1. Using Learning Styles Strategies to Enhance Classroom Learning

2. Objectives Participants will:
Identify their own learning and teaching styles and make connections to the classroom
Prepare classroom learning tools to use in instructional settings
Demonstrate knowledge of the Dunn & Dunn Learning Styles Model.

3. Group Introduction Tell us your name, where and what you do.
How do you feel about being here today?
What do you see as a major barrier to learning?

5. Why Consider A Learning Styles Approach?
Academic failure has been reversed through the use of learning styles strategies
Academic achievement has been significantly increased using learning styles.

6. You Are the Expert
Pull out your article on the Dunn & Dunn learning styles
Read your section and together answer the Team Learning questions
Using easel paper, create a display telling others what you were reading.

7. Why Dunn & Dunn?
Over 800 studies on this model carried out in over 120 institutions.
More research has been published on this model than on any other.
The research shows it improves academic achievement.

8. Proof That It Works Parkside Elementary, New Orleans
80% African American
Tested at the 20% on state reading test
Implemented learning styles in all grades
Year 1= test scores rose to 30th percentile
Year 2= test scores rose to 40th percentile
Year 3=surpassed state standard of 70 and hit 78th percentile

9. Differences Between the Academically able and the Academically At-risk
Academically at risk students need:
Frequent opportunities for mobility
Reasonable choices of how, with what, and with whom to learn
A variety of instructional resources, environments and sociological groupings rather than routine and pattern
Best learning time is not morning
Informal and comfortable seating works best
Soft lighting
Tactual and visual introductory resources enforced by kinesthetic activities

10. Underachievers:
Have poor auditory memory. They are better visual learners.
They want to do well but are hampered by poor retention. Lecture, discussion and reading are not good strategies for thrm/
They learn differently from high achievers but also different from each other.

11. What Does the Research Say?
Teaching through learning styles produces significantly higher achievement.
:earning style instruction has been effective at every age level/

12. What is Learning Style?
Learning style is the way in which each individual begins to:
new and difficult information.

13. Important Facts: 3/5 of learning style is biological
1/5th is developmental
It changes over time
Most people use between 6 and 14 preferences that constitute their learning style.
The stronger the preference, the greater the need to teach to that preference.

14. Assemble the Puzzle

15. Which Are You?
Global Analytical

16. Analytic vs Global Processor
Sequential
Successive
Left-brain
Details
Discipline focus
Field-independent
Analyze
Simultaneous
Whole vs part
Right-brain
Generalizations
Themes
Field-dependent
Synthesize

17. What Is Needed: Analytic vs Global ?
1. Prerequisites
2. Objectives
3. Directions
4. Process steps
5. Specific outcomes, then conclusions/
decisions
1. General goals
2. Optional resources
3. Clues or mystery
4. Multiple approaches
5. Generalizations, then specific

18. Learning Taught Multiple Intelligences Social nature Non-linear
Engaging
Learning
Whole Person
Personalities
So what is the learning we keep talking about? What are the elements of learning that engage students?
Although this presentation is about social and emotional learning, teaching practices that promote social and emotional learning are intrinsic to best practices in the classroom. And good teaching practices focus on learning. Learning does not come naturally, it has to be taught and the challenge of all teachers is finding the right combinations of classroom strategies to engage students. Current research shows that learning is a whole person phenomenon; that emotion and knowledge are inseparable and that many elements of learning are relational. Elias and colleagues demonstrated that social and emotional skills are essential for the development of cognitive thinking and learning skills. A final thought on learning….Research shows that self-motivated learning is possible only in contexts that provide for choice and control. When students have choices over many aspects of their learning, (ex. What topics to study, when to study)learning becomes more meaningful and students become more engaged in the learning process.
Cooperative groups
Playful
Right or left brain?
Styles

20. Environmental Elements
The stress-related elements in the physical environment (immediate surroundings) that affect one’s ability to concentrate and remain motivated over time.

21. Emotional Elements
Elements that influence the way in which an individual begins and completes tasks and assignments productively.

22. Sociological Elements
Elements of the social environment that affect efficiency, and one’s preference for either routine or a variety of methods for completing tasks and assignments.

23. Physiological Elements
Biologically determined preferences that influence one’s ability to stay energized and focused when concentrating on complex tasks or assignments.

24. Perceptual Elements
The preferences that influence the degree to which an individual retains new and complex information for later recall.

25. Psychological Elements
One’s inclination for processing new and complex information, making decisions, and solving problems.

26. The “BIG FIVE” Global/Analytical Perceptual: Visual/Auditory/Tactual/
Kinesthetic
Light
Seating
Time of Day

27. How Do Learning Styles Differ?
1. By age
2. Achievement level
3. Gender
4. Culture
5. Global vs analytic brain processing

28. Learning Style Assessments
OPALS Pre-K Ages 4-5
Observational Primary Assessment of Learning Styles
ELSA Elementary Ages 5-8
Elementary Learning Styles Assessment
LSCY Middle School Ages 9-13
Learning Styles: The Clue to You
LIVES High School Ages 14-17
Learning in Vogue: Elements of Style
BE Adult Ages 17+
Building Excellence
All available on

29. CLASSROOM LEARNING TOOLS
Flipchutes
Task Cards
Pic-A-Hole
Game Boards
Content Wheels
Electroboards
Content Activity Packages

36. Relationship to Sexuality and other Health Content
Tools
Curriculum

37. “An atmosphere that provides support for one's social and emotional learning and competence versus one that does not can make a huge difference in that child's life. The difference is equal to the difference in the outcome of throwing seeds on cement versus planting seeds in enriched soil. And what a difference that is!”
Dr. James Comer, 1999
Your final learning is returning to your personal checklist for evaluation. The final test is evidenced by the ways you internalize what you have heard here today and the way you feel when you implement strategies at home or in the classroom. We, all of us, must become the life-long learners we want our students to be.
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