THREE PERSPECTIVES OF LEARNING STYLES.

Editor's Note: The School Administrator invited administrators in three school districts to write about their experiences using a learning styles approach with teachers and students. Their accounts describe three different learning styles programs widely used in elementary and secondary school classrooms. These are the programs developed by Rita and Kenneth Dunn, Marie Carbo, and Anthony Gregorc.

Recreating an Environment for Learning

ROLAND H. ANDREWS

When first arrived at Bright-wood Elementary School in Greensboro in October 1981, I questioned my sanity for wanting to be a principal. The faculty was divided, parents were unhappy, and children were not achieving and constantly fighting.

I quickly saw I had a tiger by the tail. Things had to change if I was going to be a successful principal. But what could be done to change the negative conditions that were preventing student learning?

Most of my time was spent disciplining children and dealing with angry parents. Many children hated school and let us know just how they felt. We found and tried many strategies to help improve the school climate, but nothing seemed to make a difference. Staff frustration was increasing and I felt inadequate.

In 1984, quite by accident, I was introduced at a summer conference for North Carolina principals to the Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles Model. I subsequently shared what I had learned about learning styles with my staff. The teachers expressed an interest in learning more, so we collected and studied materials on the Dunn and Dunn Model. As teachers experimented with the 22 elements in the model, we began to see a change in some students.

I attended the New York Learning Styles Network Institute, sponsored by St. John's University, in 1986 and returned to share what I had learned with teachers and our PTA officers. The PTA made a commitment to send five teachers to the New York institute the next summer.

When we gave the teachers at Brightwood the option of whether to work with learning styles, all 16 teachers decided to join in the effort. We continued to work on classroom design, which allows children to work with their preferred environmental style. During spring of the 1986-87 school year we inventoried all students using the Dunn-Dunn and Price Learning Styles Inventory.

Five teachers and I attended the 1987 New York Learning Styles Network Institute. When we returned, the participants formed a learning styles committee. The committee facilitated the learning styles effort by working with other teachers and developed a plan for implementing the Dunn and Dunn Learning Styles Model.

We decided to proceed slowly to evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts. During the next school year we used small group techniques, continued with room design, and developed tactual materials. Since our students were weakest in mathematics, we worked in cooperative groups to develop hands-on math materials for each grade level.

We discovered we had not adequately prepared our students for the first inventory, so we reinventoried all students after they discovered more about learning styles and the inventory. We used Elephant Styles, a booklet written for kindergarten through second grade, and Mission from No Style: Wonder and Joy Meet the Space Children, for third through fifth grade, to teach students about style.

Our school counselor helped by using learning styles in classroom counseling lessons. After proper preparation, we got much better results from our inventories. Learning Styles Homework Prescriptions, developed by Rita Dunn to provide printouts of individualized learning styles programs, was used to share students' learning styles with their parents. We set up evening meetings to explain the meaning of learning styles to parents.

Our learning styles program continued to grow and produce positive results. The year before we started learning styles I had to discipline 144 students. In 1991-92, my last year as Brightwood's principal, only eight students were sent to the office.

Another Beginning

In July 1992, I was transferred to Rankin Elementary School to implement a learning styles program similar to the one I had developed at Brightwood. Rankin is a larger school with problems similar to Brightwood's a decade earlier.

Learning styles implementation at Rankin was different in three ways. Since I was transferred to implement learning styles and knew the value to children, choice among staff members was not an option.

The second major difference was that I had learned the value of time of day for children and staff members, so we scheduled staff development sessions at staff members' best time of day. We had six different time groups for staff members to receive learning styles information at their best time.

The third difference was that we wrote proposals for external funds to help accelerate the staff development program. As a result, we were able to provide more than half the staff with at least five days of training with Rita Dunn last summer. It took us four years to accomplish this at Brightwood.

Learning styles implementation requires a commitment by the principal and at least a willing core of teachers. We have these at Rankin. I am certain we will succeed in our efforts to improve the opportunity for all children to learn.

On the Road to Reading Recovery

ANN E. SNYDER

Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction, Bledsoe County Schools, Pikeville, Tennesseen

In 1985, Bledsoe County Schools averaged a stanine score of only three in reading--not unusual for a rural school district in a poverty area. Three years later, the system equaled state and national averages in reading (approximately the fifth stanine), and in 1992 our community was honored with the Governor's Award of Excellence in Education. What guided our road to recovery? We addressed the different reading styles of our students.

