EDU221VAKoverviewAndApplication

toc

Small Group Discussion

 * 1) You've read a lot about learning styles so far. But what does that really look like in a classroom? Get together with students who share the same learning style preference when the choices are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. There will be three groups (not necessarily equal in size).
 * 2) In your groups, discuss the strategies that the various sites promoted as being helpful to students with your learning style preference.
 * 3) Make a list of the top 5 ways that are most beneficial to your learning style preference, in your group's opinion.
 * 4) Also make a list of misconceptions about your learning style--these might even be ideas that were posted on some of the sites you looked at, e.g., "encourage kinesthetic learners to get up and walk around during class." Walking around is good for everyone and can definitely benefit ADHD students, but ADHD is not a learning style. Moving around might help keep people from fidgeting or getting distracted from having a need to move, but it is not directly related to the content. Kinesthetic learning is about being physically involved with the content itself.
 * 5) Decide how you are going to share out your lists.

Whole Class Sharing

 * Each group will share their findings. Individuals may choose to take notes, draw, or capture the information in a way that is appropriate for them.

Application of Information
Abraham Lincoln said, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. How will you keep your sanity while trying to meet all the learning styles for every lesson of every unit? (PS It's an unrealistic expectation to do that so this scenario is asking you to think about how will you keep it real.)


 * 1) Individually, [|read this 600-word overview of universal design]. This will be review from SED 101 for some of you, for others it's new information. As you read, be thinking about how it applies to learning styles and how it applies to solving the Abraham Lincoln conundrum.
 * 2) Now we're going to form small groups that have a mix of visual, kinesthetic, and auditory learning style experts in them. Dr. Theresa will "count off" groups in a semi-random fashion (it depends how many are in each of the learning style groups). Probably there will be four groups: universal, design, learning, and style.
 * 3) [[image:CooperativeIcon.png]]Each group will be assigned one of these "stations" as a starting point.
 * 4) Introduce yourself, your learning style, and your favorite idea that came out of your learning style group activity. [This is the cooperative group ice breaker.]
 * 5) As a group, spend five minutes on the Web page for your first station (click on the link or use the QR reader on your mobile device to go to the page).
 * 6) Then every 5 minutes you will move to the next station (we'll go clockwise around the room).

Station 1
(Universal team will start here) http://umfresources.wikispaces.com/EDU221VAKtoMatch QR Code:

Station 2
(Design team will start here) http://umfresources.wikispaces.com/EDU221VAKtoCompareContrast QR Code:

Station 3
(Learning team will start here) http://umfresources.wikispaces.com/EDU221VAKtoPracticeVocabulary QR Code:

Station 4
(Style team will start here) http://umfresources.wikispaces.com/EDU221VAKtoMemorizeSequence QR Code:

Whole Group Wrap-up
NOTE: The four categories of learning strategies are all related to fairly basic skills at the Knowledge level of Bloom's Taxonomy. But you can use knowledge of student's learning style preferences for higher level thinking and learning as well. Some examples are at the bottom of this page.

Individually, think about your answers to these questions, then participate in the large group discussion:
 * 1) what misconceptions, if any, did you have about visual, auditory, kinesthetic learning styles and what questions do you still have?
 * 2) how do the VAK learning styles intersect with Gardner's Multiple Intelligences?
 * 3) how does universal design apply to a classroom environment?
 * 4) how does all this information about learning styles impact a classroom based on the Meaningful Engaged Learning Model?

Examples
- - - under construction - - - of using learning style preferences for higher order thinking skills and deeper understanding:

Kinesthetic:
 * understanding (not just memorizing) place value: Teach students about using an abacus and allow them to use it when solving the problems. It's okay if they don't mark the trades (the cross out and borrow) on paper because they're physically interacting with the trades on the abacus. Many a shop in Chinatown in San Francisco still uses an abacus instead of a cash register. It's a skill and definitely makes math a "hands-on" activity.
 * understanding and applying the formula **rate = distance/time**: Mark off a 20 foot distance on the floor. In teams of 3 with a "walker," a timer, and a recorder, one student walks the 20 feet at a fast, medium, or slow rate, another times how long it took, while the third write it down. The data is used to calculate each student's rate. After gathering several rounds of data, have teams answer problems such as "What was the rate that you walked 20 feet? How long would it take you to walk 200 feet if you kept the same rate?" //[Thank you to Sean Cabaniss, Fall 2013 Block 1, who actually designed and carried out this lesson in his Practicum mentor's class.]//
 * using [|Total Physical Response] to teach a foreign language to a non-native speaker

Station resources: [|from Venn Diagram history and templates]