Noted educator Carol Ann Tomlinson shares the insights that shaped her thinking about informative assessment. Informative assessment goes beyond tests and the grade book. It means assessing students both formally and informally in multiple ways and giving frequent, productive feedback on student work. Informative assessment isn't separate from…

Styles are hypothetical constructs that help explain the teaching-learning process. Ten learning styles and six teaching styles are suggested. (Author)

4MAT is an eight-step instructional cycle that capitalizes on individual learning styles and brain dominance processing preferences. The four major learners (imaginative, analytic, common sense, and dynamic) can use 4MAT to engage their whole brain. Learners use their most comfortable style while being challenged to function in less comfortable…

Most teachers can respond to differences in student learning styles. Eighteen elements of learning style, categorized as environmental, emotional, sociological, and physical are described. (Author/MLF)

Summarizes research findings on relationships among modality strengths, learning, and personal characteristics. (Author/MLF)

Educators have three approaches to learning styles: focusing on the individual, using comprehensive models to adapt instruction to major learning differences, and identifying key elements of an individual's learning style and matching instruction and materials to these differences. One controversial aspect of learning styles is the use of…

As one high school teacher found, allowing students to use preferred learning modalities can increase their enthusiasm, raise their achievement levels, and foster growth in other intelligences. This article shows how two students demonstrated their mastery of nuclear and organic chemistry by using kinesthetic and spatial problem-solving…

School districts should let parents, students, and teachers establish alternative schools to accommodate differences in learning styles. (Author)

A teacher reports on helpful advice she received from a colleague when she started teaching: to teach students in the cognitive mode in which they learn best (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, or tactile). (TE)

As dropout and student disengagement rates reach alarmingly high levels, learning styles theory offers one way to expand teaching methods and curricula to reach more students. Although accommodating individual differences is appealing, nagging doubts and murky research results (detailed in a sidebar) persist. Another sidebar explores culture/style…

Challenges 15 popular beliefs held about students and optimal learning environments by citing data from studies of student learning styles. Individual learning styles vary, and academic achievement can be improved by providing flexible teaching styles and classroom environments where students can match their learning styles. Includes extensive…

The Teacher Education and Learning to Teach (TELT) study examined not only preservice and inservice programs but also induction programs and alternative teaching routes. Findings are summarized for subject matter knowledge, accommodation of diverse learners, mentoring, alternative certification programs, preservice programs, and improvement of…

Differing world views and cultural expectations affect how teachers and students relate to one another. (Author)

A number of studies conducted during the last decade have found that students' achievement increases when teaching methods match their learning styles--biological and developmental characteristics that affect how they learn. Correlational studies and experimental research studies are reviewed on instructional environments, perceptual preferences,…