The Bledsoe County district is a 1,700-student system in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. The county's per-capita income is $8,000. We consider 50 to 70 percent of the students to be at risk of failure or dropping out.

Ripe for Change

We decided to look at some of the learning styles programs as a way to improve our instruction in reading and the literacy of our students. We selected Marie Garbo's reading styles program because it best served our needs. Garbo's program was based on award-winning research, provided high-quality training and follow-up materials, and had an excellent track record.

The reading styles program served as a vehicle for our five-year plan for systemic change. It provided a map of students' needs. Our instructional strategies flowed naturally from these needs.

The reading styles program has three simple goals: increase student motivation, reduce stress, and accommodate students' learning strengths. The implementation plan included staff development, parent/community awareness and training, and modification of instructional strategies.

Long-Term Training

With our five-year plan on the drawing board, our district set out to improve classroom instruction through long-term staff development. Districtwide teams of administrators and teachers received training in reading styles for a few days each year from the National Reading Styles Institute. These teams and institute consultants then trained the rest of the faculty.

The long-term training and follow-up support were crucial. Our test scores at that time were about average given our population, but we believed our children could perform much better.

We began intensive staff development. Teachers administered the Reading Style Inventory to their students, which provided them with computer-generated profiles within an hour.

These profiles contain a detailed action plan for reading instruction. In addition to describing the student's or group's learning style for reading, the inventory also suggests the conditions and reading methods that will maximize a student's ability to learn to read.

Some of our teachers had minimal training in reading since Tennessee requires only a single course in reading for those seeking a license to teach reading. As part of our staff development, we taught our teachers a variety of reading methods and emphasized those our students needed most.

Teachers learned how to:

* evaluate and use analytic and global reading methods;

* design informal, comfortable reading areas; and

* help students to learn tactually (hands on) and kinesthetically (whole-body movement).

An especially effective strategy was the Carbo Recorded-Book method, which synchronizes the spoken and printed word and increases reading comprehension at a rapid pace, while improving students' speech patterns and vocabulary.

Paradigm Shifts 

Administrators had two major concerns. The first involved a paradigm shift, and the second funding.

The reading styles program brought a welcome shift from traditional classroom design to a more informal design--thus allowing youngsters to be more active, learn through activities, and make more choices. To allay concerns of teachers, the district provided classroom management training and peer coaching.

In addition, we administered the Reading Styles Inventory to teachers, as well as students, during the first year.

Since many teachers teach the way they learn, it was important for them to understand their own style. Their inventory results helped them to understand that teaching to another style would require a shift in thinking and planning.

This experience encouraged most teachers to move away from their reliance on paper-and-pencil activities. This brought changes to students, too. In one class, months passed before students literally knew what to do without a worksheet! Lead teachers found ways to make important worksheet activities into tactile/kinesthetic activities, and teachers began using more high-interest strategies and materials.

Funding is always a concern. Even though this program is relatively inexpensive, any new program for a small, rural school district can be a financial challenge. Grant proposals were written and funds combined. Our superintendent supported the program with all financial means available.

Smooth Sailing

Because we had such a favorable experience as we moved into using a reading styles approach, we asked our teachers what administrators did to remove their natural reluctance. They responded that administrators had:

* tested the approach first, which provided them with local research data;

* demonstrated how this program supported teacher accountability;

* provided time for team meetings and collaboration;

* supported their efforts with materials/equipment;

* provided continuous training and assistance;

* allowed teams to attend the National Reading Styles Conference and reading styles seminars yearly; and

* planned for gradual implementation.

A Postscript 

Tennessee has begun a system of evaluating school districts, individual schools, and teachers in part by measuring the amount of "value-added" each brings to students. This system is a method of predicting the expected achievement of students based on at least three years of data.

Our district was involved in a two-year research study with the National Reading Styles Institute and Phi Delta Kappa. In one of the grade levels studied, the language arts score gained from 78 percent of what was expected to 300 percent.

The concept of learning styles and using teaching strategies to accommodate different modalities is not new. Unfortunately, it has been reserved for programs that effectively could use case studies or those that were staffed for individualizing testing and prescriptiveness.

With this program, regular classroom teachers have information readily available to empower them to use their special skills to address reading styles. Also, administrators have abundant information for planning.

No longer are we caught in the pendulum swings of using phonics programs with one swing and whole language with another. Our system is now better equipped to do what we know is best for each child.

