Adapting Teaching to Match Learning Styles

The teaching of English as a foreign language （TEFL） experienced a major methodological shift in the1970s and 80s, with a move away from the Grammar-Translation （G-T） and Audio-lingual Approaches, which had been so popular throughout the 1950s and 60s, towards Communicative Language Teaching （CLT） and other humanistic approaches.     

What do they do?

Four friends live in a small town. Their names are:Cook, Miller, Smith and Garter.They have different jobs. One is a policeman; one is a worker;one is a farmer; one is a doctor.One day Cook's son breaks(摔断) his leg, and Cook takes him to the doctor. The doctor's sister is Smith's wife. The farmer isn't married (结婚). He has a lot of chicks. Miller often buys eggs from Garter. The policeman's house is near Smith's, so he sees Smith every day.     

Formal and Informal Styles

Ｉ.ＴｈｅＭｅａｎｉｎｇｏｆＳｔｙｌｅＡｌｌｔｙｐｅｓｏｆｗｒｉｔｉｎｇ,ｌｉｋｅｓｔｏｒｉｅｓ,ｌｅｇａｌｄｏｃｕｍｅｎｔｓａｎｄｐｅｒｓｏｎａｌｌｅｔｔｅｒｓ,ｈａｖｅｍｕｃｈｉｎｃｏｍｍｏｎ:ｔｈｅｙｃｏｎｔａｉｎｍａｎｙｏｆｔｈｅｃｏｍｍｏｎｗｏｒｄｓｕｓｅｄｂｙｐｅｏｐｌｅｅｖｅｒｙｗｈｅｒｅａｎｄｅｖｅｒｙｄａｙ ,ｏｂｓｅｒｖｅｔｈｅｓａｍｅｂａｓｉｃｍｏｒｐｈｏｌｏｇｉｃａｌａｎｄｓｙｎｔａｃｔｉ ｃａｌｒｕｌｅｓ,ａｎｄｆｏｌｌｏｗｔｈｅｓａｍｅｃｕｓｔｏｍｏｆｕｓｉｎｇｐｕｎｃｔｕａ…     

Another Nail in the Coffin for Learning Styles? Disparities among Undergraduate Anatomy Students’ Study Strategies,Class Performance,and Reported VARK Learning Styles

The concept and existence of learning styles has been fraught with controversy, and recent studies have thrown their existence into doubt. Yet, many students still hold to the conventional wisdom that learning styles are legitimate, and may adapt their outside of class study strategies to match these learning styles. Thus, this study aims to assess if undergraduate anatomy students are more likely to utilize study strategies that align with their hypothetical learning styles (using the VARK analysis from Fleming and Mills, 1992 , Improve Acad. 11:137–155) and, if so, does this alignment correlate with their outcome in an anatomy course. Relatedly, this study examines whether students’ VARK learning styles are correlated with course outcomes regardless of the students’ study strategies, and whether any study strategies are correlated with course outcomes, regardless of student-specific VARK results. A total of 426 anatomy students from the 2015 and 2016 Fall semesters completed a study strategies survey and an online VARK questionnaire. Results demonstrated that most students did not report study strategies that correlated with their VARK assessment, and that student performance in anatomy was not correlated with their score in any VARK categories. Rather, some specific study strategies (irrespective of VARK results), such as use of the virtual microscope, were found to be positively correlated with final class grade. However, the alignment of these study strategies with VARK results had no correlation with anatomy course outcomes. Thus, this research provides further evidence that the conventional wisdom about learning styles should be rejected by educators and students alike. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.     

Meeting of the Minds: Online Matching Program for Teaching and Learning Styles?

Although there are many disagreements on the major causes of problems in the educational system in the United States, few would disagree that the importance of ensuring the success of our students is not only a moral obligation to our youth, but imperative to our national resilience. And, as a nation, we are responding to this urgent need. The College Completion Agenda mandates that 55% of the nation’s 25-to-35-year olds will be degree holders by the year 2025 (Lee & Rawls, 2010). But how do we accomplish the ambitious challenge and a necessary aspiration to elevate America’s status as a world leader in educational attainment among its citizenry? Innovative ideas and technologies that can counterbalance the barriers that threaten student success must be identified and advanced. The purpose of this article is to discuss the opportunity to leverage the marvel of online phenomena and technology in innovative ways to help students reach their full potential. Specifically, we introduce a new conceptual tool that replicates the power of social networking online matching services to link student learning preference with faculty instructional style.     

