LEARNING STYLES INVENTORY

(Required Blog)

On the first day of school, I administered a simple learning style inventory to all of my classes. The inventory consists of 14 questions that supposedly indicate whether the student is a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner. According to the inventory, the majority of the students in all of my classes are visual learners, with only a few students being auditory or kinesthetic learners.

I am actually skeptical of the accuracy of the learning styles inventory. One student was identified by the survey as being a visual learner; however, in class, the student prefers activities. Perhaps his preference is not necessarily aligned with how he best learns material??

In my opinion, the learning styles inventory results are not helpful for my classroom teaching. Regardless of the results, I must plan lessons that reach all three types of learners - not only for the sake of catering to each learner, but also for the sake of breaking the monotony of a 90 minute class.

I also question the helpfulness of the learning styles inventory because it does not take into account that even a visual learner might best understand a lesson on a specific topic by engaging in a kinesthetic activity, or that an auditory learner might best learn a specific lesson by seeing a demonstration.