Training Teachers to be Style Sensitive

RICHARD A. BRASCH

Staff Developer, North Penn School District, Lansdale, Pennsylvania 

Our school district has had a learning styles component in its broader staff development program for about four years.

Originally introduced to teachers and other professional staff members who were attending an optional one-day Elements of Effective Instruction workshop, learning styles soon generated so much interest and enthusiasm that it evolved into a three-credit in-service course approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The course, taught by one of two district staff developers and a team of teachers who are applying the theory in their classrooms, has been offered by the district each summer to the K-12 professional staff. To date approximately 175 teachers, counselors, librarians, and nurses from the district's 15 schools have completed this week-long offering.

The learning styles course is based philosophically on the work of Anthony Gregorc, who emphasizes the need to begin a study of style by focusing on personal awareness as a springboard to understanding others' perspectives.

For this reason, the first 1 1/2 days are spent administering the Gregorc Style Delineator and engaging in a variety of activities to help participants to validate the concept of style and their own adult style preferences.

This is a crucial step if teachers and other professionals are eventually to move beyond a superficial understanding of style and to reach the level of meaningful application in schools. If specific teaching style techniques and strategies are introduced before one has had an opportunity to consider and accept adult style in a generic way, participants' skepticism and potential resistance to those strategies likely will be increased.

The emphasis shifts during the second afternoon to the work of Kathleen Butler, whose book, Learning and Teaching Style: In Theory and Practice, is the text for the course. Participants have many chances to work individually, in style-alike and style-mixed small groups, and with their peer partners as they consider the implications of style for teaching and learning. (A requirement of the course is that those who enroll must do so with a partner from the same school.)

At this point teachers need to understand that being sensitive to style in the classroom does not mean matching the stylistic learning needs of all students at all times. Participants usually express this concern as soon as the discussion moves from adult style to the classroom.

When this question arose in our district, we used it as an opportunity to talk about Gregorc's and Butler's cautions about administering a style self-assessment instrument to students. If a teacher understands and applies style, they reason, he or she does not need to identify the style preferences of each individual learner.

Instead, they should observe behavior and provide a rich variety of balanced instructional strategies that sometimes match learner preferences and sometimes create a sensitive mismatch, thus encouraging learners to stretch their natural style preferences in comfortable ways.

Since variety and balance are so important, teachers must be given a chance to self-evaluate their existing practices from a style point of view as learning and teaching preferences are introduced and taught. This serves to reaffirm and reinforce for teachers that their current instructional strategies parallel course content.

At the same time, the self-evaluation establishes the need to do some growing in areas where the "report card" reveals a teaching style that is unwittingly biased toward one style preference or another. Participants learn that any style imbalance that they identify usually reflects their own style strengths, which is a major step toward ensuring a stylistically rich educational environment.

Finally, course participants are encouraged to use the learning once they return to their professional settings. Since each person is required to attend with a partner, frequent partner planning sessions are provided as part of the course in an attempt to promote meaningful application.

The expectation is that the partners will work together throughout the school year to support one another as they develop and implement their personal action plans. Since there is no expectation that participants will use style learnings in exactly the same way, however, several application options are offered.

Possible Avenues

Suggestions for applying course learnings include:

* planning lessons or units that reflect style awareness strategies;

* keeping a journal to reflect professional style observations and strategies that are being used to become a better communicator as a result of style awareness;

* engaging in peer coaching experiences, including pre-observation conferences, classroom visits, and post-observation conferences;

* making a conscious effort to connect with students whose style strengths are least like the professional staff member's and recording observations and strategies used in an attempt to create attitudinal and instructional bridges;

* analyzing teaching/counseling style implications for an extended period of time, listing activities by major style demands in an effort to identify balance/imbalance and creating a plan to promote additional variety;

* forming style support groups in the building, perhaps doing additional style readings to give the group a specific focus as style learnings are extended;

* identifying learning styles as an instructional growth goal during the goal-setting year of the district's evaluation process and identifying appropriate activities to support the attainment of the goal; or

* creating another relevant activity or series of activities that reflects an appropriate next step for the individual participant.

In the North Penn district, we are using the learning styles effort to urge staff to make a personal commitment to respect diversity in their classrooms.

Specifically, we are encouraging the staff to appreciate--rather than merely tolerate--style differences. With this goal in mind, we ask those participating in style training to examine the impact their new knowledge will have on their professional behaviors and to make decisions that will result in immediate and continued meaningful application.