Learning and Teaching Styles
1. Bennett (1990) stated that learning style is a consistent pattern of behavior and performance by which an individual approaches educational experiences. It is the composite of characteristic cognitive, affective and physiological behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how a learner perceives, interacts with, and responds to the learning environment.
2. Dunn, Dunn and Price (1985) identified 22 elements relating to learning style. These elements relate to dimensions such as environmental, emotional, sociological, physical, psychological.
3. Riding and Cheema (1991) note the distinction between cognitive styles and learning styles.
(a) Cognitive style is the underlying learning style and involving theoretical academic descriptions of processes involved.
(b) Learning style is more immediately apparent and of interest to trainers and educators.
4. Riding and Cheema (1991) also comment that learning style has been perceived in 3 ways.
(a) Structure (content) - learning style is seen to reflect a presumed stable structure which remains constant over time, thus the task of the educator to determine what an individual's learning style is for that environment and to match or adapt the method of instruction to the learning style.
(b) Process - learning style is seen as being in a state of continuous change, and therefore the focus should be on discovering how it changes and how an instructor can foster that change.
(c) Structure and process - this view sees learning style as being relatively stable but at the same time being modified by events.
Curry's Onion Model
1. Curry's Onion model of Learning Styles attempts to explain how learning style can be viewed as both a structure and a process, both relatively stable and at the same time open to modification.
2. All learning style measures may be placed into 3 groups or 'strata resembling layers of an onion'.
(a) Outermost layer of the onion - instructional preference.
This is the most unstable layer. Learning environment and individual and teacher expectations can influence this layer. (e.g. Learning preference inventory)
(b) Middle layer - informational processing style. This learning style reflects the individual's intellectual approach to integrating and assimilating information.
This is more stable than instructional preference but may still be influenced by learning strategies. (e.g. Learning style inventory)
(c) Innermost layer - cognitive personality style , defined as the individual's approach to assimilating and adapting information.
This dimension does not interact with environment, though it fundamentally controls all learning behavior.
3. Over the course of a lifetime a individual may learn many learning strategies, but their learning style may remain fairly constant.
4. Bennett distinguished between instructional strategy and teaching style.
(a) A teacher's instructional strategy is the preference for lecture, small group work and oral reports.
(b) Teaching style refers to the teacher's pervasive personal behavior and media used during interaction with learners.
by Ed Law
