I can't always do this, but if I use my needs assessments, and formative and summative evaluations properly I should be able to improve my success rate, shouldn't I? It will definitely help to improve my student's success rate, and that's what it's all about for me.

Cheers

p.s. If you haven't already done so, you should complete the V.A.R.K. questionnaire, located here. This truly helped me to understand so much about how I learn... things that were intuitive to me before, but that I am now conscious of. *News Flash* - I am a Multimodal Learner, just like 60% of the general population!