top of page

Sports Team Portrait

Learning Styles

All kids and people have different learning preferences and different forms of intelligence. If a coach is going to maximize the impact on all players and thus the team, it is important to at least be aware of the different learning preferences and forms of intelligence. Too often we are biased by our own styles and concept of intelligence and then we miss out on impacting the most gifted player who doesn't fit our own personal model.

Articles on Learning Styles

ArticlesOnLearnig

Why It Matters to be Aware of Learning Styles

We explore why it matters to be aware of the fact that kids have different learning styles. Even if you can't adapt to all of them, simple awareness can transform the experience, performance and development

How to Incorporate Learning Styles

Once you are convinced that learning styles matter, you can check out this article on ways you can choose to incorporate learning styles into the experience you create. Everything from awareness, to simple discovery to deep rigor can be helpful.

How to Identify Learning Styles

Even if you don't know what to do to cater to learning styles, simple awareness will have a massive impact. Your brain is smart enough to adapt naturally, even in small ways, once you have a sense for the different learning styles on your team.

Kids Learn Best When They Are Playing

Research conducted in the last 20 years is clear: people learn best when they love what they are doing and feel like they are playing. This makes sports so powerful. It is a natural environment for play and love, which in turn enables learning.

The VARK Model of Preferences

Developed by Neil Fleming and Colleen Mills, the VARK model categorizes individuals into four learning preferences based on how they prefer to receive information: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.

Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory

David Kolb proposed a model based on the idea that learning is a process involving four stages: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. People tend to prefer one over the others.

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory

Howard Gardner proposed this theory, suggesting that individuals have different strengths in various domains: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.

Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model

Developed by Richard Felder and Linda Silverman, this model categorizes learners along five dimensions: active/reflective, sensing/intuitive, visual/verbal, inductive/deductive, and sequential/global.

The Importance of Learning Styles

If we don't appreciate that there are different learning styles, we run the risk of under-serving certain players and thus sub-optimizing the team's success and players' development.

Visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic

bottom of page