The education facilities of modern schools far out strips the classrooms of yester year. From the Ministers of Education to teaching assistants on the front line, it has become apparent that students learn in 3 particular ways.

The acronym VAK works here, V for Visually, A for Auditory and K for Kinesthetic.

The VAK style of learning offers a relatively simple methodology, but it is important to understand that these concepts and tools are aids to understanding which will be a mixture in each individual student.

The Audio Visual environment offers all of these at the same time, allowing students to gain maximum benefit from a lesson, being able to assimilate the information or knowledge in the most natural method available without realising it.

Visually. Seeing and Reading, visual learning styles involve the use of observed or seen things, for instance, graphics on screens, text in books, pictures, diagrams, demonstrations, flip charts, handouts, displays etc.

Auditory. Learnt or assimilated by the transfer of information through listening to: teachers, friends, sounds, noises, the spoken word, repeating to yourself or hearing from others.

Kinesthetic. This style of learning involves a physical experience, touching something, feeling, doing, practical projects or simply holding something.

A good example of this would be “using something for the first time”.

The ‘visual’ student will read the instructions, the ‘auditory’ student would prefer to listen or ask for instruction, the ‘kinesthetic / physical student will ‘have a go and learn by trial and error’.

An effective answer to ensuring that a classroom can deliver at these three levels are computer terminals in each classroom. With the strides made in wireless technology now, it should be possible for each student to be able to access lessons from a central data base, whether in school or at home, downloading homework and uploading the answers ready for the tutor to mark or grade it and in a variety of different ways.

A Visual student would use a keyboard to upload the answer, where as an Auditory might rather dictate the method reached for an answer or the completion of a body of work. A Kinesthetic might use included programs to display what feels right for them in a way the tutor will understand and could grade, all being stored on a data base for collation at the end of a term, year or period.

Moving forward, this would indicate to potential employers the way in which the student can best interact with the rest of the workforce or learn. For instance whether they are people persons and like talking to people about things, text based communication or if they are natural ‘doers’, learning and teaching by either doing the tasks or showing colleagues how a task should be done.

Also which type of training is best for a person in order to get the best out of them and for them to benefit most from.

With young people today being part of the digital generation, Audio Visual pastimes are second nature, albeit watching television, talking on mobiles or typing their life stories on facebook, shouldn’t the classroom replicate what they know and do so naturally.