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…

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…

When students are taught with approaches matching their preferences as identified in Rita Dunn's "Learning Style Inventory," they demonstrate statistically higher achievement and attitude test scores than when taught with approaches mismatching their preferences. Learning styles must be identified with a reliable instrument, because…

The Paideia School Model was inspired by philosopher Mortimer Adler's belief in a high-quality, single-track, liberal arts education to prepare students for work, citizenship, and lifelong learning. This article describes how Chattanooga (Tennessee) parents and educators worked to develop and implement a holistic, rigorous Paideia curriculum. (MLH)

A counselor/teacher explains a process to help students realize greater emotional competency in classroom learning: using the Human Dynamics model for understanding learning differences; having teachers and students collaborate on the student- identified learning dynamic and identify necessary emotional competencies; and completing student…

The author explains how a humanistic curriculum can function as a component of systems in which learning outcomes are predicted, and in which students' and teachers' responsibilities are defined clearly. (GW)

Faculty members of a St. Louis, Missouri, pre-K-6 school studied Harold Gardner's theories on multiple intelligences in "Frames of Mind" (1983) and developed a program based on 7 learning modalities. Although implementation varies by classroom, teachers are using all seven intelligences in designing instruction, and a faculty subgroup is…