ADI Part 3 Learning Styles
What are the Learning Styles?
ADI Part 3 Learning Styles
On the ADI Part 3 marking sheet, the first competency listed in the Learning and Teaching Strategies, is
Was the teaching style suited to the pupils learning style and current ability?
So was the way you taught – the same way that the pupil prefers to learn?
What does that mean?
Did you know that there are 4 basic ways that people learn? (There are more but we are going to focus on the 4 main ones)
Understanding this, can help you teach your pupil, by altering your teaching style, to match their learning style.
1. Visual Learning
There are really 4 main learning styles for people
1) Visual (Reflectors) Want to see it done or diagrams of what needs to be done or see someone do it, then they feel they understand what’s required.
This is why YouTube is the 2nd biggest searched online reference in the world with 5 BILLION videos watched per day
Use your briefing folder, your ipad, your dashcam to show them what you are talking about and they will understand it better and more easily
Auditory - Learn best by listening
Auditory – Learn best by listening
The popularity of e-books and e-readers and Podcasts shows how popular this is.
Since these students generally find it hard to stay quiet for long periods of time, get your auditory learners involved in the lesson by asking them to repeat new concepts back to you.
Ask questions and let them answer.
Invoke discussions so your auditory and verbal processors can properly take in and understand the information they’re being presented with.
Kinesthetic - Learning by doing
How to recognize kinesthetic:
Kinesthetic learners, sometimes called tactile learners, learn through experiencing or doing things.
Like sitting next to a Rubiks cube, we want to pick it up and try and solve it, but if we don't we are not bothered and we try again
They like to get involved - Instruct students to drive and practice the lesson you’re teaching.
We all learn by doing, after all you can’t learn to drive by simply reading about it, you physically have to do it, to become a driving instructor, takes at least 40 hours of actually doing it, to become any good at it.
4. Reading/writing learners
While there is some overlap with visual learning, these types of learners are drawn to expression through writing, reading articles or books, writing in diaries, looking up words in the dictionary and searching the internet for just about everything.
This is where writing notes on a pupil record card or reflective log will help them greatly – I have had pupils, when we have been going through things who actually ask if THEY can write there own notes down on the record card.
So point 10 really is about - Did you deliver the training in a style the engaged the pupil?
A few years ago, we were doing the cockpit and controls lesson and the trainee, was talking about how the seatbelt works, he then proceeded for approximately the next 15 minutes, to go into great detail about the seatbelt and its inner workings.
Kinetic energy, Newtons third law, then, how The central operating element in this mechanism is a weighted pendulum. When the car comes to a sudden stop, the inertia causes the pendulum to swing forward. The pawl on the other end of the pendulum catches hold of a toothed ratchet gear attached to the spool.
To this day, I have no idea what any of this actually relates to, nor indeed what most of those terms meant,
So as you can imagine, I sat there totally bewildered and wondering why we were going into this, when I just needed to know how to put it on and take it off.
The trainees style of teaching was clearly not suited to my style of learning or technical ability.
You need to be able to recognise what style(s) of teaching your learner prefers
Did they understand it?- Not just in your opinion, but to the outside eye (particularly the one in the back seat).
If the pupil isn’t working one way, switch it up and find another. Use diagrams, commentary, visual pointers, rhymes, rhythm…
The second half – don’t let it slip by unnoticed – Does it suit their current ability?
On the day ability, and we all have ‘bad days’ when we need to take a step back, and equally good ones where we are ready to learn. What you are trying to teach them on that day, are they ready to progress, are they in the right frame of mind to take it in? Have they had a bad night? Are they so nervous they can barely speak?
This is what need to be taken into account