Learning Styles

A most important characteristic of becoming an effective, caring educator is the ability and commitment to recognize individual learning differences among students.

Knowles and Brown, 2000, p. 65

Individuals have unique styles of learning. We adapt these styles, usually unconsciously, to varying circumstances according to the learning demand. Many psychologists and educators have observed, and attempted to label, the ways we learn.

Multiple intelligences and learning styles are linked in practical ways. Intelligences are “biological and psychological potentials and capacities” (Gardner, 1999, p. 82). Decisions about how to use these capacities may depend on style preference. Style determines our approach to intelligences. To clarify this concept, consider a person with strong musical intelligence. This intelligence may manifest itself in the careers of conductors, performers, composers, and music critics, or it may be manifested in a talent that is enjoyed as an avocation. Learner preferences and styles contribute to how intelligences are used and developed.

To use our understanding of learning differences to the benefit of students, we need to analyze our own inclinations as well as those of our students. Then we must help our students see how they can learn best so they can both use their dominant characteristics and enhance their less dominant characteristics. All this involves understanding of self. Carl Jung’s (1923) work has contributed greatly to our ability to do just that. He divides all human behavior into two categories—perception and judgment. To perceive is to find out or discover. To judge (or process) is to decide, evaluate, and take action. Each of us spends time perceiving and judging, individually tending toward one over the other.