When we walk into the classroom, we know that there are many characteristics of the student body that can affect how successful we might be with our instructional strategies and how successful they may with the course’s assignments and assessments. A graduate course in statistics is taught at a different pace, and uses different assignments and assessments than an undergraduate course. A financial analysis class taught to veteran executives will look quite a bit different from one a junior might take. By understanding our “audience,” we can choose instructional techniques and select appropriate scope, sequence and assignments to optimize the students’ and the course’s chances of success.
In addition to audience characteristics like age, gender and familiarity with subject matter, we can look at the students’ learning styles. Research into learning styles has identified different ways that people prefer to receive and process information. One of the researchers in this field is Dr. Richard Felder and the Carlson School has been given permission to use the inventory he and Barbara Soloman developed. We have a Learning Styles Inventory web site that delivers the inventory, produces a report for the respondent and stores the preferences so that they can be reported to faculty as part of the student profiles in the Learning Management System (LMS).
Individual report seen by respondent after completing the inventory
Aggregate report available to faculty through the LMS
The inventory measures students’ preferences along four dimensions:
How they prefer to perceive new information. Sensors like learning facts and following established processes; Intuitive learners prefer finding relationships and thinking abstractly.
How they prefer to receive new information. Visual learners learn best when they see lots of diagrams and pictures; Verbal learners prefer written or spoken explanations.
How they prefer to process new information. Active learners might say "Let's try it out and see how it works"; The reflective learner would more likely say "Let's think it through first"
How they develop understanding. Sequential learners prefer a logical step-wise progression in learning and solving problems; Global learners need to see the big picture and may absorb information without making connections until it “clicks.”
Of course, there is no “right” way to learn. And just because one has a preference towards one style doesn’t mean that he/she will fail in an environment that favors the opposite style. It is also not an indication of whether the student is suited to a discipline.
