Introduction to the VARK model
The VARK model is one of the popular models to identify the different learning style patterns of different individuals. The VARK stands for the major four elements in the learning model such as visual, auditory, reading or writing, and lastly kinaesthetic (Mirza and Khurshid 2020). The idea states that the students in the universities or schools gain more knowledge if the teaching patterns of the faculty match with their learning structures and preferences. According to the model, it has been found out that majority of the students and working professionals learn new concepts through various sources such as pictures and charts, lectures and discussions, making lists and notes, or by their own experience (Kouhan et al. 2021).
The way of learning of the students and the working professionals have drastically with the changes and upgradations in the technology. Individuals choose the way of learning that suits them the most and helps to gather most of the knowledge. The VARK model helps the individuals to identify the same with the major four types of learning that the individuals prefer (Medina, García and Olguín 2018). Technology has created a major impact on the different learning styles of the students and the working professionals these days. It has been observed that students prefer to understand and learn more through practical experiences and visual presentations rather than going through the notes and the textbooks of the universities.
The first element of the VARK model is Visual learners. This includes the students who normally like to gather knowledge by understanding the graphs and charts of the topic concerned. They are most fascinated with pictures and graphs which would help them to recall the insights properly when required (Covaci 2019). These students love to sit in front of the classroom and prefer to highlight their knowledge through a variety of connectors, diagrams, and charts. It is useful to use the sketch notes for the visual learners as this consists of the combination of the pictures and texts that helps the student to catch the meaning of the topic quickly. They have a mindset that information which is presented in pictures or graphs is very much concise and easily understandable for them.
The second learning style that falls under the VARK model is the Auditory learners. Auditory learners belong to those students who love to gather more knowledge by listening to the lectures and speech from their immediate trainers of faculty members. These learners focus more on the tone of the lectures and the speech and from other official resources such as audio and video attachments (da Silva, Bilessimo and da Silva 2020). These learners get benefitted the most among the whole group through group discussions and exchanging their views and ideas on a particular topic. These students tend to focus more on the lectures of the faculty members or the trainers and make their notes accordingly for better understanding in the future.
The next element of the VARK model belongs to those learners who are fascinated to learn something from text and notes format. They tend to write and form their own notes which will help them to understand the topic properly in the future (Amaniyan et al. 2020). It has been also found that the students tend to convert the diagrams and form notes as per their understanding. They love to take insights and gather knowledge from a particular topic after reading several notes and books for their understanding. The students often tend to create presentations when they find a huge amount of data from a particular topic. Some of the major tools used by the students for creating these presentations are Buncee and Storyboard where they create their digital book of the available notes as per their understandings (Amaniyan et al. 2020).
Impact of Technology on Learning Styles
The fourth element of the VARK model is about the Kinesthetic learners who would love to gather knowledge by putting their own experiences into that particular domain. This helps the individuals especially for their future in the corporate world as working professionals (Marta et al. 2021). The ideology behind this type of learning is that they think the students normally sit in the classroom with a passive learning attitude. The kinaesthetic learners normally prefer their learning structure from several practical and real-life working experiences. They think that learning is not confined to the four walls of the classroom. Every student or working individuals has to implement all their knowledge and skills to enhance their learning ability of that particular subject. They are more focused on pictorial charts and graphs as their learning process and experiment with those theories and skills in real-life projects and assignments (Bahrudin 2018). This approach is more dynamic as compared to the other learning styles of the VARK model where the student can learn and experience the actual happenings and trends according to the surrounding environment.
There are normally four categories of learning styles that the students or the working professionals follow in their life. From my personal experience, I normally prefer reading and writing down the important notes as per the requirements. This helps me a lot to recall all the necessary terminologies and their explanations to it. I normally prefer to read the whole context and make a summary of it keeping in mind all the important terminologies. In the case of pictorial information, I list down the necessary findings from the charts and the graphs into small points. This helps me in understanding each of the explanations of the respective points accordingly. This habit of taking down notes and answers as per my understanding helps me in recalling all the theories as taught by my teacher or immediate trainer. As per my point of view, I think that taking down your notes as per the findings and self-understanding is the best learning style for students and working professionals too. During my classes, once I had tried to listen to the lectures and speeches of several senior faculty members of the universities. But, I found it very difficult to recall those facts that were being taught in the lecture. This is because human beings have a tendency to forget facts and figures easily if they are not nurturing them on a daily basis or noting it down as per their understandings. Writing the notes daily and discussing them and gathering more information on the same topic helps me to understand the topics very easily. I have also found out that if the main concept of the study is not clear to me properly, then I face many complexities in understanding while going through the topic after some time. Thus, I make sure that all the important terminologies are noted down in points immediately after the new concept has been explained by the faculty member. Through this process of reading and writing, I take down all the notes in a separate space which I go through on a daily basis to recall all the important concepts taught in the sessions.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded from the above content that every student has their own way of approaching and learning styles for understanding the particular topic. Some of them think that discussing the topic with each other and exchanging their own views and ideas would be more beneficial more effective learning. On the contrary, some of the students feel that taking the notes as per their own understandings and accessing the details from the charts and pictures would help them more for their better understanding.
References
Mirza, M.A. and Khurshid, K., 2020. Impact of VARK learning model at tertiary level education. International Journal of Educational and Pedagogical Sciences, 14(5), pp.359-366.
Medina, A.M., García, F.J.C. and Olguín, J.A.M., 2018. Planning and allocation of digital learning objects with augmented reality to higher education students according to the VARK model. IJIMAI, 5(2), pp.53-57.
Covaci, M., 2019. The VARK Model Investigated at the Students from PPPE. Journal of Education Studies (JES) Volume I, (1).
da Silva, I.N., Bilessimo, S.M.S. and da Silva, J.B., 2020. Use of the VARK Model for Students of an Undergraduate Course in Systems Analysis and Development. In Theoretical and Practical Approaches to Innovation in Higher Education (pp. 42-56). IGI Global.
Amaniyan, S., Pouyesh, V., Bashiri, Y., Snelgrove, S. and Vaismoradi, M., 2020. Comparison of the Conceptual Map and Traditional Lecture Methods on Students’ Learning Based on the VARK Learning Style Model: A Randomized Controlled Trial. SAGE open nursing, 6, p.2377960820940550.
Marta, P.E., Arief, D., Hakim, R. and Erita, Y., 2021. Pengembangan Buku Ajar Tematik Berbasis Model Visual, Auditory, Reading, Writing, And Kinesthetic (Vark) di Sekolah Dasar. Jurnal Basicedu, 5(4), pp.2404-2414.
Bahrudin, D.V.Y., 2018. The Using of Visual Auditory Read Kinesthetic to Improve Students Reading Ability. THE ELLITE OF UNIRA, 1(1).
Kouhan, N., Janatolmakan, M., Rezaei, M. and Khatony, A., 2021. Relationship between Learning Styles and Academic Performance among Virtual Nursing Students: A Cross-Sectional Study. Education Research International, 2021.