Learning Styles

I am a visual learner through and through.  I learn best when meaningful pictures, videos, and charts are shown.  I also enjoy demonstrations and items that color-coded.  This couldn't have described me better.  While in college, I was constantly creating charts, tables, etc even if they were not given to help me learn.  I love to color-code things (even today) to help me differentiate. I wrote notes and color-coded them as well.  When I thought about them, the color helped me to remember certain facts.  And while i do hold some auditory characteristics (i.e. talking out loud to myself ) I chalk it up to being a teacher, and teachers always seem to talk out loud :)

I take my learning style and the majority of my teaching is for visual learners.  In an ideal world, it would be great to be able to teach to everyone, but that is not possible.  Most of the population are visual learners, so I am targeting a huge chunk of students.  I also try to incorporate many kinesthetic activities since elementary students have a tendency to enjoy hands-on learning, but the majority of my teaching is for the visual learner.  I enjoy creating power-points with pictures from my life to help explain a concept in hopes the students will make a connection.  I love to color-code things and write in different colors to help get my point across.  For example, if I were teaching a math lesson I would explain each step to solving a problem.  I would write each step in a different color.  When I solved the problem, I would use those same exact colors that corresponded to the step.  I have taught inclusion for the past couple of years and they have told me that it has helped them.  They can look and see if they have the blue step, red step, etc.

While there is nothing wrong with sticking to your own learning style as a teacher, it is also important to make sure that you cover all the basis in order to make sure you are giving the students all they need to learn.