Essential Update #7: Learner Diversity - Classification and Profiles

What is diversity in learning?

People learn through a variety of ways and differences might also occur because of background or experience. Teachers need to recognize and respect these individual differences and use this knowledge to differentiate lessons in ways that intentionally and strategically improve student learning.

How to get in-depth insight about learners?

Learning profile cards, student profile surveys and thinking styles inventories can be effective tools to gather data about students and classify diversity in a group. Scientists and psychologists have developed a number of different models to understand the different ways that people learn best. As an example, a popular theory, the VARK model, identifies four primary types of learners: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic. Each learning type responds best to a different method of teaching.

VARK MODEL INFOGRAPHIC

How to tailor the teaching?

In an article entitled How Learning Profiles Can Strengthen Your Teaching, John McCarthy suggests embodying choices for students within a learning activity based on profile types. The teacher should design versions of an activity that incorporates different aspects of a learning profile, to encourage students to act in or out of their dominant learning profiles.

Digital ecologies and the new learning spaces afforded by technologies as Cope, B. emphasizes can help teacher’s pursuit of supporting learners diversity in many ways. They allow for lessons planned with individual or smaller group of learners need in mind, it harnessing the attention of every learner by simultaneously allowing work on different tasks or in a different pace and offers multiple ways to track performance and adjust learning content on the go.

References:

The V-A-R-K Learning Styles Infographic. 2014. Learners Bubble.  [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.learnersbubble.com/?s=learning+styles. [Accessed 1 June 2018].

The V-A-R-K Learning Styles. 2018. Learner's Bubble. [ONLINE] Available at: http://vark-learn.com//. [Accessed 1 June 2018].

How Learning Profiles Can Strengthen Your Teaching. 2018. Edutopia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/learning-profiles-john-mccarthy. [Accessed 1 June 2018].

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