Do Certain Students Learn Better Certain Ways?

There use to be only one type of way to learn. The teacher would write something on the board, the students would copy it down, study it, and then see if they remembered it or not. Now of days there are many theories on how and why we should teach students in different ways. One of the most common being, getting the students to actively engage in some kind of activity for them to learn. In my opinion, tailoring our lessons to meet students with their needs, is crucial.

According to the VARK model, students learn in four different ways. Visual, Aural, Read/Write and Kinesthetic. In this case, each method pertains to a different style of teaching. As in auditory learner will learn best from reciting information back to the teacher versus a kineshetic learner that would prefer to engage in a interactive activity. 

In order for a student to learn, we must provide the proper environment in for them to do so. According to the NDT Resource center, there are 5 different learning styles. They are very similar to the VARK model, however, they include Tactile, Visual, Auditory, Sociological and Structure of Lessons. Like VARK, all these models kind of fall into the same categories, with tactile being similar to kineshetic and structure of lesson kind of covering all of the VARK models. This is basically just making sure that students learn every lesson in a sequential order in similar fashion. 

However, their are skeptics, one being Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at University of Virginia. He states that there is no evidence of learning styles. He states instead that teachers need to teach certain things in a certain way because that is how students will get the most out of it. For example when teaching a science class, lecturing about something may not be appropriate and instead students should study through experiment. 

Establishing a classroom environment that promotes different types of learning, I believe, is best practice. According to Steve Grubaugh and Richard Houston, engaging environments and healthy interaction between students is the key to quality behavior and learner growth. They go on to state that tailoring lessons to the needs of the students is the best way to teach. So regardless of the content, each student can learn.

In my opinion, the best way to help students learn and to answer the question Do Certain Students Learn Better Certain Ways? is to say that the most important thing is that you keep the students engaged. So that might mean we attend the VARK model, or it might mean that we only stick to lecture for example. 

To answer the question as best as I can is to say that students do learn better certain ways, however that does not mean they can only learn one way. Also they should not only learn one way. I believe the engagement is the most important part.

VARK Learn Limited. Introduction to VARK. N.p., 2016. Web. 23 Sept. 2016. <http://vark-learn.com/introduction-to-vark/>

Understanding Different Learning Styles. NDT Resource Center, n.d. Web. 23 Sept. 2016. <https://www.nde-ed.org/TeachingResources/ClassroomTips/Learning_Styles.htm>.

Anderson, Jenny. "You May Think You Learn Better In a Certain Way. You Actually Don't." QZ. N.p., 9 Dec. 2015. Web. 23 Sept. 2016. <http://qz.com/568617/you-may-think-you-learn-better-in-a-certain-way-you-actually-dont/>.

 Steve Grubaugh and Richard Houston, “Establishing a Classroom Environment That Promotes Interaction and Improved Student Behavior,” The Clearing House , Vol. 63, No. 8 (Apr., 1990), pp. 375-378. Accessed November 6, 2013.