ELEMENT STATEMENT: Preservice education students are given information about the characteristics and learning styles of various groups and individuals. They also are taught about the limitations of this information.

THE BIG PICTURE: Learning style can be defined as the cognitive, affective, and physiological characteristics that influence how a person learns. Not to be confused with ability, learning style "is a measure of preference or habit. It measures not potentials, but propensities" (Irvine & York, 1995, p. 485).

Researchers and theorists have developed numerous instruments to measure learning style. These instruments focus upon such dimensions of learning style as field dependence and field independence, impulsivity-reflectivity, modality preferences (auditory, visual, tactile-kinesthetic), and conceptual level. Regardless of these different dimensions, learning style is generally viewed as possessing four key aspects:

• Everyone has a learning style.

• While learning style is amenable to change, it tends to remain fairly consistent over time.

• Learning style is pervasive in that it reveals itself in a variety of in-school and out-of-school contexts.

• No one learning style is superior to another; rather, one style may be more or less effective in given situations.

Hilliard (1989) defines learning style as "consistency in the behavior of a person or a group that tends to be habitual--the manifestation of a predisposition to approach things in a characteristic way" (p. 67). While Hilliard's definition closely resembles the previous conception of learning style, it attributes learning style to groups as well as to individuals. Just as individuals and groups have particular learning styles, so does each culture. Jones and Fennimore (1990) state:

"Every culture brings habits of thought, resources, and contexts which have built into them vehicles that promote learning and inquiry. Accordingly, children of any culture can and should have curriculum and instructional practices that draw from that culture." (p. 16)

Irvine and York (1995) highlight a number of factors that may influence the extent to which an individual exhibits the learning style associated with his or her culture. These factors include:

• degree of identification with one's culture
• socioeconomic status
• gender
• child-rearing practices
• home environment
• ethnic subculture
• amount of prejudice experienced
• length of residence in the United States
• degree of assimilation into the dominant culture

To explain the degree of assimilation into the dominant culture, Hilliard (1991) uses the following graphic:

People who spend most of their time in the culture's core, where they are surrounded by people just like themselves, are most likely to exhibit their culture's ostensible learning style. Those on the outside, who have little or no interaction within the core, are least likely to be in sync with their culture's learning style. Those in the margin, who travel back and forth between the core and the outside are capable of code switching: They are comfortable with more than one learning style and have the ability to function within both their core culture and mainstream society.

During the last two decades, much research has focused upon learning styles of African American, Latino, and Native American cultures. Selected sources of this research are highlighted in Additional Reading for Element 6.

GOALS:

• Teacher educators will provide an introduction to individual and cultural learning styles and the factors that may influence their exhibition.

• Teacher educators will stress the importance of instruction that appeals to a wide variety of learning styles, both in teacher education classrooms and the future classrooms of preservice students.

• Teacher educators will suggest means by which preservice students can develop a frame of mind that values variability of instruction.

IMPLICATIONS FOR ACTION: Gay (1994) notes that knowledge of learning styles can help educators promote educational equity:

"Educators must thoroughly understand how culture shapes learning styles, teaching behaviors, and educational decisions. They must then develop a variety of means to accomplish common learning outcomes that reflect the preferences and styles of a wide variety of groups and individuals. By giving all students more choices about how they will learn--choices that are compatible with their cultural styles--none will be unduly advantaged or disadvantaged at the procedural levels of learning. These choices will lead to closer parallelism (e.g., equity) in opportunities to learn and more comparability in students' achieving the maximum of their own intellectual capabilities (e.g., excellence)." (p. 20)

Some educators (Dunn, Beaudry, & Klavas, 1989) advocate matching learning style and teaching style to promote student learning. According to this view, teachers of Mexican American students, for example, would capitalize on the group's cooperative propensities by making liberal use of cooperative learning. Likewise, teachers of African American youth would draw on the group's preference for verve by adopting animated teaching styles.

Critics of strict matching claim that the poor academic achievement of some minority students is far more complex than a simple mismatch between learning style and instructional style. They note that children are capable of adapting to the demands of a variety of learning tasks--that, indeed, instruction should strive to enhance learners' ability to code-switch by appealing to a wide array of learning styles. The resulting variability of instruction benefits all learners, Irvine (1990) contends. Hilliard (1989) says that educators can use what they know about learning style, whether individual or cultural, to make instruction "better for all," for the "traditional approaches have tended to be rigid and uncreative. They are far from exhausting the wonderful possibilities of teaching and learning" (p. 68).

To minimize the inclination to model instruction after their own learning styles, preservice students should first assess their styles along several dimensions. Then, to counter their strong tendency to mimic the kinds of instruction they have received during their own schooling, preservice students should be engaged in instructional pluralism throughout their coursework (Shaw, 1996). That is, teacher educators themselves should deliver instruction that builds on a variety of learning styles and promotes meaningful, engaged learning.

To increase the chances that the instructional variability experienced by preservice students in their teacher education coursework will transfer to their own future classrooms, teacher educators should turn their students' attention to the following questions:

• How did I, as a student, respond to this particular activity?

• To which learning styles did this activity appeal?

• How might I, as a teacher, draw on this same learning style in my own teaching?

The routine consideration of learning styles in conjunction with learning activities promotes a habit of mind that strives for instructional variability. Methods instructors might reinforce this habit of mind by requiring their preservice students to identify requisite learning styles for each lesson and unit plan turned in. Instructional variability, then, becomes a criterion by which such plans are evaluated.

OBSTACLES TO ACTION: Instructional variability may be time-consuming for teachers. Villegas (1992) suggests that teachers of culturally diverse students should have "a repertoire of instructional approaches that will enable them to reach children of different backgrounds in culturally appropriate ways"; she suggests that this repertoire "must include skills in direct instruction as well as the management of cooperative learning (e.g., group projects, peer centers, reciprocal teaching)" (p. 13).

DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW: Some educators (e.g., Dunn, Beaudry, & Klavas, 1989) dispute the existence of learning styles specific to each particular culture. They point out that learning styles are not consistent within families, much less in whole cultures. For them, learning style is strictly an individual matter.

Criticism also comes from those educators who believe that an emphasis on cultural learning styles invites stereotypic thinking. These critics oppose the obvious implication of the utility of learning styles--that of matching learning style and instructional style--and claim that such matching limits the cognitive horizons of culturally diverse students.

In a comprehensive review of the literature related to cultural learning styles, Irvine and York (1995) take issue with researchers who misconstrue essential aspects of culture--namely, its changeability and its potential for affecting different people in different ways. The authors also oppose monolithic views of culture.

Hilliard (1989), Irvine and York (1995), and other researchers warn against the blind acceptance of information related to cultural learning styles. They note that such information should be considered in light of teachers' in-depth knowledge of their students' cultures, the communities from which the students come, and the individual students themselves. The ability to gain this knowledge through ethnographic inquiry constitutes a crucial competency for teachers working with diverse student populations.

References

Additional Reading for Element 6