Learning Styles and Strategies
Varying instructional methods to get the most out
of learning opportunities
Getting to know Learning Styles
8 learning styles paired based on scale:
Active/Reflective Learners
Sensing/Intuitive Learners
Visual/Verbal Learners
Sequential/Global Learners
What to Remember:
Most of your students will
learn different than you do • You can’t address all
Each of your students learning styles all the time
learns differently from
other students
No one teaching method
will reach everyone
Active/Reflective Learners
Active Reflective
Retain and understand Prefer to think
information through about material
doing: discussing it, quietly before
applying it, and/or working with it in
explaining it to others any way
Prefer to work
alone
How to Help Active/Reflective Learners
Allow time for discussion and problem-solving
Allow time for reflective thinking
Encourage students to work in groups or pairs
Ask students to consider applications for the material
being covered
Have students put material in “their own words”
Offer class activities that require a combination of
reflection and hands on work
Learning Exercise One
Modify a current lesson
Making a lesson Best Practice: Do you have
active/reflective an active/reflective lesson?
Working with the person Working with the person
next to you, consider a next to you, consider your
particular lesson/objective best active/reflective
within one of your classes approach to teaching.
that could be more What do you do? How is
active/reflective. What this teaching style received
would you change? What by students?
would stay the same?
Classroom Techniques
10 + 2 and repeat
3-2-1: 3 key terms, 2 ideas for discussion, 1
concept to master
Activating Prior Knowledge
Autobiographies
Affinity: group work with one organizer
Sensing/Intuitive Learners
Sensing Intuitive
Like learning facts Like discovering possibilities,
Solve problems with established relationships, connections
methods and dislike Prefer innovation and dislike
complications repetition
Patient with details, good at Grasp concepts quickly and are
memorization comfortable with abstract material
Practical and careful learners Work fast and like to suggest new
Need to connect material to the solutions to problems
“real world” Work fast and do not like classes
with calculations/memorization
How to Help Sensing/Intuitive Learners
Provide examples of concepts and procedures
Place examples in real world context
Give specifics
Provide interpretations of facts/theories for students to
read to make connections
Encourage and remind to read all directions carefully
and to understand the material before focusing on
innovation/problem solving
Classroom Techniques
Action Projects
Analysis of Interactive Decision Areas
Application cards
Associations
Backward Forward Planning
Case Study
Cause and Effect
Circles of Knowledge
Visual/Verbal Learners
Visual Verbal
Remember what they see Remember written/spoken
Written words on explanation
blackboard/power points Many verbal learners prefer
do not count as visual both the written word and
Prefer pictures, diagrams, spoken explanation rather than
charts, films, and one or the other
demonstrations
Example: Verbal Base
Common noun: names a person, place or thing
Proper nouns: names a person, place, or thing with two
distinctions
It will specify a specific thing
It will have a capital letter no matter where it is in the sentence.
• Examples of Proper Nouns:
Person: Mary
Place: New York
Thing: Statue of Liberty
Visual
How to Help Visual/Verbal Learners
Provide visual representation for material that is
primarily verbal and verbal information for
material that is primarily visual.
Maintain lists of resources that provide alternative
visual/verbal presentations of materials (i.e. a
CD-ROM/website for a text book)
Prepare a concept map for each class and color
code coordinating information
Classroom Techniques
Reverse Assignments
Multidimensional Assignments
Summarization
Dramatization
Manipulatives
Video/Demonstration
Sequential/Global Learners
Sequential Global
Understand information Learn in “jumps”
in linear steps, logically absorbing material
following one after randomly, without
another connections and then
Need solutions to eventually “getting it”
problems that follow Can solve complex
steps, methodical problems quickly, but
have trouble explaining
their process
How to Help Sequential/Global Learners
Teach sequentially
Provide outlines to students
Introduce the “big picture” first
Spend more time on individual subjects or ideas
to establish a clear understanding of how it relates
to the “big picture”
Don’t cover too much in too short of a time
frame
Learning Exercise 3
Design a Rubric
What are rubrics? Build a rubric
Lesson or exam rubrics help Working with the person
students better understand next to you, create a rubric
what is expected of them and for a short assignment.
serve as a grading outline for Highlight the criteria of the
instructors. assignment, the
Each rubric should contain a point/percentage value,
description of the assignment and definition of what will
and the points/percentage
be required to earn each
associated with each portion
grade.
of the assignment.
Classroom Techniques
Most Important Word
Negative Brainstorming
Lesson Objectives
Exit requirements
Pattern Forming
Problem Based Learning
Roadmap
Rubrics
What are the consequences of
mismatched learning styles?
Students
Become bored and are inattentive in class
Do poorly on exams or assessments
Lose confidence in the instructor's ability to teach them
Become discouraged in course and may drop course or in
extreme cases may drop out of school
Instructor
Frustrated by low test/assessment scores
Have unresponsive or even hostile classes
Poor attendance
Increased dropped class rate
Poor rating on student based rating systems
Become overcritical of students and student
work
Did you know…
67%of the students learn best actively, yet lectures are
typically passive
57%of the students are sensors, yet we teach them
intuitively
69%of the students are visual, yet lectures are primarily
verbal
28%of the students are global, yet we seldom focus on
the ``big picture''
Resources
Felder-Silverman Learning Style Models, NCSU
R.M. Felder and J.E. Spurlin, "Applications, Reliability, and Validity of the Index of Learning Styles," Intl. Journal of
Engineering Education, 21(1), 103-112 (2005)
R.M. Felder and R. Brent, "Understanding Student Differences." J. Engr. Education, 94(1), 57-72 (2005)
R.M. Felder, "Matters of Style." ASEE Prism, 6(4), 18-23 (December 1996)
T.A. Litzinger, S.H. Lee, J.C. Wise, and R.M. Felder, "A Psychometric Study of the Index of Learning Styles," J. Engr.
Education, 96(4), 309-319 (2007)
http://ctl.csudh.edu/SpeakerSeries/Felder.htm (video of Felder)
Learning Styles Descriptions: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm
Adjusting teaching styles:
http://www.teachersnetwork.org/ntol/howto/adjust/
http://www.willamette.edu/cla/tec/styles.htm
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/publinks/CRLT_no10.pdf
Other Reading:
So Each May Learn: Integrating Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences
by Harvey F. Silver, RichardW. Strong, and Matthew J. Perini
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2000