What’s Your Learning Language? A Guide to Identifying Learning Preferences to Increase Student Engagement

Everyone knows their “Love Language,” but does everyone know their Learning Language?
by Caleb Davis
 
Imagine going throughout your entire academic career and not knowing the ways you actually learn best. What if there was a way to identify learning preferences starting as early as kindergarten? 
 
For far too long, parents and educators waste so much time teaching their learners in ways that aren’t effective or that don’t align with their youthful preferences. It’s no one’s fault. The learners may not have the dialect to advocate for themselves or they may simply just not know why it’s more difficult for them to learn. On the other side, educators and parents may think they know how their learner learns best, but whenever it’s not clicking, it’s usually the students’ fault. 
 
However, what if educators took the time to identify the learning preferences within each of their students at the beginning of the year? It would essentially speed up the process of understanding our students better and ultimately open up opportunities for our students to be more academically successful.
 
In a recent survey done by our company, 77% of students say that if their teachers would have identified the ways they learn best, they would have performed better in class.
 
The most effective way to achieve our goal of providing a premier educational experience to all learners is to work as a TEAM. We have to find ways to connect the teaching with the learning and make it a more meaningful experience.
 
Team Learning will transform the educational experience for all learning moving forward.
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This is a guide to building a learning team that promotes an individualized instruction, yet results in a collaborative learning environment. Team Learning has multiple definitions across different disciplines. For FlUrNing, Team Learning is first identifying the diverse learning preferences of each Player (student) within the classroom. Then, using these preferences to create culturally responsive instruction, and ultimately establishing a team culture that develops the social and academic success of the collective Team (classroom). 

The following is a list of the 6 Team Learning Players that are within every student and a brief description. The goal is to identify which Player preference is exhibited the most within each student and to use that information to help facilitate your instruction.

• Solitary Players: Self driven & independent. Enjoys self paced work.
• Topic Players: Inspired by certain topics or interests and thrives with topic centered work. 
• Rule Players: Most successful with scaffolding and clear expectations/ solutions. 
• Team Players: Energetic learners who love to help out their peers. 
• Creative Players: Artistic, creative and passionate about technology.
• Exploring Players: Thrives on positive reinforcement and may still be search for their Learning Point.

To take the Team Learning Players Assessment, click here.

​With FlUrNing’s Team Learning, there is no “one-stop-solution” to truly understanding your students. This is simply a tool to help guide the differentiation of your planning and instruction. There may be students who noticeably identify with multiple Players—that’s fine. Use them all to better serve your students. Do not think that students have to be placed in a certain category. That is what FlUrNing is trying to avoid. The goal is for us, as educators, to not think about the idea of placing students into categories that have traditionally controlled the way teaching and learning has been practiced for decades. We must be the catalyst for sparking the push of identifying students as human being first. Humans with wants, needs, and interests—then bringing the field of education to them. We must make education relevant to their individual and collective cultures and backgrounds instead of trying to force their cultures and backgrounds into education. It’s time for us to innovate education!

*More information on creating “Culturally Relevant” learning environments can be found in works by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings.*

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