Many questions are asked to educators and learners about ways to improve their learning efficiency. One of the main focuses has been the learning style of the learner and the teaching style of the teacher. The aim has always been to align the two to guarantee a student reaches their maximum potential. While ideal, this is a challenge and very unrealistic. The average American classroom has one teacher with 24 students; all of which can have any combination of learning styles. Because our classrooms are not Rubik Cubes, the schools will find if improbable to align classrooms teaching style with learning styles. This leaves parents hoping for a magical match of sorts to aide our students or has parents rushing to the main office trying to align all the colors on the right side to improve their students’ school year performance.

Follow up:

While there is some truth to individuals learning and teaching styles, I ran across an article tweeted through a twitter feed by @cebmblog of an article posted on NPR news by Patti Neighmond, entitled Think You’re an Auditory or Visual Learner?” which shed light on the subject. In the article, Patti writes, “’Willingham suggests "Mixing things up is something we know is scientifically supported as something that boosts attention," he says, adding that studies show that when students pay closer attention, they learn better.”

Having read that, we can see some value in having students paired with teachers that have different teaching styles than their learning style. By pairing our students with a teacher that teaches only in the way they learn best, we improve their grades and performance immediately, but in the long run, will not prepare them to learn once they are outside of the classroom environment. At work, employees each day are forced to make adjustments and are asked to learn and be efficient in different environments, with different instructors and with challenging issues.
One of the challenges I have placed before our teachers and parents is to remove the crutch of labeling. Many students have been handicapped by mislabeling and just as many have been cripples by appropriate labels. Often we dictate what a student is capable of by our preconceived ideas of what we believe they are capable of with labels and markers assigned to them. We must acknowledge labels, but not allow labels to keep us from pressing our learners to meet challenges with confidence and hard work. Learning is about helping someone press through challenges towards achievement. Learning in itself is a task, and requires effort and involves struggle. Let us prepare our students for future success, by training their minds to absorb information through different mediums, for doing this will make our students a more complete learner.