1. Introduction to Learning Styles

2. Assumptions about Learning Styles
There are actual stylistic preferences in the learning process
These styles are a product of nature, nurture, and enculturation

3. Benefits of Learning Styles Thinking
Learning styles assessment can help us understand ourselves as teachers and why we feel more comfortable with particular teaching methods.
Learning styles thinking helps us focus on the varieties of processes by which people learn.
Learning styles thinking enables us to be more flexible educators who are able to focus on students as people rather than consumers of content.
With judicious planning, we can both play to the strengths and help develop the weaknesses of all our students.
At times simply introducing the idea of learning styles may be helpful to the student and teacher. 2

4. Limitations of Learning Styles Thinking
Learning style theories are still only theories and should be appropriately limited (e.g., due caution must be used in extending them to personality types)
Some learning “styles” are actually skills (which may be acquired)
Learning styles may be used as an excuse to limit growth or experimentation.
Do not use learning styles to lock people into “learning-style jail”
All learning style assessment tools are nothing more than tools (many still in the developmental stages).
Learning styles thinking tends to ignore expectations and cultural values and the roles they play in the teaching/learning setting.
Prior knowledge of the ideas being learned is an important, and all too often overlooked, factor in assessing differences in learning styles. 3

5. Selected Scales Compared
Myers-Briggs
Orientation in Mental Processing
Introvert
Extravert
Mental Processing:
Experiencing
Sensing
Intuitive
Organizing Experience
Thinking
Feeling
Perceiving
Judging
Kolb
Perceiving
Abstract Conceptualization
Concrete Experience
Active Experimentation
Reflective Observation
Transforming
Transforming
Perceiving
Concrete
Gregorc
Abstract
Random
Sequential

6. Approaches to Learning Styles . . .
Concrete Experience
Concrete
Active Experimentation
Reflective Observation
Random
Sequential
Abstract
Abstract Conceptualization
Gregorc (Learning Styles)
Kolb (Learning Styles Inventory)
Field Dependent
Field Independent
Witkin (Field Dependence)
Holistic
Analytic
Nisbett (Easterners/Westerners) 6