Learning Styles:

Proactive - feeling & doing

Assertive - thinking & doing

Creative - feeling & watching

Theoretical - thinking & watching 

People are most effective when taught in their personal learning style. Though it is possible for people to learn using any one of the learning styles, it has been proven that we learn more effectively and efficiently if we are taught according to our preferential learning style. 

So how are these included in your teaching/instructing?

Much of what we do as instructors already incorporates aspects of each learning style, for example, if you follow the E.D.I.C.T.S. teaching model you will find that you naturally tick most of the requirements:

Explain - Auditory

Demonstrate - Visual

Imitate - Kinesthetic

Correction - Visual / Auditory. 

Training - Kinesthetic

Summarise - Auditory

But what happens in a classroom environment, when we are covering theory aspects of the course? 

Its all about the way we prepare for our sessions and the teaching aids we have availabile.  

As an example, how about this for a buoyage session:-

- Visual - Show photos, pictures, flash cards and diagrams

- Auditory - Explain and describe the colour schemes, shapes and relevance. 

- Reading - Refer to the relevant pages in the manual or issue handouts

- Kinesthetic - Incorporate a game of pictionary and get your students drawing pictures of the buoys, or make up some tactile models of buoys and place them onto the chart in the relevant places.