Understanding Different Learning Styles & Individual Differences

We are all different. Each human being on this planet has a different personality, a different learning style, different interests, different strengths, and different abilities.

We as educators need to understand this and cater our teaching style to suit different students. The “one size fits all” mentality needs to completely shift to “different sizes for different individuals''. I believe that we all lie on different micro points on varying spectrums (e.g., the height spectrum, the IQ spectrum, the introverted-extrovert spectrum, music ability spectrum, etc). This is the beauty of our “humanness” – that we are all so different and have an abundance of beautiful things to offer. 

I’m a strong believer that we need to start understanding and appreciating these individual differences, especially in the teaching profession, when we’re teaching a variety of different students from different ages/backgrounds/music ability/etc. For example, you might teach a concept (e.g. how to read notes in the treble clef) to one student, but another student may completely not understand it. This is where we need to be creative and come up with different ways to explain things, model things, and understand how the child learns.

What has really helped me is to try to understand WHY the child hasn’t been able to understand a concept that I teach him/her.

Is there something more basic missing?

Have I explained in “adult words” rather than “simple words”?

Have I not demonstrated it with colours and analogies?

There are SO many things that you can do to ensure that your student properly understands what you’re trying to teach them.

We just need to be super creative as educators, and also, SLOW DOWN.

I believe that we should not feel so rushed and worried during lessons to squeeze everything in and get the child to being the next Mozart. I think that we can afford to slow down (especially for students who take more time to understand things), and take more time to ensure they understand things before moving on.