I had heard of learning styles but had never taken the time to understand in detail what the fuss was about. Having had a good read of the suggested website (a task which I struggled with as I am an “accommodating” type!) I now understand much more. What’s more, I discovered that although I had no idea what learning styles were, I have somehow been accommodating most of them in my teaching in any case. The only learning style I think I am guilty of neglecting is “Concrete Experience”/Feeling, but I think I generally have a reasonable mix of opportunities for students to watch, think about and do things. I don’t consciously use technology to facilitate this at the moment though, so this is a good opportunity to think about how I could start doing that.
In terms of what kinds of technology fit where, some are obvious, for example videos fit clearly into the “watching” quadrant. Clicker or voting technology is somewhere between “thinking” and “doing” as it involves both. I wondered quite a bit about where social media, blogging and discussion boards fit into the model and concluded that they could fit under both “doing” if students are using them to complete a task or assignment and “feeling” if they are being used simply to have a chat about the course/module and how people are getting to grips with the subject matter. Online quizzes fall into the “doing” quadrant as do any other technologies students may use to complete tasks. No time to think about this any more now as I’m on an enquiry desk but I’ll come back to it if/when I have time…
Behavioural and Social Sciences Subject Librarian at the University of Huddersfield.