The Active Learning Style

This post will deal with those people that must be actively engaged to learn.  These are the children that have a very difficult time sitting still and concentrating.  They must be physically engaged in order to properly process information.  This is often referred to as kinetic learning.

Personal Learning Repertiores
It has been a while in these posts of learning styles since I referred to personal learning repertoires.  For this style I want to refresh everyone's memory on this concept because sometimes people have varying learning styles according to subject.  Some people can learn through both inactive and active learning styles regardless of the subject matter.  These people are close enough to the middle of the learning curve to be able to process information in even their less dominant style.  Sometimes, however, a person that in most subject matters falls in the middle of the learning curve will fall in the extremes on one particular subject matter.

The Extreme
Often it is a matter of personal preference and what captures the attention of that person as to when a person kicks into an extreme.  I had a friend that in most everything never had a problem learning math related material until she hit statistics.  For some reason statistics did not make sense to her at all.  I had to tutor her to help her pass that class and had to walk her through each process step by step.  Normally, this friend leans kinetic but barely, but in statistics she was slammed into the inactive style very much to the extreme.  She had to have a completely quiet and chaos-free environment for statistics, which was not normal for her.  Up until this subject, she had been able to study in just about any environment.  This can happen for any student when he/she hits subject matter completely out of his/her comfort zone.

Learning By Doing
What exactly entails the active learning style?  Another name for this learning style might be the doing learning style or learning by doing.  It involves action and getting the whole body involved.  Many times a child that has attention problems or wiggle issues may benefit from lessons designed to utilize the entire body.  However, do not automatically assume that all small children learn this way.  Sometimes children with attention deficit issues actually do not learn this way.  They like activities designed in this manner, but they cannot retain information in a chaotic environment.  In short, they have tons of fun but learn absolutely nothing.

The Overload Paradox
I actually ran across this paradox with the first child in my care on the autism spectrum.  This child challenged me more than I have ever been challenged in my life.  My training had taught me that attention issues should be addressed with kinetic learning.  When I used kinetic learning with this child, she became overstimulated faster than I had ever seen.  Once she hit overload, it was nearly impossible to rein her back.  Since that time I have watched for children that were easily overstimulated and avoided kinetic activities with them.  These children actually need calm, quiet environments to learn.  They cannot handle noisy, chaotic environments.

Trial and Error
When should you use the active learning style?  As with all the different learning styles and the different individuals that we teach, this comes down to trial and error.  Always try to have activities from various learning styles especially at the start of a new year.  Observe the children.  Which style seems to suit each child?  Do you have children that are easily overstimulated?  Also, remember that there can be a huge difference between a fun activity and an activity that accomplishes the teaching goals you have for your students.  Many times kinetic activities are better suited for subject matters that call for discovery and exploration.  Teaching the names of the colors may get lost in the shuffle of a loud and rowdy game, but there will be some students that thrive in a loud and rowdy environment.  You must look at the children in your care and determine which style is the most appropriate for each subject matter.  Always try presenting material in different ways to see what produces the best results for your children.

Easily Overstimulated
In my childcare at the moment, 3/4 of my children are easily overstimulated.  I have to be very careful of loud and rowdy even outside sometimes.  One of my children cannot control himself once he starts down the path to overstimulation.  He is very much like the first child I had on the autism spectrum, and we know this child has developmental issues.  The doctors just cannot seem to figure out exactly where his issues are at the moment.  He learns when everything is calm.  He becomes an out of control person when his environment is not calm.

The Wigglers
On the other hand, I have one child that is a bad wiggler.  She reminds me of my middle biological child.  My child could learn standing on her head, twirling around, etc.  She absorbed all the information around her even though she was hardly ever still.  One of my favorite funny memories of homeschooling her involved doing her math flash cards.  She would be in the chair across from me in every position possible but still be answering every single flashcard correctly.  Often she changed positions for every single flashcard, but I learned to just deal with it because she was learning.  Now she is in graduate school, and she still likes to study in a nonconventional way.  It suits her, and it works for her.  However, even she has run across classes that require her to find a calm, quiet environment in which to work because she is so far outside her comfort zone.

Be Flexible
What is the key to all this?  Always be flexible.  Every batch of kids has a different collective personality.  Keep your eyes out for the wigglers that can process information even when every inch of them is moving.  Also, keep your eyes out for the easily overstimulated.  Plan active learning activities for your wigglers, but not for your easily overstimulated.  It is a dance that we renew every year with every new batch of children.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at:  https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457