Who Prefers What? Disciplinary Differences in Students' Preferred Approaches to Teaching and Learning Styles

This study develops a tool for identifying students' preferred teaching approaches, with high internal consistency for the scales involved. We examined these preferences in relation to students' approaches to learning and to two academic disciplines with contrasting academic environments. The sample consisted of 175 engineering and education undergraduates at a major university in Israel. Responses to our questionnaire revealed students' preferences for four approaches that correspond to the four main instructional approaches that had been identified in research based on teachers' sources. Students' most favored teaching approach is the lecturer who is organized, clear, and interesting, and the second, with a large gap from the first, is the instructor who provides for students' needs in learning. The two approaches least favored are information-transmission and promotion of self-regulation. Students with different approaches to learning preferred teaching approaches that best served their learning approaches. There were few discipline-related differences in students' preferences, in spite of the very different learning environments. However, all participants preferred teaching approaches that they perceived as beneficial for learning but that they had not often experienced, if at all.     

Rethinking on Matching Teachers’ Teaching Styles with Students’ Learning Styles in ESL/EFL Classrooms

Teaching styles and learning styles play important parts in ESL/EFL classrooms. However, is it necessary for language teachers to match their teaching styles with their students’ learning styles?Is it feasible for the teachers to match their teaching styles to every individual student’s learning styles?Because of the incompatible learning and teaching styles, suggestions on how to deal with the difficulties in the matching of these two styles will be given.     

Diversity and peer selection: Where do they intersect?

Abstract

A common criticism of accountability schemes that are based on comparisons is that they fail to address legitimate and practical questions about how differentiation among institutions can be measured and promoted, and about how distinctive institutional mandates and roles ‐ some of them determined by government mandate ‐ can be recognised and appropriately funded within single systems of higher education. Responding to these queries and suggestions requires some yardstick by which to express and measure similarities and dis‐similarities among institutions. At the same time individual institutions, for a variety of reasons ranging from accountability to the allocation of scarce resources, attempt to compare or ‘benchmark’ themselves against other institutions. Both activities involve measurement, classification, and the selection of peers. Although customarily addressed apart from one another, diversity and peer selection can be conceptually closely linked within single scales of similarity and dis‐similarity. Existing paradigms that explain diversity might be too simple for reliable peer selection and comparison, and might fail to account for all expressions of diversity.     

Understanding the Relationship Between Latino Students’ Preferred Learning Styles and Their Language Spoken at Home

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between Latino students’ learning styles and their language spoken at home. Results of the study indicated that students who spoke Spanish at home had higher means in the Active Experimentation modality of learning (M = 31.38, SD = 5.70) than students who spoke English (M = 28.08, SD = 5.36) or both languages (M = 30.79, SD = 5.93) at home. Students in all 3 groups—students who spoke Spanish, English, and both languages at home—had similar means and standard deviations in the Reflective Observation modality of learning.     

Learning outcomes: What are they? Who defines them? When and where are they defined?

This study aims to illuminate the phenomenon of learning outcomes. Although a wide range of studies in education have examined the phenomenon in various ways, few have investigated how scholars themselves conceive of it. To provide insight into this issue, the paper explores the following questions: How is the term “learning outcome” defined? By whom? When? Where? The investigation is based on a document analysis of a selection of 33 scholarly written documents in which the concept is discussed. Findings indicate that there is a dominant established definition of the term learning outcome. However, a wide range of alternative definitions are also identified. These assert that learning outcomes involve more than what can be described in pre-specified and measurable terms.     

What they think, what they know, what they do: Rural secondary teachers’ motivational beliefs and strategies

This research examined how rural high school teachers’ beliefs and perceptions of themselves, their students and the challenge of motivation influence their strategic classroom and interpersonal motivating practice. Participants were 13 teachers in three rural, public high schools in two US states. Teachers’ beliefs about motivation generally, and their students’ motivation specifically, reflect a position favouring need and willingness to intervene for unmotivated students. However, their self-perceptions reflect a relatively weak efficacy to intervene successfully. Generally, teachers’ prevalent choice of strategies aligned with their perceptions of reasons that students were undermotivated. In contrast, some teachers’ narratives of actual efforts to motivate a specific student were inconsistent with their self-reported philosophies and style of motivation, and with their general statements of how they would motivate students who needed it. These findings suggest implications for design of teacher education and inservice teacher professional development.     

Who uses a means-tested scholarship,and what do they choose?

This paper provides detailed evidence regarding the nature of selection into a school voucher system. We use micro-data on scholarship applications matched with state student-level records on test scores, schools attended, and demographic background characteristics to describe the attributes of students who choose to participate in Florida's Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program, a means-tested scholarship program that is the largest of its type in the United States. We find evidence that those who choose to participate in the program tend to be lower-performing students from poorly performing schools, and that students of different backgrounds tend to choose different types of private schools. Students participating in the program tend to select schools that have more white students and fewer minority students, regardless of student race.     

