This seems like a rather simplistic question to many people. I have talked to many people about this around the college, and two responses really stood out to me. The first response was that, "I have learners who pay to be here." Another response I have heard is, "It does not matter what their learning style is, as long as they learn what I am teaching."
I suppose that in the big picture of things, our learners do in fact pay to be here, and our learners are supposed to learn what they are being taught. From this perspective, these folks were correct in their statements. Now, we need to narrow our focus just a bit.
To do this, I repeat the question to you: what kind of learners do you have sitting in your classroom chairs or sitting in their own chairs or in a coffee shop or wherever else they choose to work on their online class work? How do you know? How can you know? And finally, why should you care?
In four years of teaching (and learning from) both face-to-face and online courses, as well as advising students who are taking these courses, I have come to conclude that we should know what kind of learners we have and yes, we should care about what kind of learners we have in our real or electronic classrooms. Hear ye, hear ye, let the clamoring now commence... how am I supposed to know the learning style of my students? Why should I care? I'm teaching too many sections of classes and I have too many students in those classes to become this involved with the students.
Well, let me tell you. Let me show you the way. You do not necessarily have to care about individual students to care about their success rates in your classes. We have tools available to us as faculty members to assess our student’s capacity to learn from various instructional techniques and styles. If we do nothing more than have our students self assess their learning styles to give them an opportunity to choose classes that fit their learning styles, then I feel we have done a great service to our students and potentially have increased our retention rates as well. Let's look at a real-world example now:
We had a student sign up for our program a couple of years ago. He was a nontraditional student referred to us by the workforce center. He also lived about 30 miles from the college. The student took a learning styles assessment which indicated that he learned best from having a person physically talk to him regarding the materials. His worst score was in self directed learning. Upon presentation of advising, this student decided to sign up for online courses so he would not have to travel to and from the college. Unfortunately, this student could barely even power a computer up, let alone operate it in a cogent fashion. Ultimately, the student was self-motivated enough to complete the required coursework online with a low "C" average, although he may have failed a class or two along the way. He also eventually decided to work towards a certificate rather than a degree, given the difficulties he encountered.
What could this student have done differently? What could we have done differently? This student could have taken classes in a face-to-face manner which befitted his learning style. However, this would have meant that the student would have to drive to campus three days a week. We could have more strongly advised the student to avoid online course work, as he was not a good self-directed learner.
So, the question now is, "How do I know what kind of learner I have?" We will look briefly at two of the tools available to us to assess learning styles of our learners. These tools include the Vark Learning Styles Questionnaire and the READI.
Vark Learning Styles Questionnaire: the name for this tool is derived from the following: Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic. It seems to speak for itself. This free questionnaire is marketed as a tool to help you understand your learning style, as well as helping you to develop study strategies to best fit your style of learning. Students go to the website, click on the link to the questionnaire, and complete the questionnaire in a short period of time. Upon completion, they are given their scores and an explanation of what the scores mean. There is also a printable paper and pen version of the Vark available on the website. I require all first-year students in my classes to complete this questionnaire and send the results along to me. I also require a discussion posting in D2L in which the students talk about their learning style. At the end of the day, I feel that my students have gained some valuable insight from having completed this questionnaire and having written about the results.
This questionnaire is free, and the website provides much detailed information regarding results and the deciphering of these results. Thanks to Peter Johnson, computer careers instructor, for tuning me in to this most excellent tool!
- A link to the website is provided here: http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp
READI: this tool is designed to identify levels of student readiness for online courses. It is a diagnostic tool which measures the student’s traits, skills, and knowledge to help identify how well prepared the student is for an online course. Upon completion of this tool, students are presented with an easy to read report that displays their readiness for an online course in several categories, including learning style, academic personal attributes, reading rate and recall, technical competency and knowledge, and typing speed and accuracy.
South Central College has obtained administration rights to this assessment tool for our students to utilize in determining whether or not to take an online course. In other words, it is free! I will be requiring all new online students in my courses to complete this tool at the beginning of the semester. They will then send the results along to me, as well as posting a discussion analyzing their learning style. Thanks to Evan Peterson for turning me on to this most excellent tool as well!
- A link to the READI is provided here: http://southcentral.readi.info/
- The user name is: sccstudent and the password is: student.
At the end of the day, you may or may not care about your students learning styles. Nothing I can say may be enough to convince you that you should be. But here is what I do know:
- Student success in your course may be better if they know their learning style and you know their learning style.
- Retention is tied to student success; the more successful students are, the more likely we are to retain them within our programs and within the college.
- Given the Academic Program Prioritization (APP) process that programs and disciplines will be going through each year, retention is very important as it is a measure that shows up in the APP process.
- These tools are free and require little or no direct input from you unless you so desire to provide input.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
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