GOAL:
- Choose modalities and methods that make the most sense for the content to facilitate student learning.
REASON:
- While teachers commonly report believing that students learn better when material is presented in a way that aligns with their "learning style", research suggests that this belief is false.
ACTION:
- Rather than trying to match the modality of a lesson to students' learning styles, choose modalities and methods that make the most sense for the content.
- For example, Visual Information - like the shapes of objects or the layout of a GUI - are probably best presented visually.
- You might draw memory diagrams. This can be helpful because it allows you to communicate to students the behavior of the computer without them understanding a programming language. This isn’t to address the needs of visual learners, but because it is an appropriate modality for the information.
- Presenting content in multiple ways can still be helpful for students' understanding.
- For more discussion, check out this video on learning styles.