Teaching a new class, or getting reacquainted with one remotely, is never easy. Throw in the backdrop of the new normal, with all its online learning and hybrid classrooms, and you're in at the deep end before you know it!
So, where to start? Where you always have: with getting to know your students.
The interactive learning style assessment below is an essential list of 25 questions for your students. It helps you determine their preferred learning styles and helps you tailor your lesson activities around what they want to do.
It's 100% free to download and use live with your students on interactive polling software!
Disclaimer: We know the concept of 'learning styles' isn't for every teacher! If that's you, think of these questions more as a way to determine what kinds of people your students are. Trust us, you'll still learn a lot through these questions 😉
If you've made it to where you are as a respected teacher, you probably already know the answer to this one.
If you need a quick refresher: a learning style is a student's preferred method of learning.
Generally speaking, there are 3 primary learning styles:
At least, this is the VAK approach to learning styles, a term coined in 2001 by highly established teacher Neil Fleming. There are more ways to define your student's ideal style, but the VAK approach is a fantastic groundwork to lay with a group of new students.
This is a 25-question poll for you, the teacher, to give to your students in class. It has a variety of questions to test your students' preferred learning styles and to help you establish which styles are most prevalent in your classroom.
How does it work?
Protip 👊 From this point onwards, this interactive learning style assessment is 100% yours. You can change it however you want to fit your class. Check out below how to do it.
Here's everything you need to know about your students' new learning style assessment:
Ever done a survey full of mindless multiple choice questions? Us too. They're not very fun.
We know how fleeting students' attention spans can be; that's why the style assessment has a few different slide types to keep everyone engaged:
Sure, you need to have some multiple choice. This is a simple, effective way to differentiate learning styles and see which is the most popular.
We're not trying to put students in one rigid learning style box, here. We realise that learners learn through a variety of different methods, so a scale slide is a great way to test the level to which a student fits into a certain style.
There are also single-statement scale slides that let students decide how much they agree with just one statement.
⭐ Want to know more? Check out our complete scale slide tutorial here!
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These questions let your students have their say. They ask a question and let your students respond without anonymity, so you'll know exactly who gave which answers.
Naturally, you're going to get a much wider range of answers in an open-ended slide, but each answer can give you a clue as to which learning style best suits each student.
On multiple choice and scales slides, it's only possible to see how all your students voted, not how each one voted. But, a simple workaround is to directly ask your students which answers they voted for in the previous set of questions.
There are already slides to do this. Each of these slides comes at the end of every section:
This way, you have the name of each student and the overall responses they gave to statements. Statements and answers are always worded like this:
For example, for the question 'what kind of class most appeals to you?' the answers are as follows:
That means that if someone picks 1, they prefer visual classes. The same is true for 2 with auditory classes and 3 for kinaesthetic classes. This is the same for all of the questions and statements in this interactive learning style questionnaire.
Things are slightly different for the open-ended questions at the end. These are a more subtle, fluid way to determine learning style. Here are the conclusions that you can draw from each open-ended question:
1. What's your favourite school subject?
| Answer | Style |
|---|---|
| maths, art, graphic design, media studies or anything else involving symbols, images and patterns. | Visual |
| foreign languages, history, law or anything else taught through sound or in a discussion and debate style. | Auditory |
| P.E. (gym), music, chemistry or anything else with a focus on physical exploration. | Kinaesthetic |
2. What's your favourite hobby outside of school?
| Answer | Style |
|---|---|
| Drawing, photography, writing, interior design, chess. | Visual |
| Debating, singing, poetry, reading, listening to music/podcasts. | Auditory |
| Building, playing sports, doing crafts, dancing, puzzles. | Kinaesthetic |
3. How do you usually revise for an exam?
| Answer | Style |
|---|---|
| Writing notes, making diagrams, memorising from textbooks. | Visual |
| Recording self talking, listening to recordings of the teacher, using background music. | Auditory |
| In short bursts, making flashcards, imagining stories. | Kinaesthetic |
While this data is intended for you, the teacher, we totally understand that you might want to share it with your students. Students can learn a lot about different learning styles through this assessment, and can get a better grasp of how they should tailor their own studying.
You can share your data in 2 ways:
When going through the interactive learning style assessment with your students, they can't see the results of each slide from their answering devices (their phones). Only you will see the slide results on your desktop or laptop screen, but you can share this screen with your students if you want.
If your classroom has a projector or TV, simply hook up your laptop and students will be able to follow the live updates of the results. If you're teaching online, you can share your laptop screen over the video conferencing software (Zoom, Microsoft Teams. ) you're using with your students.
It's also possible to capture the final data of your assessment, export it and share it with your students:
To export your data to any of these file types, click on the 'Result' tab and select your preferred file type 👇
Once you've downloaded and shared the interactive learning style assessment, you don't even need to be there! There's one simple setting that lets students head through the test on their own.
Simply come to the 'Settings' tab and select the audience to take the lead 👇
This means that any individual student can take the assessment at any time without your supervision. It's a big time and effort saver!
Once you have your free AhaSlides account, there's so much more you can use it for in your diverse style classroom.
Play quizzes, hold polls, or run Q&As and idea sharing sessions. AhaSlides gives power to your learners.
