Learning Styles

Another thing that we appreciate about Noelle's school (The Master's Academy Homeschool) is how well they take care of us parent-teachers. They make sure that we get the best inputs and advice on education, child development, and parenting available. They recognize how gargantuan the task of homeschooling (and parenting, for that matter) is so they provide us with the necessary resources and build our capacities to cut the task down to size. And as an added bonus for them, they get to spread the gospel of effective parenting in the process.

We attended a talk that was part of TMA Homeschool's parent-teacher enabling efforts. Given by Marissa Adviento of the Ateneo de Manila Psychology Department, the talk was about Learning Styles.
Each person tends to have preferred modes of absorbing new information and is thus more open to particular ways of presenting such new knowledge.
These learning styles are...
Visual -- learning through images and spatial understanding
Auditory -- learning through sound and music
Verbal -- learning through words (written and spoken)
Physical -- learning through the body, hands and sense of touch
Logical -- learning through reasoning and systems-thinking
Social -- learning through interacting with others
Solitary -- learning through working or studying alone
Each learner has a natural degree of receptivity in each style. Teachers could appeal to the student's most dominant styles as "entry points" for new content to facilitate learning.
The primary challenge though in applying this theory is in identifying each student's unique set of learning styles. This is where homeschooling parents have a special opportunity. They are in a position to observe their students not only in the "classroom" setting but also while playing and doing other activities. The kinds of activities and ways of accomplishing things that their kids gravitate towards give clues as to their learning styles.
Once the student's dominant learning styles are established, the teacher may then design lessons according to these styles. This is where we find another advantage of homeschooling: Because of the very low teacher-student ratio, lessons can easily be tailor-made to fit the learner.
It might be helpful to also mention one point about the match-up of the learning styles of the teacher and the pupil. Those who teach, especially if not aware of the learning style theory would tend to teach in a way that targets students who have similar learning styles as theirs. Special care must be taken to overcome these "teaching blinders" and be truly responsive to the pupil's learning needs.
Our experience of homeschooling Noelle and Faye is enriched by the challenges of applying the learning styles theory. We constantly push ourselves to be more observant and understanding of our children's learning needs. For example, we noticed that it doesn't seem to be enough for Noelle to read about the things she needs to learn in her lessons. She needs to see and hear them, and if possible, even touch, smell and taste them. We realized that these indicate her need to learn in the non-verbal styles as well as the verbal. Accordingly, we began to incorporate visually and bodily stimulating activities into her lessons to facilitate her learning.
The learning style theory is a valuable tool for optimizing the learning of our kids. And it's usefulness transcends the teacher-student context, deepening the parent-child relationship.
For more on learning styles please click on the following links:
http://www.learning-styles-online.com/
http://homeschooling.golmipitas.com/weblinks/assets.htm
http://www.leapingfromthebox.com/art/kmg/learningstyles1.html