Teaching Adults with Different Learning Styles

Teaching Adults with Different Learning Styles

Teaching adults is sometimes seen as the easy alternative to teaching children. However, as anybody who’s walked into a classroom full of grown men and women and attempted to teach them will confirm, it can be every bit as nerve-wracking as teaching a group of five- and six-year-olds. But that doesn’t have to be the case.

We’re here to give you some hints and tips on teaching adults, making your classes more enjoyable for you and your students. So let’s get started.

Knowing your students’ different learning styles will help you more than you can imagine.

As we talked about in this article, if you’ve done any kind of research into learning styles you’ll be familiar with Fleming’s “VARK” research and maybe Honey and Mumford’s four types of learner.

VARK stands for Visual, Auditory, Reading and Kinaesthetic – different types of learners whose preferred methods of learning are by looking, listening, reading and doing.

Honey and Mumford referred to The Activist, The Reflector, The Theorist and The Pragmatist. Activists learn by doing, Reflectors take time before making a decision and trying something out, Theorists prefer rules, reading and thinking and Pragmatists tend to try new things, particularly where those things can be immediately put to use.

Knowing the learning styles of the students in your class will help you immeasurably when you start putting lesson plans and learning programs together and get on with the practical work of actually teaching.

How do I teach a classroom full of different learners?

Putting together an effective teaching plan for a group of adults when some of them learn by listening, some learn best by doing and some learn best by watching might seem like an impossible task.

However, research has shown that adults actually learn better when they are forced to employ other learning styles in addition to their own. In fact, many enjoy it more, too.

It’s all about variety. The auditory learners in your class, who absorb information best by listening, speaking, and hearing, will learn more when you stand at the front and talk them through the subject matter. You can then open it to the floor, asking your class to discuss what they’ve just learned and take part in brainstorming sessions.

You can also consider webinars, videos, or podcasts to teach your auditory learners – sending them links to watch or listen to at home if that works best.

Return to the teaching and learning cycle.

However good a tutor you are, you can’t teach all of the people all of the time. The best you can hope for is to teach in a way that appeals to most of your pupils most of the time.

Going back to the teaching and learning cycle, you will continue to identify your learners’ needs throughout your time as a teacher. For more information contact at Authentic Training