Learning Styles RSS
Learning Styles
Students process information differently, with some preferring visual, auditory, or tactile processes for acquiring and analyzing new data. You can expect Faculty Focus to report on the latest research on learning styles and how teachers can adjust their instructional techniques to accommodate all learners.
March 13 - Challenging the Notion of Learning Styles
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Learning Styles
You should know that evidence supporting learning styles is being challenged. Find below the reference for a research article authored by a respected collection of educational researchers that disputes the fundamental assumption that students with a designated learning style (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, for example) learn more when the instructional methods match their style. Also referenced is a brief, nontechnical article authored by Cedar Riener and Daniel Willingham, who begin their piece with this nonequivocating statement, “There is no credible evidence that learning styles exist.” (p. 33)
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June 24 - Implications of Silence for Educators in the Multicultural Classroom
By: Krishna Bista in Learning Styles
There are a number of ways of dealing with silent students in multicultural classroom setting. For instructors of international students, it is important to note cross cultural perspectives in course readings and grading the classroom discussion. Because of lack of language proficiency or being unfamiliar with the American classroom culture, students from other countries feel stressed and frustrated. To bridge this gap of international students, instructors could adopt strategies such as e-mailing study questions beforehand, giving clear directions and asking specific questions or summarizing important points of the discussions (Tatar, 2005).
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June 23 - A First-Person Explanation of Why Some International Students Are Silent in the U.S. Classroom
By: Krishna Bista in Learning Styles
Recently, in a class discussion, my professor let the students speak on the issue of silence. Many students in that class were either K-12 school or college teachers. They shared their experiences and perceptions of silent students — both native and non-native speakers of English. Some of my classmates were not familiar with the culture of silence in foreign countries. Personally, this class reminded me of my own experience of understanding the U.S. classroom experience a few years ago.
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January 21 - Assessing and Developing Metacognitive Skills
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Learning Styles
Metacognition is easily defined: “[It] refers to the ability to reflect upon, understand and control one’s learning,” (Schraw and Dennison, p. 460) or, even more simply, “thinking about one’s thinking.” Despite straightforward definitions, metacognition is a complicated construct that has been the object of research for more than 30 years.
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November 22 - Students on the Go: What’s an Instructor to Do?
By: Eileen Narozny in Learning Styles
Mobile learning is defined as any sort of learning that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies.
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September 22 - How Much Multimedia Should You Add to PowerPoint Slides When Teaching Online?
By: Debra Ferdinand, PhD in Learning Styles
PowerPoint is versatile in allowing us to add multimedia (graphics, sound, audio, video, text, animation, etc.) to our presentations for keeping online students’ rapt attention. But how much multimedia should you add? In answering this question, I find that taking into consideration students’ learning styles and cultural/international backgrounds can help to lessen the risk of using too much or too little multimedia in your online PPTs.
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July 9 - Learning from Experience
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Learning Styles
In an editorial published in the Journal of Geoscience Education, a geography faculty member offers a testimonial in favor of learner-centered teaching. “Through my 15 years of teaching Earth System Science, I have explored various ways of teaching it and have become convinced that the Learner-Centered Environment, that builds upon constructivist theory principles and fosters teaching practices that recognize the active roles students must play in their learning, is particularly suitable for Earth system science education.” (p. 208)
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July 1 - Unlearning
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Learning Styles, Teaching Professor Blog
The capacity to learn and to use what we’ve learned is one of those things that makes life worth living. When the mind delivers what we need or helps us understand something new, we take it for granted, unable to imagine its absence. Like so much else in life, learning is a gift to be used and enjoyed. But it is also one of those gifts that sometimes wears out.
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September 1 - Properties of Thinking
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Learning Styles, Teaching Professor Blog
I’m reading a great book. This probably won’t be the only blog entry about it. The title is long: Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom. The cognitive scientist, Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of
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July 21 - Problem-solving Exercises that Promote Intellectual Development
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Learning Styles
In a Journal of Engineering Education article (referenced below), Richard Felder and Rebecca Brent propose an instructional model that promotes the intellectual development of science and engineering students. Among a number of conditions they identify as being relevant to intellectual development, they suggest particular kinds of problems for students to solve. Their list (summarized below)
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