The VARK model was designed by Neil Fleming in 1987 In this model, Fleming developed a way to help students learn more about their preferences: Study Skills for Higher Education Assignment, CCCU, UK

What is the VARK Model?

The VARK model was designed by Neil Fleming in 1987. In this model, Fleming developed a way to help students learn more about their preferences. VARK’s learning styles are visual, auditory, read/write, and kinesthetic.

Visual Learners

Students who have a visual learning style may often prefer sitting in the front of the classroom. They may prefer to highlight, or use a lot of connectors or diagrams, create graphic organizers, and may be seen taking more detailed notes which are very organized, often color-coded, or have other ways of making distinctions between the content.

For visual learners, we can try using sketch notes. Sketchnotes are a combination of doodling and text that enables the processing of information to be quicker and that attaches more meaning to the content as students are creating and associating meaning with their own representation of it.

Auditory Learners

Auditory learners listen carefully and often focus on the tone or the rate of speech and may also benefit more by having supplemental resources like videos or audio components. If students work in groups, these learners benefit from more discussions and exchanging ideas, reading aloud, and even repeating some content thinking out loud.

Some ideas that can help auditory learners are using Flipgrid to post a question and have students post responses, Synth to create a podcast to have the active listening component addressed, and even using strategies like “telephone” where you tell a story and then students have to retell it in their own words. Doing this type of activity leads students to focus on what you are saying but also process it and summarize it back to you in their own spoken words.

Read/Write Learners

Read/write learners often prefer to have the text in some format. Whether they first write and then rewrite their notes, read over their notes each day for review and class preparation, they interact with written formats more often. Students may create diagrams and then convert them back into statements, making lists or arranging words in some type of hierarchy.

Students with this learning style may benefit more by creating presentations where they take a large quantity of information and then convert it into some presentation format. Some options could be using a blogging tool like Kidblog, or creating a presentation to tell a story such as Buncee, StoryboardThat, or even PowerPoint. Students also can benefit from tools like Storybird or Book Creator where they can create their own digital book or create a print book that then could be used in the classroom.

Questions:

1. Discuss the four learning styles included in the VARK model.
2. Personal experience: Describe your own learning style/ styles and any techniques you will use to help you study better
3. Identify important reading techniques that can help students become more efficient readers.
4. Discuss four methods of note-taking that will help students remember new information.

Learning Outcomes:

• Identify important reading techniques that can help students become more efficient readers.
• Discuss four methods of note taking that will help students remember new information.
• Essay style and academic writing
• Quality of referencing
• Set short term and long-range goals and to design an appropriate plan of study
• Identify techniques for building comprehension and retention
• Acquire knowledge of learning strategies and techniques to improve memory retention and understanding how people learn
• Use of library information and media service