Blog Archives

Teachers Profile

Your VARK Teacher’s Profile is a 5-8 page document customised to your VARK scores from the Teachers’ Preferences Questionnaire.  It describes some data on Students’ learning preferences and some data on Teachers’ learning preferences so that comparisons can be made before reading about your own Teaching Preferences.  VARK Teaching Helpsheets are provided along with a discussion about other ways to measure or indicate your teaching and training preferences – peer observation, student/trainee evaluations, video analysis …   The strengths and limitations of each method of indicating teachers’ preferences are also listed.  A tombstone task ends the profile as an exercise in how we are yet to effectively measure when, and how, learning occurs.

To purchase your Teachers’ Profile, first fill in the VARK Questionnaire for Teachers and Trainers. You will then be able to purchase the profile from the results page.

 

VARK Result Analysis

If you are using a paper version of the VARK questionnaire you will need reliable and accurate analysis for your questionnaire results to find the learning  preferences of your participants.

Using Paper Copies of the Questionnaire

When using a paper copy of the questionnaire, you will be able to use the scoring sheet to work out the total scores for V, A, R and K for each person, but you will have no way of determining what their resulting VARK learning preference is.

We have recently learned that some people merely indicate that a VARK preference exists by choosing an individual’s highest score as though that is a dominant preference indicator!!!  That is a waste of effort and time and their research will be invalid. What “highest score” do they use for a people who have these scores?  – 4, 4, 4 and 4 or 8, 8, 2 and 3 or 9, 8, 7 and 6?  Everybody has four VARK scores not one. Life is multimodal.  VARK uses that fact in its design. That is why respondents can have more than once answer for each question.

So, if you are using paper copies of the questionnaire, we can analyze the scores for you, using the VARK standard algorithm. This is an arithmetic comparison of the scores of each individual compared with that individual’s other VARK scores.  It is used on this website.

Using VARK in Research

Please note that the Result Analysis that we do only includes applying the appropriate VARK algorithm to the four scores for each person to determine what their learning preference is; we do not analyze any other data that you may have collected for your research.

VARK Result Analysis

After you have made your purchase, we will email you a spreadsheet to fill in listing the VARK scores for each of Visual, Aural, Read/Write and Kinesthetic, for each participant. When you return the spreadsheet to us, we will update it with the VARK learning preference for each participant.

The cost for analysis (of one set of data including any number of participants) is $25.00 USD 25. Please allow 2 working days for us to complete the analysis.

Note that unless you are using VARK within a school or university to help your students with their learning, you need to fill in our copyright permission form before purchasing the VARK Result Analysis. In some cases, additional fees related to copyright permission may apply.

55 Strategies for Teaching

55-strategies-coverby Neil Fleming
ISBN 0-473-08975-0

The book is available as a PDF download.

Excerpts from the Preface

This book is the culmination of 40 years of teaching, from my beginning as a graduate from Christchurch Teachers College, New Zealand, to an active retirement as a workshop presenter of workshops on teaching and learning in North America, the Caribbean,Asia and Europe.
Of course, no one is born a teacher. Some claim there are personality characteristics and behavioral traits that may help, and excellent role models and mentors can help. More to the point of this book, is the fact that a group of practical skills can greatly enhance your teaching.

My expertise came from a unique opportunity. I was appointed as an inspector of schools, which meant I watched others teach and students learn. From these observations, I prepared reports on the quality of teaching and learning. That was a daunting task but after nine years and having watched an estimated 9,000 lessons in classrooms I was able to put this experience to work. In the next 11 years I taught and worked with teachers and students at Lincoln University in the South Island of New Zealand.
The ideas in this book are not newly found. They are my collection of the simple and complex ideas that make up the skills of an expert teacher. By “expert,” I mean someone who can still identify with the struggles of novice learners and beginning teachers.

As a working thesis for best practice, I believe that it is possible for all who want to learn, to do so. Success is a matter of choosing the ways that best suit your learning. In a similar vein, all who appreciate and enjoy other people can become effective teachers.

There is nothing more rewarding than to see the glimmer of understanding-the “Ahas”-in your students. To see these more often, we have to become learners ourselves and follow French physiologist, Henri Foubert’s dictum: “To teach is to learn – twice.” When we understand something well enough to teach it, we can claim to really know it.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
None of these strategies (each one fits on a page) will meet the learning needs of all your students, or any student, all the time. The diversity in student preferences for learning is an important dimension of teaching, and should be respected. The research into modal preferences in the two books, “How do I learn best? A student’s guide to improved learning“ and, “VARK Strategies: the definitive guide to VARK“, clearly indicates that there are no universals on how students learn. Use the techniques in this book and watch how your students react. Some will enjoy them; others will not. Only students know how they learn.

It is not necessary to read this book from cover to cover. If there is a theme, it is – teaching has to be about learning – otherwise, there is only talking. Beginning teachers are invited to turn the pages and find items that are within their capability and that suit their circumstances. Those who are more experienced can fine-tune their skills by reading some pages and adjusting already excellent skills to reach even more students. No single page will make a huge difference, but the skills on many pages have the potential to make better teachers.

VARK Strategies

– The definitive guide to VARK

by Neil D Fleming.
Available as a PDF or EPUB download
This is a book written to support teachers, trainers and coaches who are using or intending to use VARK.

The book backgrounds the development of the VARK Questionnaire and the strategies that should be used by trainers, tutors, teachers and coaches to cope with the differences in learning among their students. Successful strategies are documented and there are case studies and techniques to explain how to match the students’ needs for variety in presentations. Teachers, trainers and students will benefit from chapters on the differences between V, A, R and K and there are descriptions of research projects that are useful for those who are interested in the field of learning preferences. The book has ample illustrations and practises what it preaches.

VARK Strategies is the newly updated and re-titled version of what was previously called “Teaching and Learning Styles – VARK Strategies”.

The chapters cover:

  • What is VARK?
  • Teachers and their VARK characteristics
  • Implications for teaching
  • The development of VARK
  • The research basis
  • Links to some other systems
  • Understanding visual, aural, read/write, kinesthetic and multimodal preferences
  • Issues and caution

A full bibliography and the research basis for VARK are included.

The book is available as both a PDF and an EPUB download (you will have the choice of which to download once you have completed your purchase).

Alternatively, a version for Kindle is available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YGKZ7YV.