Journal of the Effective Schools Project, Volume 4, 1997 Page: 11
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versed when school schedules were
changed to meet their time of day
preferences (Lynch 1981).
Gains have also been found for other
learning style elements. Della Valle
(1984) found that students who re-
quired mobility performed better
when they were allowed to move about
the room while mastering informa-
tion compared to sitting for the entire
period. Students who disliked mov-
ing, on the other hand, performed
worse when required to walk and
significantly better when permitted
to sit quietly and read.
While the results of research are in-
teresting and, in the case of learning
styles, substantial enough to make us
think of giving the implementation of
learning styles a second thought, there
are some other points worth mention-
ing. For example, some learning style
characteristics seem to cluster in cer-
tain children. Many gifted children
seem to be highly motivated with
strong preferences for kinesthetic and
tactual learning, although they are
generally also able to learn visually
and auditorially as well. Also, many
gifted children would prefer to learn
by themselves rather than in a group
and prefer late morning, afternoon or
evening as the times for learning.
Most underachievers are also tactual/
kinesthetic learners, but unlike gifted
students, these are often their only
ways of learning. Children may pro-
cess what they are learning either
globally or analytically. Global learn-
ers like to see the big picture--where
they are going with the learning be-
fore the small, sequential steps are
introduced. Analytic learners, on the
other hand, like to learn through the
small, sequential steps. Most younger
students tend to be global. The longer
children remain in school, the more
analytic they appear to become. How-
ever, Rita Dunn (1996) maintains thatwe do not know whether the change
from global to analytic processing is
maturational in nature or whether the
strong analytic instructional styles of
teachers influence children to adapt.
In general, it appears that global chil-
dren prefer low lighting, intake while
working, sound in the background, an
informal classroom design, and that
they are less persistent in their ap-
proach to work--that is, they like to
work on several things at a time or
prefer to work at something for awhile,
take a break and work on something
else before coming back and finishing
the first task. Analytic children, on the
other hand, tend to prefer bright light,
a formal seating design, no sound in
the background, and no intake. They
are persistent in that once they begin a
task, they like to finish it before tack-
ling something else.
While there is considerable evidence
that implementing a learning styles
program has the potential for increas-
ing student achievement, it is impor-
tant to recognize that schools (and
each teacher within that school) are
faced with constraints that would im-
pact the implementation ofthese ideas.
Therefore, the Dunns make several
important points to teachers as they
contemplate using a learning style
model.
* While there are more than 20 ele-
ments in the model, for most individu-
als, only 5 - 7 elements are important.
* A teacher would identify which
elements are important for individual
students by administering one of the
learning style instruments. The pro-
files obtainedfrom administering these
instruments would identify the ele-
ments critical for each student.
* The teacher would have flexibility
in implementing theelements oflearn-
ing style. If a teacheris clearly uncom-
fortable with certain elements, then
those elements would not be available
in that teacher's room. For example, if
no chewing gum is a hard and fast rulethe teacher is unwilling to change, of
11
...some learning style
characteristics seem
to cluster in certain
children.
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Tarleton State University. Effective Schools Project. Journal of the Effective Schools Project, Volume 4, 1997, periodical, 1997; Stephenville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth201681/m1/18/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarleton State University.