Yes indeed.  Teachers should use all learning styles in their teaching--this ensures that every student is reached.  But what's more important than the teacher knowing each student's learning style, is that the students are aware of their preferred learning style.  If they know this, they can learn and use strategies to maximize their own learning.  For example, if an auditory student is trying to learn multiplication tables, they would know that if they said the problems out loud, they would remember better.
 
 
Lora Allen
ABE/GED Instructor
WABERS Data Support
LDQI-Point of Contact
CASAS Training
Big Bend Community College
7662 Chanute St.
Moses Lake, WA 98837
509-793-2312

________________________________

From: learningdisabilities-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of John Nissen
Sent: Wed 9/5/2007 11:16 AM
To: The Learning Disabilities Discussion List
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 1393] Re: learning style inventory





Hi Laura,

One conclusion from your research is that basing one's teaching on the
learning styles of lower level learners would be no value, or very limited
value.  You should teach using all possible means of getting the message
across: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic/tactile.  You even might use the
sense of smell!  It all helps the memory.  But of course, with learning
literacy skills you need the auditory sense for the phonemic awareness, the
visual for the shapes of letters, the kinesthetic for writing.  However,
most importantly you must stimulate the intellect - through involvement, the
imagination, the humour, the sense of fun.  That intellect might vary
enormously from one individual to another.

BTW, I have no idea how learning styles can be of any use in a classroom.
But the best teachers seem to find a way to stimulate the intellect of
everybody in the class at the same time.

Cheers from Chiswick,

John

Cloudworld Ltd - http://www.cloudworld.co.uk <http://www.cloudworld.co.uk/> 
maker of the assistive reader, WordAloud.
Tel: +44 208 742 3170  Fax: +44 208 742 0202
Email: info at cloudworld.co.uk


----- Original Message -----
From: PowerPath at aol.com
To: learningdisabilities at nifl.gov
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 6:12 PM
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 1382] Re: learning style inventory


Hi -

I have been reviewing, with great interest, the listings, responses and
dialogue on learning style inventories.  Many of the learning style
inventories that have been offered are really very good to begin a
conversation about learning with students.

In the 1970s, 1980s, and then again in the 1990s I did research looking at
the correlation (relationship) of responses of Adult Basic and Literacy
Education students (in both community programs and in corrections settings)
on learning style inventories with actual tasks covering the same areas as
those questioned for preferences on learning style inventories.

For example - a learning style inventory might have a statement such as:  "I
am good with remembering numbers that I hear."  with response options of:
"Never" "Sometimes" "Usually" or "Always".

We used subtests from a standardized (normed and validated for adults)
information processing battery that looked at the actual task related to the
tasks mentioned on the learning style inventory.  So, for example, "I am
good with remembering numbers that I hear."  was followed by a test that
actually checked the student for short-term memory of random numbers of
various lengths presented auditorially.

We did this over and over - with a final sample of over a hundred randomly
selected Adult Basic and Literacy Education students from urban and rural
areas.

We found that the higher level learners (GED) had a greater (and
significant) correlation between preferences/stated strengths/challenges and
actual tasks. Lower level learners had NO correlation between their
responses on learning style inventories and their actual abilities.

In addition, we found that higher level learners (GED) - in a 'test retest'
situation (with no instruction or conversation on learning happening in
between testings) were consistent on both their responses to learning style
inventory questions/statements and on the information processing tests.

Lower lever learners had NO correlation in their responses on learning style
inventories from one day to another but were very consistent on the
information processing subtests.

I have drawn several conclusions from this research which you may have heard
me address in either my conference presentations or professional development
seminars.  I am interested in what conclusions listserv users might also
draw from this research.

Laura Weisel, Ph.D.,
Clinical Services
The TLP Group*
PO Box 21510
Columbus, OH  43221
614.850.8677
dr.weisel at powerpath.com

*The TLP Group is a social entrepreneurial company that uses traditional
entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage ventures for
creating needed social change to address recognized social problems.  The
social entrepreneurial company often tackles social problems that have not
been successfully solved by traditional government or nonprofit initiatives.

The TLP Group works in partnership with state departments, universities,
colleges, communities, community providers and institutional providers.  By
combining the best of talents, the most effective use of resources, and the
latest evidence based research, The TLP Group is dedicated to making a
dramatic impact on service delivery and client outcomes.




**************************************
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