Educators Corner Teaching Tip
A few years ago I was asked to start training all the new engineers as they came into the company. This training included company proceedures, processes, drafting and SolidWorks. Company proceedures and processes were no big deal since everything was written down in company documents, but how to do the other? I had no idea what to do or how to teach, train or instruct in the remaining areas even though I have years of experience in them. At that time I began to think about how this could be done efficently and correctly. The first thing I implemented was a priciple that I learned from helping my wife get her masters degree in early childhood education. That priciple was the use of observation of the students to figure out their learning “style”. Every person has a learning “style” and they fall into 3 primary categories: Visual learner (a person who learns by seeing); Auditory learner (a person who learns by hearing); Kinesthetic learner (a person who learns by touching or doing). This principle is know popularly as the VAK principle. Once I observed how each person learned, their “style”, I could taylor the training courses and exercises to reach each type of learner. Let’s explore the VAK principle further. On of the best definitions of learning styles is available from the website presented by Don Clark in the section Learning Styles & Preferences. Once you understand the VAK principle, you can begin to implement it to recognize each students learning style. There are several free VAK tests and one is included on Don Clark’s site on this page Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Survey. In another self test from businessballs.com, 4 test methods are examined for use with determining learning style. The 4th method has several good questions which allow a through testing of a subject. Give this a read and try it on a couple of students and see if it works for you. If this helps or doesn’t, send some feedback so that others can learn from various trials. If you would prefer to send comments via Twitter, comment to @richard_hall and I will capture them and post them. Stay tuned for more at the Educators Corner!
