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How To Engage The 7 Types of Learners in Your Classroom
How To Engage The 7 Types of Learners in Your Classroom
October 9, 2017
It’s generally accepted that there are seven different learning styles. While most of us fall across
the spectrum of each of these styles, facilitating lessons that are engaging on all levels will give
your students the best chance of success.
Here we discuss strategies to improve engagement for students of each learning style.
Auditory learners might say words out loud or hum tones to better learn them. This strategy is
key for keeping musical learners engaged in class lessons.
3. Verbal learner
Verbal learning includes both writing and speaking. Verbal learners might have a preference for
reading and writing, word games and poems. Verbal learners know the meanings of a broad
category of words, can use them effectively, and actively seek out new words to add to their
repertoire.
Some qualities associated with verbal learners include:
Intellectual
Bookworm
Good story teller
Verbal learners often seek out careers in journalism and writing, administration, law and politics.
Pattern recognition
Good with numbers
Predisposition towards grouping and classification
History and geography: Try to include statistics and classification taxonomy in your
lesson plans.
Literature: Ask your students “What category of book is this?” Or in poetry, have them
learn the meters and explain them to other students.
Music: Teach both musical instrument classification (woodwind etc) and the
mathematical relationships between notes.
Art: A good starting point is the colour wheel and the effects of combining different
colours.
With logical students, always look to incorporate a system. If you’re unsure, include the students
in the development of that system. They’ll benefit from it greatly.
Physical learners represent about 5% of the population, and gravitate towards careers with lots of
hands on work like emergency services, physical education and sports.
Extraverted
Good communicator
Sensitive and empathetic
It’s important for educators to understand that not all social learners are extraverted or highly
communicative, and that they can also be visual, auditory, verbal, logical or physical learners.
The interpersonal aspect perhaps better describes the settings in which they are most
comfortable, rather than how they absorb information.
As such, teachers should be cognisant of the breadth of variation between different types of
social learners. For example, social doesn’t strictly mean verbal. Some social learners prefer to
listen in a group setting, rather than on their own.
Interpersonal learners like to ‘do’ and to ‘share’. This can sometimes lead to distraction for other
students who are more intrapersonal in their learning habits. To prevent this, try to channel social
learners into providing value to the group, giving them tasks that use their energy usefully, with a
focus on empathy for their classmates.
Independent
Introspective
Private
Intrapersonal learners may gravitate towards careers with a lot of self determination or
motivation, as well as solitary workloads. Think:
Researchers
Writers and authors
Programmers and coders