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Learning Styles 1Running Head: Learning Styles: Optimizing Student LearningLearning Styles:Optimizing Student LearningAnna E. BaldwinUniversity of MontanaC&I 510

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Famous polymath Goethe cautioned, “Treat people as if they were what they ought to beand you help them to become what they are capable of being.” Most educators would agree thatis their mission: to instruct students and in doing so, to help them reach their academic and personal potentials. Yet according to proponents of learning styles, much of formal educationignores the individual needs of students. Teachers present material in ways that are lessaccessible to students than is optimal and ways that assess their learning in inappropriate ways aswell. Learning styles, the ways students are predisposed to learn best, should be implemented ineducational environments to capitalize on students’ strengths and optimize their classroomachievements.The concept of learning styles is grounded in the indisputable fact that all humans aredifferent. Not only do we look, sound, and act distinct from one another, but we learn in differentways. Some people receive and process visual information more easily than they do auditoryinformation; others are deductive thinkers rather than inductive. Dr. Rita Dunn, one of theforemost scholars in the field of learning styles, believes that teachers need to match their instruction to students’ learning styles, although students must know their own styles first (Koch,2007).Dunn and Dunn propose 21 learning style elements categorized into five distinct groups:environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological, and psychological (Dunn and Dunn).According to critics Coffield, Moseley, Hall, and Ecclestone (2004), Dunn attributes 60% of people’s learning styles to genetics. Other learning styles theoreticians have developed differentmodels, including Kolb’s four-stage model, which describes a process of four stages: concreteexperience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation(David); and Gardner’s famous multiple intelligences, a series of eight strengths: linguistic,

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logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, andnaturalist (Gardner, 1983). The list of theoreticians and those who have expanded on their forebears’ ideas goes on.Beyond simply identifying one’s learning style, these proponents argue that effectiveteachers match their instruction to their students’ preferences or modalities. In an interview withDr. Rita Dunn, Koch (2007) relates her words about her own approach to instruction, which onecould assume she would advocate for all teachers: “So when I am teaching, I’ve got multisensorymaterials. I start globally. I tell them what my style is. I am collegial versus authoritative withdifferent students. I never ask just for term papers, I mean that’s ridiculous.” She advocatesmultiple kinds of assignments for her students to show what they know in the method mostsuitable for them. Likewise, Gardner (1997) generalizes that assessments must reflect the kind of learning students are doing; if the classroom is student-centered, “it does no good to have thesame kind of multiple-choice tests we had 50 or 100 years ago” – rather, assessment should be performance- or product-oriented and public. Taking this logic a step further, Gardner might saythat assessment should also reflect students’ strengths.Other scholars take a different angle on learning styles. Pewewardy (2002) acknowledgeslearning styles but rejects the idea that they are genetic. Rather, he grounds his argument inVygotsky’s theory that all learning is socially constructed (Kozulin, Gindis, Ageyev, & Miller,2003) and posits that students’ learning styles are shaped by their cultural background. He claimsthat “certain generalizations based on research can be made regarding the impact of culture onlearning styles of American Indian/Alaska Native students” (Pewewardy, 2002). Specifically,these cultural differences arise from societal organization and priorities; the author claims thatthese students “have distinct cultural values, such as conformity to authority and respect for elders, taciturnity, strong tribal social hierarchy,” and so on. These deeply rooted values and

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