As teachers, the more we know about how our students THINK and LEARN, the more successful we will be at helping them realize their educational goals. Teachers are learners too, and we often use teaching methods in our classrooms that complement our own personal learning styles. Our teaching styles may not be effective for our students, who may have learning styles that are very different from our own. There are many ways to assess learning style preferences for our students ( and for ourselves): most of these methods rely on the use of diagnostic learning style preference “tests” that are based on one of the learning style models ( Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Kolb’s Learning Style Model, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model).1

The following brief discussion focuses on the Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model. 1

Students (and teachers!) can take a diagnostic on-line test to determine their learning style preferences(http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/ilsweb.html).

Within this model, learning falls into four categories, each of which is polarized further into two subcategories:

Sensing/Intuitive Learners:

  • Sensing = drawn to facts and procedures
  • Intuitive = drawn to theoretical implications and conceptual ideas

Visual/Verbal Learners:
  • Visual = learn well with diagrams and other visual representations
  • Verbal = learn better with written and oral communication modes

Inductive/Deductive Learners:
  • Inductive = like to have material presented from specific to general
  • Deductive = like to have material presented from general to specific

Active/Reflective Learners
  • Active = like to "test drive" new concepts and to work in groups

  • Reflective = like to think things through first and to work alone

Sequential/Global Learners:
  • Sequential = are more comfortable learning new material one step at a time
  • Global = look at things holistically and learn new material in large chunks

For further information on learning preferences for each of these categories, take a look at Learning Styles and Strategies, by Richard M. Felder and Barbara A. Soloman (North Carolina State University) (http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.html).

Here are some suggestions to help teachers appeal to all learning style preferences: 1

  1. Present examples and real-world problems as a preface to theoretical topics ( sensing/inductive/global).
  2. Strive for a balance between facts and concepts (intuitive/sensing).
  3. Use lots of graphs, sketches and demonstrations in addition to written/spoken explanations (visual/verbal).
  4. Use numerical examples along with algebraic examples if you are teaching a problem-solving topic (sensing/intuitive).
  5. Sometimes give empirical observations first, and then discuss ( or allow groups of students to intuit) the overall concept that explains the observations (inductive).
  6. Ask students to think about what they have just learned by asking for a 1-minute paper in which students anonymously write down the most important points of the lecture.(reflective)
  7. Ask students to work in groups to solve problems (active.)
  8. Assign homework in which students work in small groups (all learning style categories)
  9. Show logical connections in teaching a particular course topic (sequential learners) but also show connections between different topics and with other courses (global).
1 Source: Matters of Style, ASEE Prism, 6(4), 18-23 (December 1996), Richard M. Felder, Department of Chemical Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7905
(http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/LS-Prism.htm)

Other interesting links pertaining to learning styles:

  1. Learning and Teaching Styles in College Science Education (http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/Secondtier.html)
  2. Personality: Character and Temperament (http://www.keirsey.com/)
  3. Center for Research on Learning and Teaching: Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching (http://www.crlt.umich.edu/occ10.htm)
  4. Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire-on-line assessment tool) (http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/ilsweb.html).
  5. Student learning styles: Matters of Styles (Richard Felder, NC State)) (http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/LS-Prism.htm)
  6. Maricopa Community College - Teaching and Learning on the Web (http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tl)
  7. Educational Development Resource Center (http://hednet.polyu.edu.hk/INET_EDU.folder/TeachingLearning.html)
  8. Learning Styles Resource Center...many other links (http://www.oswego.edu/~shindler/lstyle.html)
  9. http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/2106/ls.html (Learning styles: Nurturing the Genius in Each Child--learning styles resources)