Accommodating Learning Styles
What strategies have you used to accommodate different learning styles in a lab environment?
Teaching dental hygiene requires both didactic and clinical instruction. It is difficult for the students, who in this field do better with the kinesthetic and visual means of instruction, to learn techniques simply from a power point. One strategy that I use in the classroom is to provide the students with a mouth model to manipulate while watching the slides. In the clinic, it is much easier to teach because the students actually mimic what they have seen first hand.
Suzanne,
The combination of techniques are responsive to different learning styles. Some students may be better prepared for the lab because of the presentation and model while others do much better when they are in the lab.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
I have the luxury of having a diverse student group as well as multiple levels of training. I get to do a large gambit of different learning styles. We have power points, lecture demo's and hands on lab tasks.
TC,
Consider group discussions and interactive activities during the PowerPoints, lectures, and demos.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
I have a good assortment of pass around components that go with the power point. I like to put students in work groups of different ages and learning styles to bounce ideas off one another. The use of demos during the lecture and having students do hands on lab assignments works well. Asking questions as the students preform their labs to make sure they understand what they are doing and what the outcome should be.
The student body ranges in ages from 18 to 55. So multi learning styles are present requiring multi strategies to be use from lecturing, active demos with lecture, using student as an aid to do the demo as I read the instructions, ect.
Bruce,
The bouncing of ideas has most likely provided learning opportunities for you too. Perhaps things that you end up incorporating into future offerings of your course.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
James,
If you ask the other students what step do they think is next before you read it the results might be interesting.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
I have set up all pass around in individual bins so the students have access instantly as I'm talking about the part. this way the students are seeing the parts as I'm talking about them not 10 minutes later
Due to the variety of different learning styles we see on a day to day I have learned to use personal experiences to validate the educational information in the power point lecture, while performing demos, during lab as well as any open discussions we might have. This seems to help them absorb the curriculum by giving them relevance to their new career path.
Asking questions as the students preform their labs to make sure they understand what they are doing and what it should be.
Marvin,
Real world experience supports what they learn greatly.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
Kelly,
This probably directs questions to the how and why more than the what.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
I also have a wide range of age groups and learning styles in my class that I have to be able to instruct to. We use Powerpoint, lectures, Video's and Demonstrations to teach our classes and the multiple learning styles.
Thomas,
Also include group activities. Pairs, trios, or up to 5 in a group helps. Students assist each other and complement learning styles.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
I have web base courses available , class room lectures broken down in highlighted paragraphs and also a lot of hands on activities
Antonio,
This supplements your on-ground courses? More and more we will see this integration of online and on-ground.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
I do try to accommodate multiple learning styles but find I get bogged down at times when given and inordinate amount of material to cover in a limited time period.
I use several steps to ensure I address individual learning style. First I give and explanation, demonstration and require practical application. Then I set the classroom/ lab environment to reflect the workplace for the subject and require the class to operate as a functioning "for profit" organization. Finally I require the student work out challenges together and only after the group is unable to resolve these challenges should they seek my input.