Mastery goal,value and self-concept: what do they predict?

Background:?Students’ motivation is known to influence academic outcomes. However, there is a paucity of research showing the relative influences of motivational factors on short-term and long-term outcomes.

Purpose:?The study investigates the relative influences of motivational factors – mastery goal orientation, value of schooling, and academic self-concepts (perceived competence in and affect to schoolwork) on four outcomes – rule acceptance, identity, general self-efficacy and achievement.

Sample:?Students in grades 3 to 6 from six primary schools in the Sydney were surveyed (N = 979). The ages of the participants varied from 8 to 13 years (mean = 9.78).

Design and methods:?Students completed a questionnaire and literacy and numeracy achievement tests. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the paths from four predictors to four outcomes.

Results:?Whereas all four predictors were positively associated with all four outcomes, students’ mastery goal had stronger positive influences on self-efficacy and identity. Value, perceived competence and affect were found to influence outcomes in different ways – positive influences were found for value on achievement, rule-acceptance, and identity; for perceived competence on achievement and efficacy; and for affect on rule-acceptance and identity.

Conclusion:?Mastery goal had stronger influences on long-term outcomes while other predictors are stronger for short-term outcomes. To facilitate short-term and long-term outcomes, all four motivational factors need attention.     

Ageing and learning: What do they mean to elders themselves?

This paper is about a quantitative study which has examined and elucidated the conceptualizations of ageing and learning by a group of elders in Hong Kong. In more specific terms, the study has investigated how this group of older people understood the meaning of successful ageing and elder learning in the context of their later lives. Based on the ‘Learning and Ageing Survey 2013’ with a sample of 519 older adults in Hong Kong, the study aimed, first, to describe and conceptualize the meaning of ageing and learning as elders experienced it in later life; second, to investigate why and how elders engaged or did not engage, in organized learning, by comparing the differences between the ‘learning’ and ‘non-learning’ groups in terms of their personal characteristics, conceptualizations of learning, and the barriers to participation; third, to identify important learning issues for older learners, including their interests, needs, motivations, and learning preferences; and finally, to investigate the relationship between learning and successful ageing, and between learning and the overall well-being and satisfaction of elders in their later lives. The research findings and outcomes of the study provide insights into the experience and views of elders concerning ageing and learning, which contribute to the global understanding and knowledge base for elder learning and successful ageing; and which serve to inform the development of policy and practice geared to the planning and provision of programmes for learning in older age.     

Policy critics and policy survivors: who are they and how do they contribute to a department policy role typology?

This paper considers the policy ‘roles’ adopted by teachers enacting policy in a department. It draws on a longitudinal study of two secondary mathematics departments endeavouring to make deep change aligned with a demanding curriculum policy. The study validates aspects of an existing typology, demonstrates the existence of a variety of policy ‘critics’ and adds a category of ‘survivor’ teacher, showing the role can have considerable impact on enactment. The paper argues for an extension to a group construct of ‘policy role’, here at a department level, and shows that as teachers struggle to marry the constraints of the range of policies to which they are subject with the time and effort needed to maintain deeply espoused professional values, an adopted group role can serve either to support or constrain individual teacher efforts.     

Sharing Books and Learning Language: What do Latina Mothers and Their Young Children Do?

This study examined low-income, Spanish-speaking, immigrant Latina mothers' book sharing behaviors in relation to their children's vocabulary. Participants were 47 3-year-old children and their mothers. We addressed two research questions: (a) What interactive behaviors are evident when low-income immigrant Latina mothers and their 3-year-old children look at books together? (b) For these children and their mothers, which book-sharing behaviors are related to children's expressive language? Overall, our results indicated that mothers were involved in several kinds of interactions with the books. They enhanced their children's attention to the printed text, promoted interaction or conversation with their children about what was in the books, and somewhat less often, used more complex literacy strategies. Mothers who did these things most had children with the largest vocabularies even when mothers' vocabulary was taken into account. Implications for designing interventions for similar families are discussed.     

Teachers’ Workplace Learning and the Learning Portfolio

During the years 1994‐1996 the Federal Government of Australia conducted the National Professional Development Program (NPDP) for teachers. This paper reports on a project concerned with investigating the views of significant stakeholders about the issue of accreditation of teacher learning in NPDP projects and developing a means by which such accreditation could take place. The project was carried out in the final year of the NPDP and sought to provide a vehicle for teachers to gain university credit for their workplace learning in many of the projects conducted during the three years of the NPDP.     

Language Learning and Errors

本文试图指出中国学生在英语写作中存在的主要问题和可能原因，旨在帮助提高师生双方对这些错误的意识，以便更好地教和学。